Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Rural Restructuring Evolution and Driving Forces in Mountainous and Hilly Areas

Rural restructuring is an effective means to boost rural revitalization. Research on rural restructuring and its driving forces is helpful to adjust the evolution direction of key development factors, and form a coupling and coordinated development pattern. Taking Chongqing as an example, this paper adopts basic geographic data, land use data, and social and economic data, and uses the entropy method, spatial econometric model, and GTWR model. The paper explores the spatiotemporal evolution pattern of influencing factors on rural restructuring from 2000 to 2018 from the perspective of exogenous driving and endogenous driving. The results show the following. (1) During the study period, the average values of the rural economic restructuring intensity index, social restructuring intensity index, spatial restructuring intensity index, and comprehensive restructuring intensity index were 0.138, 0.118, 0.123, and 0.379, respectively. During the research period, rural restructuring in Chongqing experienced four development stages: space-economic restructuring-led, economic-social restructuring-led, economic restructuring-led, and social-spatial restructuring-led. In general, the dominant speed of economic restructuring gradually accelerated, and the changes in spatial restructuring were obvious but still lagging. Compared with other periods, the characteristics of social restructuring and spatial restructuring were more obvious between 2015 and 2018. (2) Different types of rural restructuring were affected by exogenous and endogenous factors. Exogenous driving mainly showed a negative impact on the changes in rural restructuring in the study area, while endogenous driving mainly showed a positive impact. (3) The driving system composed of exogenous driving and endogenous driving showed obvious timing and dynamic fluctuation. From 2000 to 2005 and from 2015 to 2018, rural restructuring in the study area was balanced and driven by endogenous and exogenous factors. From 2005 to 2015, rural restructuring in the study area was dominated by exogenous driving. Based on the influence differences and internal correlations of the driving forces of rural restructuring, policy opinions are put forward from the two aspects of restructuring path and restructuring guarantee, which provide a scientific basis for the determination of rural development direction and path selection.