Study on characteristics of rural settlements in the northeast loess plateau of china by RS&GIS

Based on the field investigation and analysis of RS data of rural settlements in the study area during the 23 years from 1979 to 2002, we reached the following main conclusions. First, the type of landscape structure in the study area is simple and the main landscape type is cropland (87.52%, 2002). Second, the distribution characteristics are mainly relevant to the situation of landform, water system, traffic and market town in the study area. Third, we not only clarified changes of land-use scale in rural settlement, but also studied rural settlement system by using the scale and grade model of rural settlement system (SGMRS). Fourth, we expounded the characteristic of rural settlement expansion in scale, speed and types between 1979 and 2002, disclosed the gravity of rapid expansion of the rural settlement, and pointed out some difficult problems brought about by it. Fifth, we collected the information of space change of rural settlements, such as direction, speed and process of settlement expansion through remote sensing images. The main factors affecting expansion of rural settlements are even topography, population growth, family scale change, family income growth, transportation improvement, industrialization and the alteration of land-use policy in rural areas after 1979.