How to Address “Population Decline and Land Expansion (PDLE)" of rural residential areas in the process of Urbanization:A comparative regional analysis of human-land interaction in Shandong Province

Abstract “Population decline and land expansion (PDLE), as the general phenomenon in rural residential areas, which is viewed as an unfavorable issue in human-land interaction system. This paper identified and categorized human-land interaction within rural residential areas from 2010 to 2020 by applying an integrated framework into the process of assessing its effects on intensive land using pattern and human living environment quality. The conclusions illustrate that the study area—Shandong Province presents the phenomenon of “PDLE”. Meanwhile, there are also some other changing types of human-land interaction at the county level, such as “Population Decline and Land Degradation (PDLD), “Population Increase and Land Degradation (PILD), “Population Increase and Land Expansion (PILE). We found the types of incremental land, including housing land, industrial land, and public management and service land, are conductive to protecting people's livelihoods and promoting development through research on the structural changes in rural residential areas. Conversely, the governments' institutional constraints and location conditions are the dominant force for the formation and spatial differentiation of reducing land. Furthermore, rural residential areas with the “PDLD”, the “PILD” and the “PILE” could improve the intensive land use pattern. Meanwhile, “PILE” and “PDLE” in rural residential areas have a great role in improving the living environment of those areas. Actually, human-land interactions such as “PDLD” and “PILD” have led to a decrease in the quality of production and living in rural residential areas, and “PDLE” will threaten the intensive land use pattern and eco-friendly environment. According to these results, this paper also provided critical research on the Chinese rural development policies and land use management. To some extent, the human-land elements allocation should be taken into consideration in the aspect of land use scale in rural residential areas. At the same time, the decreasing plan approaches to some residential areas which fulfilled land degradation, as well as the increasing supply mechanism of other residential areas which fulfilled land expansion should also be feasible strategies for Chinese policy-makers and planners to realize rural sustainable developments.