A new framework for rural development assessment from a systemic perspective: A case from karst mountainous areas in southwest China

The mountainous rural regions of China are undergoing enormous changes in space and time. To a certain extent, this change has increased the difficulties in our understanding of rural development in mountainous areas and brought challenges to development policies and revitalization strategies in mountainous rural regions, especially in karst mountainous areas. In light of the difficulty in and as the key to the development of China's mountainous rural areas, the scientific and systematic construction of indicators for evaluating the level of rural revitalization development and clarifying the level of rural revitalization development and influential factors in karst mountainous areas are of great significance to the implementation of the development of the strategy for the revitalization of the rural areas in karst mountainous areas in China. This study constructed an evaluation index system of the rural regional system and rural revitalization development (RTSRD) from the perspective of rural regional system theory, assessed the spatial differentiation patterns and influential factors of RTSRD, and refined a typical territorial model of rural revitalization development in karst mountainous areas by taking Guizhou Province, a typical karst mountainous region, as a case study area. The evaluation and spatial analyses show that the RTSRD indices of karst mountainous areas in the system perspective show a linear growth trend in all single dimensions, with industrial revitalization (IR) showing the most significant increase each year. In time, the RTSRD of karst mountainous regions has developed from low to high, with evident improvement; spatially, the RTSRD shows the characteristics of 'high in the middle and low in the surroundings, and low in the plateau and low in the depression, ' with apparent spatial heterogeneity. In addition, this study found that the spatial and temporal differences in RTSRD result from a combination of endogenous push and exogenous pull in the rural system. In particular, this study has refined a typical regional model of rural revitalization development in karst mountainous regions, which provides theoretical support and case practice for rural development in other karst mountainous regions. At the same time, it provides a basis for decision-making for the county level government and rural development planning.