Functional village types shape divergent rural ecological resilience trajectories in the Yangtze River Delta

Functional village types shape divergent rural ecological resilience trajectories in the Yangtze River Delta | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Functional village types shape divergent rural ecological resilience trajectories in the Yangtze River Delta Ziqiang Zhang, Xianhua Sun This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9395759/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 6 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Whether rapid urbanization leads to convergence or divergence in rural ecological resilience remains unclear across policy-defined village functions. Using panel data for 5,372 officially designated rural revitalization demonstration villages in the Yangtze River Delta from 2003 to 2023, this study constructs a three-dimensional ecological resilience index covering resistance, adaptability, and recovery, and combines Theil–Sen trend estimation, the Mann–Kendall test, and XGBoost–SHAP to examine temporal trajectories and associated drivers. The results show persistent differentiation rather than automatic convergence. Ecologically livable and rural-civilization villages maintained the highest resilience levels throughout the study period, whereas wealthy-life villages started from the lowest baseline but recorded the fastest growth. Spatially, high-resilience clusters were concentrated along the Yangtze River corridor and coastal metropolitan belts, while lower-resilience areas remained concentrated in mountainous and inland fringe zones. Driver analysis indicates that resilience trajectories reflect distinct combinations of relatively slow-changing environmental context and more recent disturbance-related pressures: land-use and hydrological conditions shape the longer-term resilience baseline, whereas climate-related sensitivity becomes more pronounced in village types exposed to higher levels of surface hardening. These findings identify functional village type as a useful analytical lens for explaining differentiated resilience pathways in rapidly urbanizing rural regions. Biological sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Ecology Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental sciences Earth and environmental sciences/Environmental social sciences Social science/Environmental studies Scientific community and society/Geography Social science/Geography rural ecological resilience functional village types Yangtze River Delta rural revitalization spatiotemporal trajectories XGBoost–SHAP Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SupplementaryInformation.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 03 May, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 22 Apr, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 22 Apr, 2026 Editor invited by journal 20 Apr, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 16 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 16 Apr, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9395759","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":631555325,"identity":"71fcf658-7130-40db-a0da-b955ea6246c6","order_by":0,"name":"Ziqiang Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Nanjing Forestry University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Ziqiang","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":631555329,"identity":"3eaf6c62-f3d2-4fac-a9cb-ae31d497cc47","order_by":1,"name":"Xianhua Sun","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAzElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYNACAzBifJBQUUOaFmaDB2eOkWYRm+TDFmbCKuVn5B5g5imwyzOXSH5WkdjAxsDf3p2A3/AbeQmMMwySiy1npJndSNwhwyBx5uwG/FokcgwYPhgwJ264kQDUcoYNKJKLX4v8DKCWBIN6oJb0bwWJbcyEtTDcANtyGKglx4yBKC0GZ94YHJxhcDxxw5k3xRIJZ47xEPSLfHuO4WOeP9WJG46nb/z4o6JGjr+9l4DDgOAAMoeHoPJRMApGwSgYBYQBAL71SQWu9g9KAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Nanjing Forestry University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Xianhua","middleName":"","lastName":"Sun","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-04-12 16:38:25","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9395759/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9395759/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":108493196,"identity":"45cb32b1-c31c-49ba-816d-be6298f180ff","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-05 09:59:36","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":724958,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"FunctionalvillagetypesRev2clean.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9395759/v1_covered_a83ea5fa-eb94-414a-b39b-4612af8b36d1.pdf"},{"id":108349924,"identity":"01c51332-6e8f-4437-8044-f55c29e3cac4","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-03 10:00:08","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":212920,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"SupplementaryInformation.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9395759/v1/33476d245fffedabffce8808.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Functional village types shape divergent rural ecological resilience trajectories in the Yangtze River Delta","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"scientific-reports","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"scirep","sideBox":"Learn more about [Scientific Reports](http://www.nature.com/srep/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Scientific Reports","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Scientific Reports","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"rural ecological resilience, functional village types, Yangtze River Delta, rural revitalization, spatiotemporal trajectories, XGBoost–SHAP","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9395759/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9395759/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eWhether rapid urbanization leads to convergence or divergence in rural ecological resilience remains unclear across policy-defined village functions. 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