Using ArcGIS software to conduct spatial autocorrelation analysis, it was found that the price distribution of rural homestays in Suzhou is not random but shows apparent spatial clustering. Among the 81 rural homestays were 9 high-high clusters, 25 low-low clusters, 1 high-low outlier, and 5 low-high outliers. The hedonic price model is an economic model that breaks down goods or services into multiple attributes to estimate their prices. Based on this model, this paper further investigates the differentiated impacts and interactions between internal accommodation characteristics and external environmental attributes in the pricing mechanism of rural homestays in Suzhou. The results show that (1) the high-priced rural homestays in Suzhou are concentrated in the lake island resort with good natural environment and perfect infrastructure; (2) the location, facility quality, and network score of rural homestays have a positive impact on housing prices; (3) the parking lot of rural homestays hurts housing prices; (4) the quality of rural residential buildings and facilities has the most significant positive impact on housing prices. By comparing the hedonic price model of rural homestay and the heterogeneous preferences of consumers, this study provides rural homestay operators with effective room pricing strategies and marketing implications, provides policymakers with reference factors to promote the development of rural homestay industry, and has specific guiding significance for the sustainable development of the homestay industry.

To address the dilemma of China’s rural areas becoming increasingly homogeneous due to large-scale, campaign-style rural construction. This study proposes an innovative rural spatial pattern evaluation model that integrates geomancy theory with modern spatial analysis methods. Chawan village, Suzhou city, Jiangsu Province, China, is used as the study area, with the aim of better assessing and optimizing rural spatial patterns in China. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a method for ranking factors based on their relative importance, which is used to assign weights to indicators. Combined with the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) method based on fuzzy set theory and ArcGIS weighted overlay analysis, it is used for evaluating rural spatial patterns. The results show that natural environmental indicators hold more weight than artificial ones. Among these, water body landscapes (0.111), water body buffer zones (0.103), and vegetation ecology (0.073) are the highest weighted indicators. The top three spatial pattern evaluation values are landscape environment (3.85), water bodies (3.52), and vegetation (3.51). The final result for the village is moderate, with an evaluation score of 3.385. This result suggests that the rural spatial pattern has a solid foundation for cultural continuity and significant potential for optimization, particularly in ecological and water body features. The AHP–GIS–FCE multi-method evaluation framework provides an effective tool for assessing and optimizing rural spatial patterns. This approach offers a systematic solution for rural development, promoting localized and diverse planning models, as opposed to the homogenized “one-size-fits-all” approach, and contributes to the protection of cultural heritage and sustainable development.

Agricultural water conservancy facilities serve as the foundation and lifeline for the development of sustainable agriculture in a nation. In response to the evolving natural environment and food security demands, ancient agricultural water conservancy facilities coexist with rural areas, establishing a harmonious and sustainable symbiotic coordination mechanism. This study constructs a theoretical framework for the symbiosis between rural areas and ancient agricultural water conservancy facilities based on symbiotic theory. The Lotka-Volterra model is employed to validate the symbiotic evolutionary relationship between rural areas and ancient agricultural water conservancy facilities and to explore the mechanistic patterns of their symbiotic evolution process. Additionally, numerical simulations are conducted using MATLAB software to investigate the optimal solutions for the symbiotic relationship model between rural areas and ancient agricultural water conservancy facilities. The research findings indicate that: (1) The symbiotic model between rural areas and ancient agricultural water conservancy facilities undergoes evolutionary stages, including commensalism, parasitism, competitive symbiosis, and asymmetric mutualism. (2) The evolutionary pattern of their symbiotic relationship is influenced by the symbiotic coefficients of their interactions. (3) The results demonstrate that symmetric mutualism represents the most stable and effective symbiotic model. Therefore, governments and relevant authorities should adopt appropriate measures to guide the evolution of rural areas and agricultural water conservancy facilities toward the symmetric mutualism model. This approach provides a scientific basis for the future development strategies of rural areas and agricultural water conservancy facilities.

Combined with field investigations in agricultural villages in northern Hebei, the current rural human disasters, natural disasters, and public health disaster risk environment under the epidemic situation are analyzed, and the spatial syntax method is used to analyze the rural spatial relationship and the utilization rate of the flow of people. Try to establish a rural resilience configuration. In this way, measures and optimization strategies to deal with multi-scenario disasters or single-scenario disaster risks in the governance of rural resilience space are proposed.

Driven by shifting hydro-climatic regimes and accelerating infrastructure expansion, the ecologically fragile Taihang Mountains are experiencing severe landscape fragmentation, threatening regional habitat suitability. This study integrates multiscale spatial regression and dynamic network inference models to analyze habitat quality dynamics and their driving mechanisms from 2000 to 2020. The findings reveal that: (1) Mean habitat quality marginally declined from 0.7187 to 0.6982, driven by a significant 20.53% expansion of low-quality patches. (2) Spatial regression and network inference indicate that land-use/land-cover and terrain slope act as robust positive drivers, while gross domestic product impacts exhibit a distinct north–south bipolarity. Land-use composition serves as the primary structural determinant of habitat quality (influence coefficient: 0.877), with terrain slope rigidly constraining land-use transitions (0.676) and landscape configuration heavily governed by the landscape shape index (0.493). (3) Scenario-based simulations demonstrate that climate-driven vegetation greening alone is insufficient for habitat quality upgrades without corresponding land-use optimization. Consequently, regional management must shift from passive greening to active structural intervention, utilizing probabilistic safety thresholds to manage infrastructure expansion and fortify vital mountainous ecological barriers.

Traditional village ponds in Jiangnan water towns play irreplaceable ecological and cultural roles, yet quantitative assessments of their protection and development status remain scarce. This study combined the Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) method, the Coupling Coordination Degree Model (CCDM), and GIS-based spatial analysis to evaluate 508 ponds in 28 traditional villages in Suzhou City. The regional surface water environment baseline—CWQI (Comprehensive Water Quality Index)—had the largest weight (0.2015). Comprehensive pond scores ranged from 0.0725 to 0.5623 (mean of 0.2871). Spatially, pond management levels were higher near the southwestern ecological tourism resort and the northeastern traditional agricultural breeding area; water area quality was high mainly in the northeast, whereas revetment quality varied across Wuzhong and Kunshan. Seven coupling coordination levels were identified among the 28 villages. Type-specific strategies were accordingly proposed: consolidating advantages and enhancing water area protection in the 11 coordinated villages (132 ponds) ($D\ge$ 0.5); upgrading revetment infrastructure in the 10 near-non-coordination villages (252 ponds); and prioritizing comprehensive improvement in the remaining 7 villages (124 ponds) (D < 0.4). The main innovation is an integrated CRITIC-CCDM-GIS framework that quantitatively diagnoses village-level ponds and translates the results into type-specific conservation strategies.