Community-based rural residential land consolidation and allocationcan help to revitalize hollowed villages in traditional agriculturalareas of China

Yurui Li^a,b,?, Yansui Liu^a,b, Hualou Long^a,b, Weiguo Cui^a

a Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China;

b Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, The Ministry of Land and Resources of China, Beijing 100101, Chinaa

Abstract: The accelerated rural hollowing driven by vast and increasing out-migration of rural labors underurban每rural dual-track system has imposed huge obstacles on improving land use efficiency and coor-dinating urban每rural development in China. Taking Dancheng County in Henan Province as an example,this paper analyzes the status quo of rural hollowing and discusses two typical rural residential land con-solidation and allocation (RRLCA) practices in traditional agricultural areas (TAAs) of China. The resultsshow that, Dancheng experienced rapid rural hollowing characterized as the hollowing of rural indus-tries, infrastructure, and residential population and settlements. However, Dancheng has considerablepotential and the necessity of RRLCA, for the model-based estimation shows that the potential of increas-ing farmland by carrying out RRLCA was about 5649 ha. The two community-based RRLCA practicesshow positive effects on the improvement of local living conditions, increment of farmland area anddevelopment of rural industries. Their experiences, including self-organized rural planning, democraticdecision-making, and endogenous institutional innovation may benefit future RRLCA. Overall, it indicatesthat promoting community-based RRLCA scientifically according to local conditions could provide anintegrated platform for increasing farmland area, developing modern agriculture, promoting new coun-tryside construction, and thus revitalize hollowed villages. On considering the limitations and obstaclesof current initiatives, suggestions for future RRLCA in rural China have been put forward.

Keywords:Rural residential land consolidation; Rural land use allocation; Community-based development; Hollowed villages revitalization;Traditional agricultural areas;China