A systematic framework for rural resilience assessment in the rural Gansu Province, China

Against the backdrop of cumulative environmental, economic, and social challenges facing rural areas, there is increasing concern about sustainable rural development. As a transformative approach, conducting scientific assessments of rural resilience and implementing targeted interventions are crucial for achieving sustainable development goals in rural areas of developing countries. This study, using Gansu Province, China, as a case study, establishes a rural resilience assessment framework based on the 5W2H framework. It integrates qualitative understanding with quantitative evaluation to explore the levels of rural resilience in underdeveloped regions and the pathway mechanisms by which obstacles hinder the enhancement of rural resilience. The findings indicate that areas with higher levels of rural resilience tend to have lower obstacle levels, and governmental regulation significantly contributes to spatial equity in rural resilience. Subsequently, the pathway mechanisms obstructing the formation of rural resilience were deduced through mediating effect analysis. In conjunction with the characterization of obstacle degrees, key steps to improve rural resilience are proposed for each dimension within the 5W2H quantitative framework. Through this study, we found that the 5W2H framework addresses the “what, where, why, who, when” questions in rural resilience research, combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to reveal the complexity of rural sustainable development in a more profound manner, which holds promising application prospects. Given the increasingly prominent issues in rural development, it is imperative to re-conceptualize rural areas from the perspective of the 5W2H framework to effectively enhance rural resilience levels.