Advancements in rural resilience research over the past two decades and its significance for sustainable development

Abstract

Accelerated urbanization has induced multifarious disturbances and shocks in rural areas. Resilience theory is instrumental in explaining the interactions and outcomes between village systems and external environmental systems, rendering rural resilience research an emerging focus. Based on a 20-year span of relevant literature from the Web of Science database, this paper elucidates the developmental stages, principal themes, and measurement frameworks of rural resilience research, and examines the limitations and future directions of current research. The main conclusions of the study are as follows: (1) Over the past 20 years, rural resilience research has shown a continuous growth and gone through three stages of development. (2) The core topics focus on the exploration of impact mechanisms, assessment in the context of disasters, and landscape ecological planning and construction, yet unified and comprehensive analysis frameworks have been rarely reported. (3) In the future, more attention should be paid to dynamics and complexity, and the level of rural resilience should be empirically analyzed from an integrated perspective. This study provides a theoretical basis for rural development and resilience planning, emphasizing the response to uncertainty disturbances through cross-scale elemental linkages to achieve sustainable rural development. Clinical trial number : Not applicable.