This study visualizes and quantifies extant publications of rural landscape research (RLR) in Web of Science using CiteSpace for a wide range of research topics, from a multi-angle analysis of the overall research profile, while providing a method and approach for quantitative analysis of massive literature data. First, it presents the number of papers published, subject distribution, author network, the fundamental condition of countries, and research organizations involved in RLR through network analysis. Second, it identifies the high-frequency and high betweenness-centrality values of the basic research content of RLR through keyword co-occurrence analysis and keyword time zones. Finally, it identifies research fronts and trending topics of RLR in the decade from 2009 to 2018 by using co-citation clustering, and noun-term burst detection. The results show that basic research content involves protection, management, biodiversity, and land use. Five clearer research frontier pathways and top 20 research trending topics are extracted to show diversified research branch development. All this provides the reader with a general preliminary grasp of RLR, showing that cooperation and analysis involving multiple disciplines, specialties, and angles will become a dominant trend in the field.

Landscape responses to degradation caused by aridification bring the landscape system into a new equilibrium state. The system transformation may entail irreversible changes to its constituting parameters. This paper analyses the impact of aridification on landscape degradation processes in the sand-covered landscapes of the Hungarian Danube-Tisza Interfluve region at the regional, landscape, and local site scales. Changes in groundwater level (well data), lake surface area (Modified Normalized Difference Water Index) and vegetation cover (Enhanced Vegetation Index) were analysed over time periods of 12–60 years. Significant regional variation in decreasing groundwater levels is observed and limits the regional applicability of this indicator. Applying the lake surface area parameter from remote sensing data demonstrated greater utility, identifying several local lakes in the landscapes which have dried out. Analysis of the vegetation response indicated minor changes over the 2000–2014 time period and did not indicate a landscape system change. Landscape degradation as a result of changes in groundwater, vegetation, land cover and land use is clearly identified exclusively in local lake areas, but at the landscape scale, changes in the water balance are found in phases of system stability and transformation. Thresholds are identified to support policy and management towards landscape degradation neutrality.

The land use–land degradation nexus in Cretan landscapes in regions with Natura 2000 sites was analyzed by an explorative expert driven study based on literature, field work and photo documentation methods with the aim of determining status, drivers and key processes of change. Drivers of current land use changes have been worked out by (1) general tourism developments and tourism related land uses; (2) irrigated olive yard developments; (3) fenced large-scale goat pastures and (4) large scale greenhouses. Key processes of change have been identified and qualitatively assessed for 5 regions with NATURA 2000 areas based on a non-ranked set of 11 descriptive indicators. The analysis includes the status-description and the importance assessment of land degradation processes in selected NATURA 2000 sites. Threats and pressures taken from the NATURA 2000 documentation and the land use – land degradation nexus and the analysis are a suitable basis for future land management in order to reach land degradation neutrality. The result of our analysis opens a new research field for a better integration of the normally thematically isolated analysis in geography, biology/nature conservation and agricultural policy analysis about the drivers and processes in landscape systems towards a better understanding the trends in land cover change (e.g. vegetation/soil degradation), the trends in productivity or functioning changes caused by land uses and as well for the trends in carbon stock change.

Chinese Traditional Villages (TV) were selected from millions of villages based on their important historical and cultural heritage value. The distribution of TV characterized by spatial differentiation is subject to complex and diverse influencing factors. This study takes 6819 TV in China (as of the end of 2019) as research objects to analyse the distribution density of TV in different provinces; the spatial autocorrelation module in ArcGIS' spatial statistical tool was used to analyse the distribution characteristics; a total of 9 factors were selected from the three indicator groups of climate, geography and humanities, and introduced into the clustering and outlier analysis (Anselin Local Moran's I) module to analyse their spatial relationships with TV distribution. The results show that: 1. The spatial distribution of Chinese TV presents an obvious uneven aggregation state. Among them, the highest distribution density was 10.18 per 10,000 km² in Zhejiang province, while less than 0.5 per 10,000 km² in Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Tibet and Xinjiang. The Global Moran's I index of TV distribution is 0.352, and the z-value of normal statistic is 949.76, which has a strong spatial autocorrelation. 2. The distribution of TV is mainly interpreted by humidity index, annual average temperature, elevation, slope, cultural relics, and population. 3. The results of clustering and outlier show that there are significant differences in the effect of the influencing factors on the distribution of TV in different regions. This paper aims to understand the influencing factors that affect the spatial distribution of TV in China and provide more comprehensive research content. This study indicates the importance of further cross-regional analysis of the TV distribution and provides a reference for its environmental management and protective measures and policies.