9 pages, via online journal, The conversion of population and land from rural to urban areas has been widely explored; however, the spatial change in rural settlements and its relations to population changes involved in urbanization have been ignored. This paper aims to reveal the underlying human-land relationship from the perspective of rural settlement urbanization (RSU). Based on identifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of RSU in Wuhan city circle from 2009 to 2016, we analyzed the human-land relations using a combination of a dynamic coupling model and a decoupling model. The results showed that a total area of 27.77 km2 (accounting for 0.81% of the level in 2009) of rural settlements was converted to urban construction land from 2009 to 2016. Although the rural population decreased by 32.21%, the overall size of rural settlements increased by 104.62 km2, and 37 counties had a low-level coordination between population urbanization and RSU. Only 2 counties emerged with high-level coordination in this process. Additionally, the changes in rural settlements and rural population showed a strong negative decoupling; that is, the population decreased while the area of rural settlements increased. Combining the decoupling results with the coupling analysis, eight human-land relationship patterns in rural settlement urbanization were identified, and “strong negative decoupling–low-level coupling” was the main pattern observed in counties, which summarized the human-land relations in most RSU and should be given priorities in improving rural human-land relationships. The question of how to promote harmonious human-land relationships lies at the core of promoting balanced urban-rural development. This research could provide a decision-making basis for formulating a sustainable development strategy for urban-rural integration.
12 pages, Current food systems fail to directly link urban consumers with rural producers. City-regional strategies need to reconnect consumers with producers through sustainable local food systems. This research developed and distributed a survey questionnaire to 400 consumers in Bangkok. Findings prove that there is a statistically significant association between urban-rural relation and sustainable urban consumer behavior (Pearson’s Chi-square test for independence resulting in a significance level of p < 0.05). Sustainable consumer behavior is influenced by environmental, sociocultural, economic and health drivers, while lack of food traceability, lack of rural experience, lack of access to rural communities and negative social perception disrupt consumer-producer links. Community-based gastrotourism emerges as one of the best practices to link urban consumers with rural producers and plan sustainable food systems in mega-cities like Bangkok.
