Potential of land consolidation of hollowed villages under different urbanization scenarios in China

There exists great potential of rural land consolidation in China due to the aggravated hollowed villages against the background of rapid rural-urban transformation. The paper aims to investigate the potential of rural land consolidation within four urbanization scenarios: Complete urbanization, Semi-urbanization, Urbanization in batches and prospective urbanization in 2020. Research findings show that, (1) the potentials of rural land consolidation in complete and semi-urbanization are 809.89×10⁴ hm² and 699.19×10⁴ hm² respectively while rural consolidation rates are 50.70% and 43.77%. As for the urbanization in batches and urbanization in 2020, the potentials are 757.89×10⁴ hm² and 992.16×10⁴ hm². (2) Beside Tibet and Ningxia, rural consolidation rates in most provinces are between 40% and 60%, and the land increase rates are between 3% and 12%. Significant correlation between potential of rural land consolidation and the degree of hollowed villages is also found. (3) Evident differences of potential of rural land consolidation exist across provinces. Rural consolidation rates in the East and Central provinces are higher than that in the West provinces. Villages in the developed areas have higher consolidation rates than those in the less developed areas, and villages in the plain areas tend to have higher consolidation rates than those in the mountainous areas.