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; Ji Zeng

doi:10.3390/ijerph20032737

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

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Feb 3;20(3):2737. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20032737.

Authors

Zhi Zhang¹, Zhiwei Wan², Shan Xu², Hong Wu³, Lingyue Liu², Zhao Chen⁴, Ji Zeng²

Affiliations

¹ School of Ecology and Environment, Yuzhang Normal University, Nanchang 330103, China.
² School of Geography and Environmental Engineering, Gannan Normal University, Ganzhou 341000, China.
³ Development Research Center of the State Council, Beijing 100010, China.
⁴ 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.

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: GIS spatial analysis; She nationality; environmental adaptation; place name cultural landscape; southeastern China.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Ethnic and Racial Minorities*
Ethnicity
Humans
Minority Groups
Rivers
Sustainable Development*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42267068); The Science and Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education (GJJ203108); General Project of Humanities and Social Science Research in Universities of Jiangxi Province (JC21113); and Gannan Normal University Doctoral Research Foundation (BSJJ202114).