The spatial differentiation of quality of rural life based on natural controlling factors: A case study of Gansu Province, China.

The laws of regional differentiation of county development and influencing factors on the quality of rural life (QRL), affect not only the vital interests of rural residents but also the scientific implementation of rural revitalization strategy. In this paper, taking 87 counties (cities, districts) of Gansu Province as the region of study, we constructed five-dimensional model of QRL index. Then, Pearson correlation, spatial coupling, geographical detector and tradeoff analysis methods were used to analyze the QRL's spatial differentiation and quantitively identify its natural controlling factors. Further, we discussed the mechanism of spatial differentiation of QRL in Gansu Province and provided recommendations for improving QRL. The results show that: (1) QRL in Gansu Province is characterized by spatial heterogeneity and agglomeration, and decreases from west to east. There are five hot spots and four cold spots of QRL. (2) Altitude, slope, precipitation, and distance to the provincial capital (DTTPC) are the natural controlling factors of spatial differentiation of QRL in Gansu Province. Their influences are quantified to be 0.19, 0.37, 0.37 and 0.20, respectively. (3) The tradeoff between QRL and precipitation is the strongest, with root mean square deviation (RMSD) of 0.293. The tradeoff between QRL and altitude/slope/DTTCC are of medium level and decrease successively, with values of 0.238, 0.255 and 0.2 respectively. (4) According to the different influences of natural controlling factors on QRL, Gansu Province was classified into three regional types: natural environment restricted type, resource abundance restricted type and economic location restricted type. Thus, we can improve the QRL on the basis of identifying driving mechanisms in different regions, make policies according to local conditions, and further promote the rural development.

Farmers' Rural-To-Urban Migration, Influencing Factors and Development Framework: A Case Study of Sihe Village of Gansu, China.

Farmers are the major participants in rural development process and their willingness to settle in urban areas directly affects the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. Based on Ostrom's institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, we analyzed farmers' willingness to settle in urban areas and its influencing factors by binary Logistic regression and cluster analysis of survey data of 190 rural households in Sihe village of Gansu Province of China. The results show that: (1) In Sihe village, farmers' willingness to settle in urban areas was low in general and influenced by their neighbors' decisions or behaviors. Households willing and unwilling to migrate to urban areas both presented significant spatial agglomeration. (2) The factors influencing farmers' willingness to settle in urban areas were analyzed from six aspects: individual characteristics, family characteristics, residence characteristics, cognitive characteristics, institutions, and constraints. The main influencing factors were found to be age, occupation, number of non-agricultural workers in the family, household cultivated land area, annual household income, house building materials, degree of satisfaction with social pension, homestead and contracted land subsidies, income constraints, and other constraints. (3) Individual heterogeneity and difference in economic basis determined the difference in farmers' willingness to settle in urban areas. Institutions and constraints played different roles in the migration willingness of different groups of farmers (Note: More details on the sample as well as further interpretation and discussion of the surveys are available in the associated research article ("Village-Scale Livelihood Change and the Response of Rural Settlement Land Use: Sihe Village of Tongwei County in Mid-Gansu Loess Hilly Region as an Example" (Ma, L.B.; Liu, S.C.; Niu, Y.W.; Chen, M.M., 2018)).