Spatial configuration of cultural landscape facilities in Shandong’s Yellow River corridor: a rural living circle perspective

The rural cultural landscapes in the Yellow River Basin, as an important part of the blue-green infrastructure, not only provide ecological services and public spaces, but also carry the function of regional cultural inheritance. The spatial layout of rural cultural landscapes deeply aligns with the multi-level living circles of residents, and has a significant impact on the organization of landscape spaces and social ecological resilience in rural areas. This study took 14,502 administrative villages in 25 counties (cities and districts) along the Yellow River in Shandong Province as the research objects. Based on mobile phone signaling data, the boundaries of rural living circles at the three scales of towns, counties and cities were identified, and the accessibility evaluation indicators of six types of cultural landscape facilities were constructed in combination with POI data. The aim is to reveal the service level of rural cultural landscapes and their potential role in promoting health equity and resilience. The research shows: (1) The travel radius of rural living circles in the Yellow River region as a whole shows an increasing trend from upstream to downstream, with a concentric expansion feature centered on county towns. The average radius of township, county and municipal living circles is approximately 8 km, 13 km and 18 km respectively; (2) The overall accessibility of cultural landscape facilities shows a multi-center and ring-shaped distribution pattern. There are significant spatial differences in the spatial distribution of different types of facilities. Among them, landscape green spaces form a high accessibility zone with a relatively high degree of continuity relying on prefecture-level cities and county parks. Sports, leisure, science and education, and cultural facilities are concentratedly distributed in county towns and key towns. Cultural relics, ancient sites and scenic spots are scattered in a point-like manner due to historical evolution and natural conditions. The cultural facilities along the main stream of the Yellow River are arranged in a string-like pattern; (3) The results of geographically weighted regression (GWR) show that the effects of different facility types on the characteristics of living circles have significant spatial non-stationarity. The response degree in the middle section of the Yellow River region is relatively higher. The research results can provide quantitative support for the layout optimization of rural cultural landscape facilities and the construction of living circle systems in the Yellow River region.