Optimizing the spatial layout of rural settlements in Farming-pastoral Zone under factor endowment and mobility

"Abandonment" and "hollowing out" have been two of the most common issues in the current rural areas of the Farming-pastoral Zone. It is still lacking in the smooth flow of rural development elements. The irrational allocation of regional elements can also be seriously confined to the construction of new patterns in rural revitalization. In this study, the spatial layout of the rural settlements was optimized to effectively implement rural revitalization from the perspective of factor endowment and mobility. The study area was taken as the Kekeyiligeng Town (Ke Town), Wuchuan County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of Western China. An evaluation index system was constructed for the factor endowment of rural settlements from the dimensions of industry, talent, culture, environment, and organization. The weights of each indicator were determined to evaluate the endowment status of rural settlement elements using entropy weights. At the same time, the social network analysis software (UCINET) was used to construct a flow network of elements. The degree centrality of each settlement was calculated to reflect the mobility capacity. The identification criteria were finally established to determine the optimization types of rural settlements using the generalized matrix model. 1) comprehensive rural revitalization was achieved in the optimal spatial layout of rural settlement. The various rural elements were also rationally allocated to the urgent needs. Population mobility was also used to bridge the element flow during allocation. The dynamic allocation and circulation of elements greatly contributed to the implementation of rural revitalization. 2) There were relatively high overall scores of rural settlement factor endowment, with the total area of settlements with moderate or higher accounting for 399.48 hm2, 74.32% of the total area. The evaluation system demonstrated that there was a distinct pattern of polarization, indicating the "higher in the south, lower in the north, higher in the middle, and lower at the edges." 3) A relatively low mobility capacity of rural settlement factor shared the distribution pattern of "higher in the south, lower in the north". There were 101 settlements with low centrality, covering an area of 52.67%, whereas, 30 settlements with high centrality, accounted for an area of 18.47%. 4) The optimization types of rural settlements were classified as the type of characteristic protection (9), suburban integration (20), agglomeration promotion (40), in-situ observation (24), and relocation merge (87). Rural settlements were taken as the gathering centers of various elements in the rural areas, indicating the reconfiguration and flow of elements in the spatial layout optimization. Targeted settlement optimization was also proposed to enrich the research perspective on the rural settlement layout. Anyway, the finding can provide theoretical and technical support for the village planning in the Farming-pastoral Zone. © 2023 Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. All rights reserved.