The production–living–ecological functions of rural settlements are closely tied to water resources, which are the primary influencing factors of the spatial characteristics of rural settlements. However, the specific relationship between water resources and the spatial characteristics of rural settlements remains unclear. Understanding the interrelationship between the two can better safeguard the ecological pattern of the basin and optimize the living environment of settlements. This study utilized multi-source data to calculate the water yield, water demand, and ecological surplus or deficit of water resources in the Yanhe watershed. We quantified the spatial characteristics of rural settlements and employed bivariate spatial autocorrelation methods to analyze the spatial correlation between water resources and the spatial distribution, scale, and boundary form of rural settlements in the Yanhe watershed. The results show the following: ➀ Seven sub-basins in the upper reaches exhibit a severe ecological deficit in water resources, with insufficient water resources to support the demands of regional socio-economic development. The middle and lower reaches have achieved a balance between water supply and demand. ➁ Rural settlements are most densely distributed in the middle reaches, with the smallest area scale, exhibiting a transitional spatial characteristic towards the upstream and downstream ends. ➂ The Moran’s I values of spatial aggregation and morphological index of rural settlements with respect to the ecological surplus or deficit of water resources are 0.36 and 0.50, respectively, indicating a strong positive correlation. The Moran’s I value of the area scale with respect to the ecological surplus or deficit of water resources is −0.60, indicating a significant negative correlation. This research has important practical significance for guiding the spatial layout of rural settlements in the Yanhe watershed and promoting their sustainable development.

The long-term impacts of climate change and human activities have resulted in the Yanhe watershed, a typical watershed in the Loess Plateau region, exhibiting a high degree of vulnerability and significant heterogeneity in ecological environmental quality. This has led to environmental degradation and complex socio-ecological challenges. Consequently, there is an urgent need to carry out research on the spatial and temporal differentiation patterns of ecological environment quality. By utilizing remote sensing data spanning 21 years, this study evaluated the evolutionary trends and consistency of ecological environment quality (EEQ) within the Yanhe watershed based on the remote-sensing-based ecological index (RSEI). Furthermore, it examined global and local spatial autocorrelation of the RSEI by constructing a hexagonal grid, thereby revealing the spatiotemporal characteristics of EEQ at different scales within the Yanhe watershed. The results were as follows: (1) The EEQ has exhibited an overall upward trend in the past two decades, while it has displayed significant fluctuations; (2) the Global Moran’s I values for the years 2000, 2010, and 2020 were 0.18, 0.32, and 0.21, respectively, indicating a presence of spatial autocorrelation within the RSEI; (3) the overall EEQ of the Yanhe watershed will continue to improve, although the ecological quality in certain areas remains unstable due to local natural conditions and human activities. This research not only contributes to the technical framework for analyzing the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of EEQ but also provides actionable insights for ecosystem restoration and sustainability within the Loess Plateau watershed. Our work advances the understanding of ecological dynamics in semi-arid regions and offers a model for assessing ecological quality in similar environmental contexts.

The continuous development of urbanization in China has brought new opportunities to rural settlements but has also led to spatial problems such as disorderly layout and unbalanced morphological structures, and the sustainable development of the countryside faces great challenges. As the core spatial carrier of rural settlements, scientific identification of their characteristics and delineation of their types is conducive to the subsequent spatial optimization of rural settlements to promote the coordinated and orderly development of rural areas. In recent years, several studies have explored the characteristics and classification of rural settlements based on single factor influences, but few studies have comprehensively considered them from a multidimensional perspective. To fill this gap, this paper takes the rural settlements in the Weibei Plain as the research object, uses the continuous spectral transect analysis method, combines the landscape security pattern analysis, establishes a multidimensional feature matrix model, quantitatively analyzes the spatial differentiation characteristics, and classifies the types. The key findings are as follows. (1) According to the analysis of landscape security patterns, it was divided into four types of rural settlements. The rural settlements with high and medium security patterns accounted for 86.79%, and the overall ecological adaptability was good. (2) In terms of spatial distribution, 80% of patches in the Weihe River transect are small and unevenly distributed under the influence of river runoff, gradually changing from dense to discrete; the fluctuation range of the 70% patch area is restricted by the terrain in the Hanyuan tableland transect is small and changes from discrete to dense. In terms of spatial morphology, 70% of the Weihe River transect was irregular and varied greatly. The morphology of the Hanyuan tableland transect tended to be similar, and the degree of fragmentation of the Hanyuan tableland transect was higher than that of the Weihe River transect. (3) The Weihe River transect was divided into six types of settlement space, the Hanyuan tableland transect was divided into seven types, and the characteristics of different settlement space types were quite different. The results can provide a scientific basis for the spatial planning, industrial guidance, and facility layout of rural settlements and have important significance for the rational formulation of spatial agglomeration guidance strategies and the promotion of sustainable rural development in China.

During the different periods of a day, the imbalanced distribution of inbound ridership, that is related to land use, results in extreme flow, which makes metro management challenging. The causes of imbalanced passenger flow from the perspective of land use in metro station areas are studied in this paper. More specifically, based on site classification, the impact of land use, including the floor area ratio and gross floor area on passenger flow, was explored by using a multiple linear regression model. The results first indicate that the impact intensities of the floor area ratio on peak hourly flow were 0.41, 0.21, and 0.20 around business, residential, and mixed sites, respectively. Second, for the abovementioned sites, the types with the greatest impact intensities of gross floor area on peak hourly flow were commercial and business facilities (B), residential (R), as well as administration and public services (A), which were 0.73, 0.32, and 0.87, respectively. Finally, for the land-development-control schemes for business, residential, and mixed sites, the maximum values of the floor area ratio were roughly 7.2, 5.3, and 8.2, respectively. The results presented in this study provide guidance for land development in metro station areas and contribute to avoiding the emergence of extreme passenger flow.

With increases in urbanization, agricultural production space is facing a series of problems, such as limited spatial development, loss of development entities, and difficulties in transformation, posing a huge challenge to national food security and sustainable rural development. The peasant household, as the main body in agricultural production space, plays a key role in solving human–land conflicts and achieving revitalization. In this article, we analyze the evolution characteristics of agricultural production space under the influence of peasant household behavior in the Yanhe River Basin from 1995 to 2018, and construct a spatial control system for agricultural production based on peasant household behavior guidance. Our conclusions are: (1) the agricultural production space in the Yanhe River Basin presents three major evolutionary characteristics, namely a reduction in spatial scale, a shift in the center of gravity of spatial distribution to the downstream, and a transformation of the spatial form from fragmented to regular; (2) the production input and production management behaviors of peasant households dominate the evolution of agricultural production space, while resource utilization behavior is an indirect influencing factor; moreover, peasant household behaviors are also influenced by conditions such as soil and location in agricultural production space; and (3) a control method system of “management and control basis + management and control implementation + management and control guarantee” has been formed through research, and targeted guidance has been given to peasant household behavior based on three levels of agricultural production zones and four types of rural areas. The research on zoning classification results can provide scientific guidance for the precise management of agricultural production space in the Yanhe River Basin, and the management and control method system can also provide a theoretical reference for the sustainable development path of agricultural production space.

Featuring complex and fractured terrain, the Loess hilly and gully regions suffer poor grain production capacity. The behavior of farmers, the major users of agricultural production space, significantly influences the agricultural production space. Hence, it is essential to explore the evolution rules of the agricultural production space under the influence of farmer behavior and reveal the influencing mechanism of agricultural production space change, which will facilitate the promotion of ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Relying on six-stage remote sensing images of the Yanhe River Basin from 1995 to 2018, this study utilized a land use dynamic index, transfer matrix and landscape pattern index to analyze the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin. Furthermore, the geographic detector model was applied to quantitatively analyze the influencing factors of the spatial pattern evolution of agricultural production. The results demonstrated the following: (1) From 1995 to 2018, the overall area of cultivated land in the Yanhe River Basin decreased by 927.02 km², with a change degree of 21.07%. The spatial structure of agricultural production changed, mainly transferring the cultivated land to woodland and grassland. (2) The spatial form of agricultural production has changed from fragmentation to regularity, and the complexity of the production space shows a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. (3) The evolution of the spatial pattern of agricultural production was affected by multiple factors of farmer behavior, where significant interactive enhancement effects existed. Specifically, labor input was the dominant factor affecting the overall scale of the production space, with an influence value of 0.202; fertilization input and cultivated land transfer were the key factors affecting the spatial distribution of production, with influence values of 0.264 and 0.242, respectively; income level and social interaction were the base factors affecting the spatial form of production, with influence values of 0.558 and 0.438, respectively. The research results provide scientific support for the improvement of agricultural production quality and the spatial evolution mechanism of agricultural production in the Yanhe River Basin.