Environmental Adaptation in the Process of Human-Land Relationship in Southeast China’s Ethnic Minority Areas and Its Significance on Sustainable Development

Zhi Zhang, Zhiwei Wan, Shan Xu, Hong Wu (), Lingyue Liu, Zhao Chen and Ji Zeng
Additional contact information
Zhi Zhang: School of Ecology and Environment, Yuzhang Normal University, Nanchang 330103, China
Zhiwei Wan: School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou 341000, China
Shan Xu: School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou 341000, China
Hong Wu: Development Research Center of the State Council, Beijing 100010, China
Lingyue Liu: School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou 341000, China
Zhao Chen: National-Regional Joint Engineering Research Center for Soil Pollution Control and Remediation in South China, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Integrated Agro-Environmental Pollution Control and Management, Institute of Eco-Environmental and Soil Sciences, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China
Ji Zeng: School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou 341000, China

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: The relationship between regional human development and geographic environment is the basis for dynamic social change, and studying the evolution of human-land relations in typical regions can provide background knowledge for global change studies. This study is based on GIS and spatio-temporal statistical techniques, combined with the analysis of toponymic cultural landscapes, to study ethnic minority regions of southeastern China. The results show that: (1) The geographical environment of the region will affect the naming of villages, and the orientation and family name are the most common; the frequency of plants, pit ( keng ), animals, and flat ( ping ) is also very high. (2) Han settlements and She settlements have obvious spatial differentiation, and in general the Han distribution area is lower than that of the She. Han settlements are mainly distributed in plain areas along rivers with elevations less than 200 m; She settlements are mainly distributed in hilly areas (200~500 m) and low mountain areas (500~800 m). (3) The results of quadrat analysis and nearest neighbor index analysis show that both Han and She settlements are clustered in the spatial distribution pattern, and the distribution of She settlements is more clustered than that of Han, with more dense settlements at a certain spatial scale. The regional cultural landscape is the result of the development and evolution of human-land relationship, and the comprehensive analysis of cultural landscape can understand the process of human-land relationship in a small region. The settlements in the region are indicative of the geographic environment in terms of village naming, spatial pattern, elevation differentiation and relationship with rivers, which can reflect the environmental adaptation process of human activities.

Keywords: environmental adaptation; GIS spatial analysis; place name cultural landscape; southeastern China; She nationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2737/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/3/2737/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2023:i:3:p:2737-:d:1056897

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().