Spatial pattern of rural authenticity and its relation to urbanization: Insights from Henan Province, China

Abstract

A key issue in advancing rural revitalization is determining how to manage rural system functions in the context of rapid urbanization. Here we developed a conceptual framework of rural authenticity for evaluating rural system functions and examining their interactions and relations to urbanization at the county level in Henan Province, China. Our study demonstrated spatial patterns of 16 rural authentic functions and found significant synergies in 67% of pairs of functions. Five rural authentic function bundles named Suburban Integration, Cultural Leisure, Intensive Agriculture, Water-Agriculture, and Ecological-Tourism were identified and linked to the dominant functions strongly shaped by social-ecological factors. Based on a locally weighted regression analysis, we found that the rural authentic function was generally decreased with the increasing level of urbanization, but varies for different dimensions of urbanization. Population urbanization followed by land urbanization had the greatest trade-off intensity with the agricultural production function at 0.651 and 0.602, respectively, and also high with the ecological regulation function at 0.551 and 0.541. Our study provides useful information on rural system function and urbanization management through the lens of authenticity to help Henan Province and other developing regions advance rural revitalization.