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

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110439Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Quality of rural life directly related to the benefits and well-being of rural residents.

  • Quality of rural life was characterized by spatial heterogeneity and agglomeration.

  • Altitude, slope, precipitation, and distance were the natural controlling factors.

Abstract

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.

Introduction

Rural and urban development as well as their interaction are always associated with the development of human society, and have thus been extensively studied and discussed (Wang et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2018; Chang and Jin, 2016). With rapid industrialization and urbanization in China, the economic, spatial and social patterns in its rural areas have changed, and the quality of rural life (QRL) has been greatly improved. However, there are still some problems. For example, the income of rural residents is far lower than that of urban residents. Rural areas often have poor public services, health care system, education system, cultural entertainment, social security system, etc (Saleh, 2015a; 2015b, 2015c). Moreover, the environmental quality in rural areas is decreasing (Aguilera et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018; Hoang et al., 2008). In the context of increasing socio-economic transformation in China, rural areas are receiving more attention. The full development of society based on people orientation requires attention to the social life of residents and the full development of human beings, and the improvement of QRL is one of its important contents (Kay et al., 2012; Liu, 2018; Tu and Long, 2017). QRL has been receiving more attention from the government and academia (Boncinelli et al., 2015; Dai et al., 2018; Anderson and Bell, 2000).

“Quality of life”, as an academic term, was first proposed in 1958 by J. K Galbraith, an American economist, in his book “The Affluent Society”. It was first defined as “people's comprehensive evaluation of their lives”, including life satisfaction, inner contentment and self-realization in society (Galbraith, 1958). Since 1970s, Europe, US and Former Soviet Union have carried out extensive research on the evaluation of quality of life and then the focus has gradually transited from theoretical research to application stage (Gilbert et al., 2016; Galbraith, 1958; Peng et al., 2009). Due to different social systems and economic development patterns, countries have different focuses in the study of quality of life. For example, US and Canada, which are mainly based on free economy, pay more attention to subjective quality of life based on individual feelings and mainly measure the subjective quality of life by “satisfaction” and “happiness” (Mccrea et al., 2011). Compared with US, Europe emphasizes the importance of objective indicators and focuses on “people's ability to meet their needs”, but in recent years there has been an increasing combination of objective and subjective indicators (Peng et al., 2009; Wang, 2000; S̆Oltés and Nováková, 2009; Kamp and Leidelmeijer, 2003). After development for more than a half century, quality of life has become a field of study that attracts interests from western researchers in sociology, economics, psychology, medicine, philosophy, geography and planning (Cheatle, 1991; Mickel and Dallimore, 2009; Wallace, 1973). Compared with that in above-mentioned countries, the research on quality of life in Asia, Africa and Latin America started relatively late, and the depth and breadth of research, especially in Africa and Latin America, lags behind that in US and Europe (Gould, 1986; Majeed, 2018; Stahl et al., 2003). In addition, most of previous research mainly focuses on quality of urban life, including comparison of quality of life among different cities, analysis of living standards in different neighborhoods within cities and study of the quality of life of minority social groups in cities, whereas QRL receives little attention (Aroca et al., 2017; Kassomenos et al., 2016; Michelangeli, 2015).

QRL is an important indicator of rural economic development level and directly related to the benefits and well-being of rural residents (Huang et al., 2018; Janmaimool and Denpaiboon, 2016; Tran et al., 2018). However, with rapid urbanization and industrialization, rural decline is becoming a severe problem, which significantly affects the sustainable development of rural areas and inhibits the improvement of QRL (Bi, 2014; Li and Zhang, 2012; Ma et al., 2019a, Ma et al., 2019; Watson and Deller, 2017). In August 2017, Chinese researcher Liu Yansui published a paper entitled “Revitalize the world's countryside” in Nature, which emphasizes “the need to promote rural revitalization in the process of global urbanization” (Liu and Li, 2017a, 2017b). In October 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping pointed out in the report of the 19th National Congress that “The three rural issues are fundamental issues relating to national economy and people's livelihoods. Solving the three rural issues should be always taken as a top priority in the work of the whole party and we should implement rural revitalization strategy.” (Xi, 2017). In September 2018, China officially issued the Rural Revitalization Strategy Plan (2018–2022). The overall requirements are “prosperous industry, ecological livability, rural civilization, effective governance, and prosperous life”, among which prosperous life is the basis (The State Council of China, 2018). Promoting urban-rural integration, ensuring rural livelihood security and improving QRL have quickly become the focus of social attention and the hotspot of research.

Currently, the academic community has achieved a series of research results about the quality of life. However, the research on the regional differences of quality of life and natural factors based on geospatial analysis method is few. Global research on QRL is mainly qualitative, and there is a lack of quantitative research on the mechanism of spatial differentiation of QRL. Furthermore, more attention has been paid to provincial and municipal scale than the county scale.

In this paper, 87 counties/districts in Gansu Province of China were taken as the region of study. By using geographical detector model, spatial data exploration and tradeoff analysis methods, we analyzed the spatial differentiation of QRL in these counties/districts and identified its natural controlling factors. We further revealed the characteristics of spatial differentiation of QRL and its dynamic mechanism. Finally, the region of Gansu Province was classified into different types according to their QRL and natural controlling factors. The results can provide useful information for improving QRL and effectively implementing the rural revitalization strategy.

Section snippets

Natural geography

Located in the inland of western China, Gansu Province is characterized by an overall northwest-southeast direction on the map and a vast territory (Fig. 1). It is also located in the intersection of the northwest arid region, the Qinghai-Tibet alpine region and the eastern monsoon region. Thus, it is the only province in China that has three natural geographical regions. Gansu Province is also an ecological hub with special ecological functions, fragile and diverse ecological environments, and

Data sources

The data used in this paper came from five sources: (1) Basic maps. Topographic map (1:250,000) and vector administrative boundary (1:250,000) for Gansu Province were obtained from Gansu Province Surveying and Mapping Bureau. (2) Basic data about population, income and expenditure, living conditions and culture, infrastructure, public services, etc. in Gansu Province, from Gansu Province Development Yearbook 2017, Gansu Province Rural Areas Yearbook 2017, China Statistical Yearbook 2017, China

Spatial pattern of QRL

There was significant spatial variation of QRL in Gansu Province, with QRL decreasing from west to east (Fig. 3a). Among the five regions of Gansu Province, Hexi Corridor region to the west of Wushaoling ridge was characterized by relatively high QRL, following by Longzhong region with Lanzhou city as its center, Longdongnan, Longnan and Gannan regions were characterized by relatively low QRL. The average value of QRL in Gansu Province was 0.2787. There were 35 counties with QRL higher than the

The mechanism of spatial differentiation of QRL in Gansu Province

The spatial differentiation of QRL is affected by many factors. Among them, natural factors are fundamental and driving factors. By Pearson correlation, spatial coupling and geographical detector analyses, altitude, slope, precipitation and DTTPC were the natural controlling factors of spatial differentiation of QRL in Gansu Province. The mechanism of these controlling factors affecting QRL was analyzed. The results can provide guidance for improving QRL, constructing a well-off society and

Conclusions

  • (1)

    QRL in Gansu Province is characterized by spatial heterogeneity and agglomeration, and decreases from west to east. The region with high QRL is mainly concentrated in two larger hot spots and three smaller hot spots. the region with low QRL is mainly concentrated in one larger cold spot area, surrounded by three smaller cold spot areas. The regions with low and high QRL are highly consistent with the distribution characteristics of corresponding cold and hot spot regions, and show a strong

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Fang Fang: Conceptualization, Data curation, Writing - review & editing. Libang Ma: Writing - original draft, Funding acquisition, Methodology. Hao Fan: Visualization, Investigation. Xinglong Che: Validation. Meimei Chen: Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41661105).

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