Evolution and simulation optimization of rural settlements in urban-rural integration areas from a multi-gradient perspective: A case study of the Lan-Bai urban agglomeration in China

With the rapid growth of global urbanization, rural land has been continuously occupied, which has brought about profound changes in human-land relationship. As a rural regional system in the frontier area of urbanization, the rural settlements in the urban-rural integration area (URIA) are in a profound transformation due to multiple disturbances such as internal natural factors and social and economic factors brought about by external urbanization. Based on the internal and external system factors of rural settlements, this paper constructs an analytical framework to explore the spatial and temporal evolution pattern of URIA rural settlements from 2000 to 2020, and then summarizes its evolution model, and predicts the situation of rural settlements in different scenarios in 2030. Finally, the optimal control strategy is proposed. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, affected by the gradient of natural environment, the scale of rural settlements in URIA shows a trend of decreasing in low-altitude areas near rivers and increasing in high-altitude areas far from rivers. Under the socio-economic gradient, there is a phenomenon that the scale of rural settlements in the inner edge of URIA with better socio-economic environment decreases and the scale of settlements in the outer area of URIA with poor socio-economic environment increases. (2) Based on different environmental factors, in the internal natural environment, it shows the evolution mode of “terrain containment” and “water source guidance”, while in the socio-economic environment, it shows the evolution mode of “urban sprawl encroaches rural”, “population decrease and land increase”. (3) The simulation results of rural settlements in 2030 show that the scale of rural settlements in the periphery of URIA continues to increase under the natural development (ND) scenario, while the scale of rural settlements in the inner edge decreases and the distribution is scattered. Under the urban-rural integration development (URD) scenario, rural settlements are mainly concentrated in the core area of URIA, and the area of rural settlements turning into urban land has dropped significantly. (4) Based on different gradients, the settlements are divided into three types: centralized development type, restricted development type and migration remediation type. Patch reconstruction is carried out by gravity model, which can theoretically save land and vacate 327 hm² of construction land index. Compared with the extensive development model of the ND scenario, the URD scenario has important theoretical significance in limiting the blind expansion of the city and realizing the integration of urban and rural development in Lanbai.