Assessment and Promotion Strategy of Rural Resilience in Yangtze River Delta Region, China

The Yangtze River Delta region is the most economically active and open region in China. It is also the region with the most prominent contradictions between urban and rural development. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the resilience of the rural areas in this region so that they can develop further with resources and opportunities after sustaining shocks. This study used a weighted TOPSIS method to measure the rural resilience of 153 research units from 2000 to 2019 and then applied the ESDA method to measure the spatial agglomeration or heterogeneity characteristics. The results show that: (1) The rural resilience of this region is higher in the east and lower in the west; (2) rural resilience has obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics, which have undergone a process of shifting from strong to weak before becoming strong again; and (3) the hotspots of rural resilience gradually shifted from Jiangsu to Zhejiang, while the coldspots gradually shifted from Zhejiang to Anhui. Finally, the K-means clustering algorithm was applied to divide all research units into five types: natural capital-dominated areas, productive capital-dominated areas, human capital-dominated areas, social-financial capital-dominated areas and general development areas. Then, the strategies for resilience promotion were proposed accordingly.