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Rural settlements serve as the fundamental spatial unit in rural geography research and play a significant role in regional system research on human‒land relations. With the accelerated advances in urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural modernization, the flow of urban and rural development factors has greatly changed the social and economic forms of rural areas, further seriously restricting the sustainable development of rural economies and societies. The spatial patterns of rural settlements serve as tangible reflections of rural living and the evolution of settlement structures, directly influencing the sustainable development of rural areas and the construction of rural human settlements. Despite the increasing number of relevant studies, a comprehensive review of the field's dynamic evolution, research frontiers, and future development trajectories remains incomplete. On the basis of the Web of Science core database, this study used CiteSpace 6.2 R4 and VOS Viewer 1.6 software to perform a full systematic review of the literature on rural settlement spatial morphology from 2000 to 2024. The goal was to determine the current state of the research, where researchers are most active, and what major ideas and trends can be expected in the field of rural settlement spatial patterns. The results indicate that (1) the spatial patterns of rural settlements are a popular topic, integrating different disciplines and covering various themes, with close regional cooperation and a growing number of publications. At the national level, China, the United States, and France lead in research output and influence in this field. (2) The main research hotspots in the field include rural residential areas, spatial organization, land use, driving mechanisms, and regional systems, all of which are related to rural sustainable development. (3) Future research trends will likely focus on the response of rural settlement spatial patterns to new urbanization processes and social contexts. The findings provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution of research hotspots, aiding researchers in related fields in quickly grasping the research frontiers and summaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural settlements serve as the fundamental spatial unit in rural geography research and play a significant role in regional system research on human‒land relations. With the accelerated advances in urbanization, industrialization, and agricultural modernization, the flow of urban and rural development factors has greatly changed the social and economic forms of rural areas, further seriously restricting the sustainable development of rural economies and societies. The spatial patterns of rural settlements serve as tangible reflections of rural living and the evolution of settlement structures, directly influencing the sustainable development of rural areas and the construction of rural human settlements. Despite the increasing number of relevant studies, a comprehensive review of the field’s dynamic evolution, research frontiers, and future development trajectories remains incomplete. On the basis of the Web of Science core database, this study used CiteSpace 6.2 R4 and VOS Viewer 1.6 software to perform a full systematic review of the literature on rural settlement spatial morphology from 2000 to 2024. The goal was to determine the current state of the research, where researchers are most active, and what major ideas and trends can be expected in the field of rural settlement spatial patterns. The results indicate that (1) the spatial patterns of rural settlements are a popular topic, integrating different disciplines and covering various themes, with close regional cooperation and a growing number of publications. At the national level, China, the United States, and France lead in research output and influence in this field. (2) The main research hotspots in the field include rural residential areas, spatial organization, land use, driving mechanisms, and regional systems, all of which are related to rural sustainable development. (3) Future research trends will likely focus on the response of rural settlement spatial patterns to new urbanization processes and social contexts. The findings provide a comprehensive overview of the evolution of research hotspots, aiding researchers in related fields in quickly grasping the research frontiers and summaries.

Biomass carbon is a highly aromatic carbonaceous solid obtained by thermochemical reaction of biomass raw materials. It is frequently used in the research and application of soil properties and states improvement. Biomass carbon has abundant porous structure, high specific surface area and surface functional groups. After being applied to the soil, it has a significant impact on manipulating the physichemical properties of the soil, enhancing the microbial environment and remediating soil pollutants, which is conducive to the resource utilization of agricultural wastes and the long-term preservation of the environment. Based on 328 moderately to highly relevant literatures on biomass carbon and rural soil property improvement since 2010, this paper reviewed the contemporary research progress of biomass carbon application in soil property improvements utilizing the concept of sustainable development. In order to provide beneficial illumination for the complete implementation of biomass carbon in improving rural soil properties, this paper primarily evaluated the principle as well as mechanism of promoting sustainable soil properties. It tends to prospect the application and development aspirations of biomass carbon in soil ecological restoration, crop growth, development.

Peasants are producers and the direct stakeholders of rural environmental problems, and also the core subject of the comprehensive rural ecological improvement. However, in the current mode of rural environmental governance, the government takes the dominant role, with low participation of peasants. Based on the representative micro-survey data of China, and from the perspective of the psychosocial effects of the peasants’ self-identification, this research made use of instrumental variables and generalized structural equation mode (GSEM) to explore the reason behand this phenomenon. The research shows that, first, at present Chinese peasants have a low degree of self-identification, and self-identification has a remarkable and positive stimulating effect on the participation of peasants in rural ecological improvement; second, heterogeneity analysis shows that self-identification is a stronger incentive for peasant groups with female offspring and rural families with relatively higher incomes in the participation of rural environmental improvement, and is a less remarkable incentive for rural families with relatively low incomes; and third, the mediation model results indicate that social fairness and social capital are important mediating paths with which self-identification influences the participation of peasants in rural environmental improvement, and the exertion of the stimulating effect of self-identification on the participation in rural environmental improvement is inseparable from the coordination and integration of the perception effect of peasants as the behavioral subject in terms of social fairness, and is still more inseparable from the support of corresponding social capital. What we’ve discovered means that the enhancement of self-identification of peasants by strengthening the construction of public cultural services and cultural guidance in rural area is the crucial element to motivate the peasants to participate in rural environmental improvement so as to realize sustainable rural development.