Study on Rural Planning in Plain and Lake Area from the Perspective of Spatial Resilience

Abstract

(1) Background: With the economic development and population change, the unique village ecological structure in plain and lake areas is facing various threats. This study aims to explore ways to increase the stability of the rural ecological space and promote the construction and development of green and livable villages from the perspective of spatial resilience. (2) Method: The framework for the assessment of spatial resilience for villages was constructed, the spatial resilience characteristics in Qing Yanggang were analyzed through a field investigation and qualitative analysis, and a spatial resilience planning path for the village in river and lake areas was established. (3) Results: By integrating the natural and artificial elements in rural space, the rural spatial resilience planning can reduce the sensitivity, vulnerability and potential risks of rural areas, which is an important strategy to improve rural sustainable development. (4) Conclusions: For rural areas in plain and lake areas, it is important to optimize rural land use structures, divide rural ecological resilience zones, establish ecological zoning control systems, implement water system connectivity, improve water system patterns to achieve ecological restoration, and implement the adaptive cycle of rural water ecosystem to form a rural spatial resilience planning model. In this way, the Goals n.6 of “Provide Water and Sanitation” of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can be achieved at the rural scale.

1. Introduction

With the continuous advancement of urbanization, rural areas are generally undergoing a series of problems such as environmental deterioration, industrial adjustment and population decline, and start to show instability and vulnerability after internal and external impacts. The southern Hubei Province is basically a plain and lake area. The “2025–2030 Global Strategic Framework for Wetland Conservation” of Wetland Conference this year clearly points out the need to promote wetland conservation and restoration actions. Goal n. 6 of the 2030 Agenda focused on the sustainable development of water and environmental sanitation. In recent years, the sustainable development of rural areas has attracted increasing attention, and the resilience theory has been introduced to the rural system. The resilience theory demonstrates theoretical advantages in explaining a series of ecological problems in rural transformation and development, which is an innovative way to achieve the goal of rural sustainable development.

Resilience as a term describes the ability of an object to bounce back and recover under pressure. Under the inspiration of systematic thinking, the concept of resilience has attracted scholars’ attention since the 1960s and has been used in the field of ecology. In 1973, Holing proposed the concept of ecosystem resilience, that is, the ability to maintain the system stability under external disturbances, or the ability of the system to change the magnitude of absorbable disturbance when the inherent balance is broken [1]. In fact, it represents the ability of the system to face future uncertain risks, actively adapt, absorb and resolve external interference [2].

In 2001, Nystrom and Folke for the first time proposed the concept of spatial resilience in their research on coral reefs, believing that spatial resilience represents the ability to reorganize a disturbed system and maintain its basic structure and function from a spatial dimension [3]. From the perspective of ecological security and environmental protection, spatial resilience focuses the organic integration of the resilience concept and spatial environment elements [4], which is an important ability to reorganize a disturbed system, maintain the basic structure and function of the system [5], and constitutes an important part of the resilience theory. Cumming (2011) systematically elaborated the concept and connotation of spatial resilience and constructed the research framework of spatial resilience based on the perspective of landscape ecology. Cumming believes that spatial resilience focuses on the importance of location, connectivity, and context for resilience [6]. Lars Marcus and Johan Colding (2014) integrated spatial morphology and resilience science [7] and summarized four key attributes of resilience, including“change, diversity, self-organization, and learning”. Fariba Gharai proposed that spatial resilience includes redundancy, diversity, stability and interoperability from the perspective of urban spatial organization [8]. Åsa Gren et al. (2018) proposed that spatial resilience should include features such as diversity, self-organization, redundancy and learning ability [9]. Other scholars made some progresses in the theoretical framework [10,11], assessment approach [12,13,14] and spatio-temporal analysis [15]. Compared with traditional planning methods, spatial resilience research improves the ability of planning objects to deal with uncertainty, so that planning objects can adapt to the dynamic environment actively and flexibly.

There are many research methods for spatial resilience. Considering the characteristics of villages in the plain and lake area in China and combining the spatial organizational composition of rural social and economic activities with the theory of resilience, the spatial attributes of spatial elements and the resilience mechanism of the organizational form were sought [8]. This study focuses on the interaction between rural natural environment, social life and economic production. Artificial and natural factors in rural space constitute the research scope of spatial resilience (Figure 1), in which the natural environment is the background that provides the development space for rural, economic and social life. The integrated use of the rural natural environment in economic and social activities is the main external interference factor of the rural spatial resilience system (Figure 2). The distribution of various natural and artificial factors in rural areas is not only restricted by the natural environment, such as terrain and landform, but also affected by the social and economic activities of villagers. Rural space provides sites for the study of spatial resilience. The main content of rural spatial resilience research is how to buffer and eliminate risks and threats through a coordinated allocation of spatial elements, cultivate rural areas that can adapt to external interference changes or coexist with interference, and ensure a healthy and sustainable development of rural areas. It provides a new perspective for rural planning theory in the new era and offers a new idea for rural sustainable development, carrying an important theoretical and applied value.

The aim of this study is to optimize the results of rural planning from the perspective of spatial resilience and give a land use framework for public administration to improve the resilience level of villages during the construction and development process. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to optimize the structure of land use, optimize ecological technology, and establish a control system.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Materials

Qingyanggang Village, Maojiagang Town, Gongan County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province, were selected as the key research areas in this study (Figure 3). Based on the unit of “village domain”, the research of village spatial planning was conducted based on spatial resilience. Qingyanggang Village is located in the plain and lake area of the southern Hubei Province, which is known as “the province with thousands of lakes”. It is a typical paddy field-based farming production area and an important production base for grain, cotton, oil and fishery in China. The plain and lake area in the southern Hubei Province boasts rich wetland resources and complex water system levels, which create a unique rural settlement distribution and agricultural production mode. Considering the spatial distribution of Qingyanggang Village, the study combines the spatial organization and allocation in rural socio-economic activities with the spatial resilience theory. An overall plan for rural space utilization is formed from the dimensions of dividing rural ecological resilience zones, optimizing the zoning structure and improving the river and lake water pattern. The paths and methods of rural resilience planning in the Hubei plain and lake areas are summarized, based on which the resilience mechanism, considering the spatial attributes and organizational forms of spatial elements, is constructed.

2.2. Research Data

The data used in this study were collected from the current topography map of Qingyanggang Village provided by the local government, and then processed the with Autocad (1:1000) and ArcMap. The study investigates the physical space system of Qingyanggang Village, including the spatial attributes of artificial elements (houses, roads, farmland, ditches, dams, etc.), natural elements (such as river courses, vegetation, etc.) and the resilience mechanism of organizational form.

In addition, we conducted a questionnaire survey among 238 local villagers, and collected a total of 177 questionnaire responses. The content of the survey includes the villagers’ suggestions on the public facilities, municipal infrastructure, and the public environment in the village.

2.3. Research Framework

Through the literature review of the characteristics of spatial resilience, the paper constructed a framework for the assessment of village spatial resilience (Figure 4), and analyzed the spatial resilience characteristics in Qing Yanggang from four aspects, diversity, connectivity, stability and redundancy, through field investigation and qualitative analysis.

The concept of resilience advocates “adaptation” and “inclusiveness” [16], which helps to alleviate all kinds of thorny rural spatial resilience problems at this stage. We applied the idea of resilience to rural planning, including optimizing the land structure, optimizing ecological technology and establishing a control system. In this way, a spatial resilience planning path for the village in river and lake areas was built (Figure 5).

3. Results

By evaluating the resilience of Qingyanggang Village, we found the ecosystem in the river and lake area of Jianghan Plain is unique but vulnerable. With the development of modern rural areas, great opportunities arise in the agricultural production and lifestyle, leading to different ecological problems. Qingyanggang Village has a prominent ecological dilemma, which is mainly characterized by the unnatural changes of the water system space, agricultural non-point source pollution, unreasonable structure of rural land use and so on, leading to a decreased anti-interference and self-repair ability of natural ecosystem in the river and lake area.

3.1. The Natural Environment Space

We analyzed the land composition and focused on the wetland system in Qingyanggang Village, finding that the wetland system is relatively fragile due to the special topography of the plain, river and lake areas (

Table 1. Evaluation of the natural space environment.

	Diversity	Interoperability	Stability	Redundancy
Natural Environment space (Wetland)	H	L	L	M

H—High; M—Middle; L—Low.

).

3.1.1. Rich Wetland Resources, Complicated Water System Levels and Diverse Functions

As shown in a 1:500 geological prospecting map of Qingyanggang Village, Qingyanggang Village has a flat terrain, dense water network and forest fields, and rich wetland resources. Qingyanggang Village has a total land area of 994.67 hectares. Except for 70 hectares of construction land, the rest are agricultural land, which is mainly natural waters and cultivated land. Natural waters cover 14.02 hectares, pits and ditches cover 88.53 hectares, the total water area is 102.55 hectares, accounting for 10.31% of the total land. The land system mainly includes the Qingyanggang village water network system and the agricultural land system formed by rivers, trunk channels, branch channels, paddy fields and ponds. The cultivated land area in the cultivated land system is 731.14 hectares, of which 418.47 hectares are paddy fields, accounting for 41.74% of the total land area. Natural waters, pits, ditches, paddy fields and other wetlands account for 52.38% of the total land area.

Table 2. Land composition of Qingyanggang Village.

Type		Area (Hectare)	Proportion (%)
Wetland area	Natural waters	14.02	1.41
	Pits and ditches	88.53	8.90
	Paddy field	418.47	42.07
Dry land area		392.65	39.47
Construction land area		70.00	7.04
Other land area		11.00	1.11
Total land area		994.67	100

shows the land composition of Qingyanggang Village and Figure 6 shows the current distribution of land resources in Qingyanggang Village.

Qingyanggang Village has a typical topography and landform in the river and lake area of Jianghan Plain. The village has rich wetland resources and a complicated water system level. The river, trunk channel, branch channel, paddy field and fish pond are interwoven, forming a typical natural ecosystem in which “water network, forest field, lake grass” are mixed together (

Table 3. Classification system of wetland resources in village area.

Wetland Type	Main Function	Land Classification
Natural water	Including rivers and lakes, it is an important part of the river and lake system in Jianghan Plain, which bears the functions of ecology, breeding and recreation	Lakes, rivers and mudflat
Artificial water	Mainly in the form of reservoirs, ponds, ditches, it undertakes aquaculture, irrigation and other functions	Reservoirs, ponds, ditches
Paddy field	Mainly in the form of paddy fields, it is distributed in flat plain area, including a large area of dike field. In recent years, some of them are used as a shrimp–rice symbiosis field	Paddy fields

). The water system in the village combines the functions of production, irrigation, recreation, landscape, ecology and so on, forming an important part of the rural natural ecological environment.

3.1.2. The Flat Terrain Reduces the Interoperability between Water Systems, Resulting in Poor Anti-Interference and Self-Restoration Ability of Wetlands

Qingyanggang Village has an elevation of 35.7~37 m and an average slope of about 0.06%. Influenced by natural and human factors, Qingyanggang Village has the limitations of uncertain flow direction, slow flow velocity, long retention time, and poor self-renewal ability (Figure 7).

The village channel has the functions of both drainage and irrigation, which are usually used for flood discharge in the flood season and agricultural irrigation in the dry season. In the drainage and irrigation period, there is a large amount of water flow, strong pollutant-holding and a self-purification capacity, while in the closure period, it is basically in a closed state, with a slow water flow rate, poor pollutant-holding and a limited self-purification capacity. Due to the water and soil loss of the river bank, the river bed is elevated, resulting in the suspended channel flow. The wetland system is broken with poor water network connectivity due to cofferdam culture, accounting for the fragility of the village water ecosystem.

3.1.3. The Unnatural Transformation of the Waterfront Reduces the Diversity and Redundancy of the Wetland, Which Leads to the Weakening of the Self-Restoring Ability of the Ecosystem

In order to meet the needs of farming and breeding, the villagers transformed the village water system by straightening the channel, channeling shorelines and turning lakes into ponds. Meanwhile, living spaces such as houses, roads and public buildings are mostly built along river channels, ditches and banks. The main roads and houses are distributed on both sides of the banks or ditches (Figure 8). Some buildings are directly built on the embankments (Figure 9), which are integrated with the embankments and covered over the channels as a whole, giving the embankments shoulder multiple functions and severely squeezing the water system space. As a transitional zone between the terrestrial ecosystem and aquatic ecosystem, the river–lake waterfront zone plays an important role in the ecological service, which can maintain the ecosystem integrity from many aspects [17,18]. The shortage of river embankment land leads to a series of ecological problems such as riparian biodiversity loss and riparian habitat degradation, which in turn weakens the self-repairing ability of the river and lake and deteriorates river water quality.

3.2. The Inhabitation Space

We analyzed the land use structure of Qingyanggang Village and found that the land use intensity is low, the residence space is scattered, public facilities are insufficient and municipal facilities are insufficient (

Table 4. Evaluation of inhabitation space.

		Diversity	Interoperability	Stability	Redundancy
Inhabitation Space	Residence	M	M	M	H
	Public Facilities	L	M	M	L
	Municipal Facilities	L	M	M	M

H—High, M—Middle, L—Low.

).

The way people use land resources is closely correlated with people’s living and production mode. Traditional agriculture in China is labor-intensive, and farmland requires a lot of care and maintenance. For agricultural production, farmers gradually develop a man–land relationship that is adapted to the local production and life, and form rural settlement units.

The construction of farmer’s housing in Qingyanggang Village is typical to a certain extent, where most of the villagers’ housing is arranged in a “slotted” pattern, and the large housing colony is concentrated into a “cross shape” or “soil shape”. The residential land of the villagers accounts for 7.04% of the total land of the village (

Table 5. Land status list for Qingyanggang Village.

	LanduseType	Area (ha)	Percentage (%)
Construction Land for Village	Land for Residence	51.10	5.14%
	Land for Public Facilities	0.87	0.08%
	Land for Industry	1.06	0.11%
	Land for Municipal Facilities	16.97	1.71%
	Total	70.00	7.04%
Green space and square land	Green area for Environmental Protection	10.12	1.02%
	Land for Squares	0	0%
Construction Land for Others	Land for External Transportation Facilities	0.88	0.08%
Non-construction Land		913.62	91.86%
Total		994.67	100%

), forming a total of seven housing colonies, which are distributed linearly along the main road and trunk channel in the village. The size of the housing colony is between 120 and 170 households (Figure 10).

In terms of the total construction land for villagers’ living areas, there are 986 households in Qingyanggang Village for 2892 permanent residents. In the last five years, the village population has shown an overall downward trend. For example, the per capita construction land area calculated by permanent residents is 242 m²/person, which is more than twice that of urban per capita construction land in China. The main construction is mainly villagers’ houses, with a per capita construction area of 176.6 m²/person.

The construction of public service facilities is inadequate. By communicating with the villagers in Qingyanggang Village, we found that the villagers believe that the cultural service facilities, leisure and entertainment facilities and pension facilities in the village are scarce, the distance is long and the transportation is inconvenient (

Table 6. Questionnaires for public facilities and municipal facilities.

	Facilities That Need to Be Added	No. of Villager	Percentage (%)
Public Facilities	Health Center	35	19.77%
	Elementary School	9	5.08%
	Activity Room	30	16.95%
	Fitness Places	58	32.77%
	Sanitary	35	19.77%
Municipal Infrastructure	Broaden the road	80	45.20%
	Parking Lot	5	2.82%
	Sewage Treatment Facility	32	16.40%
	Garbage Disposal Facilities	29	18.79%
Non-construction Land		913.62	91.86%
Total		994.67	100%

A total of 238 questionnaires were distributed in this survey, and 177 valid questionnaires were collected.

).

In terms of municipal infrastructure in Qingyanggang Village, the water and electricity supply is sufficient and the sanitation facilities are poor, for instance, the sewage system has not been formed and the sewage is directly discharged without treatment, which causes severe environmental pollution. The garbage collection pool is relatively simple and has a certain impact on the ecological environment.

3.3. The Economic Production Space

The study investigates the agriculture and non-agricultural industries in Qingyanggang Village, and finds that rural agriculture has formed a relatively mature system and non-agricultural industries need to be developed. Moreover, the impact of pollution from economic activity on rural resilience was analyzed, and it was found that agricultural non-point source pollution reduced the anti-interference ability of the natural ecosystem.

3.3.1. The Agriculture Has Formed a Relatively Mature System and Non-Agricultural Industries Need to Be Developed

With the deepening of economic development and recent urbanization, an adjustment of the industrial structure of Qingyanggang Village is needed. The agriculture of Qingyanggang Village has formed a relatively mature system of food crops, cash crops, farming and aquaculture. Different types of crops are rich and diverse, and the diversified planting and breeding pattern is basically realized. The main industries include lotus root and lobster breeding, chrysanthemum breeding and cattle breeding.

In terms of industry, villagers have established an oil factory, forest farm, plastic factory, brewery, rice factory, feed processing plant, poultry, egg processing factory, and furniture factory, among others which play a certain role in people’s production and life in Qingyanggang Village. However, the level of environmental protection awareness and ecological governance relatively lag behind in rural areas, and township industry construction lacks unified planning. As a result, secondary and tertiary industries have a low degree of agglomeration in villages and show a scattered distribution. Moreover, there is no effective pollution control system, which brings great troubles to the local ecological environment and villagers’ life (

Table 7. List of rural economic production types and ecological disturbance factors.

Economic Production Type		Evaluation of Spatial Resilience				Ecological Disturbance Factor	Disturbance Coping Strategy
Main Class	Minor Class	Diversity	Interoperability	Stability	Redundancy
Agriculture	crop farming	H	M	M	H	Loss of biodiversity, excessive use of agricultural chemicals	Control of non-point source pollution
	Farming	L	L	M	L	Fecal pollution, air pollution	Waste recycling, rational layout
	Aquaculture	M	L	M	M	Broken water network, unnatural reconstruction of shoreline	Water system connectivity, watershed management, ecologicalized shoreline
Non-agriculture	Industrial land	L	M	L	L	Exhaust gas, waste water, waste slag	Reasonable distribution, pollution control, ecological rehabilitation

).

3.3.2. Agricultural Non-Point Source Pollution Reduces the Anti-Interference Ability of Natural Ecosystem

Rural non-point source pollution is the main reason for the destruction of rural habitat, such as excessive use of agricultural chemicals, breeding pollution, disorderly discharge, treatment of domestic sewage and household garbage, pollution from township enterprises, pollution from tourism, etc. In recent years, with the rapid progress of urbanization and the changes of rural labor force structure and industrial structure, rural non-point source pollution have been further aggravated, resulting in a declined anti-interference ability of natural ecosystem.

Excessive Use of Agricultural Chemicals Intensifies the Vulnerability of River and Lake Ecosystem

Non-point source pollution brought by rural planting industry is the main external cause of ecological pollution of rural water system. Relevant research has shown that most facility vegetable farmers only adopt organic fertilizer technology [19]. Due to the unreasonable and excessive use of traditional chemical fertilizers, pesticides, mulch, etc., pollutants penetrate into the water bodies nearby through farmland surface runoff, farmland drainage and underground seepage, causing water pollution and eutrophication of rural rivers and lakes [20]. Moreover, the extensive use of land resources, such as ground-hardening and the unorganized discharge of surface runoff, also accelerates the diffusion and migration of non-point source pollution. In addition, there are a series of other problems, such as the broken water network in rural plains and the long water retention time, which aggravate the vulnerability of river and lake ecosystem in Jianghan Plain.

Aquaculture Pollution

There are two types of breeding in Qingyanggang village, namely large-scale centralized breeding farm and small family retail breeding, and there are two main problems at present. First, the breeding pollution control is not up to standard, and the extensive management leads to general pollution and damage to the environment. Second, the breeding adjacent to the residential area is not reasonable, which may cause pollution to the living space. The breeding industry in Qingyanggang Village can be divided into fishery and animal husbandry, mainly fishery aquaculture. Farmers divide the patches of river and lake system into scattered units for breeding. In the process of breeding, the excessive use of fish bait greatly affects the water system. Due to the backward facilities and technology, the wastewater from aquaculture of fish, shrimp, crab is the primary pollution source in the water system. In addition, the area of animal husbandry is adjacent to residential land, so animal feces causes serious air pollution and soil and water pollution, resulting in the spread of disease among human and animal.

4. Discussion

The purpose of traditional rural planning is to implement the construction of villagers’ houses, service facilities, municipal infrastructure and agricultural facilities within the scope of construction land in rural space. Due to prominent uncertainty and complexity of rural construction facilities, the planning paradigm based on the overall construction land lags behind, so it is necessary to find a new planning paradigm. Based on the idea of spatial resilience, the application of the “ecosystem method” to intervene in land use planning is an important strategy to achieve a sustainable rural ecological development. Yixi Hu (2022) proposed that strengthening the ability of the village to deal with risks and seize opportunities is the key to maintaining the characteristics and competitive advantages of the village [21], Jinghua Ding et al. (2019) applied the spatial resilience-based planning method to the construction of a multi-dimensional environmental toughness system, and found that such a method is conducive to optimizing the ecological environment of rural waters [22].

Rural space is a territorial space with natural attributes, of which the main function is to provide ecological products or ecological services [23]. By following the law of rural spatial ecology, applying “ecosystem method” to divide rural ecological resilience zones, optimizing the land use structure, establishing an ecological zoning control system, and improving the water network pattern, it is possible to achieve various ecosystem service functions, such as improving rural public health, reducing flood disasters, and protecting biodiversity. As an innovative mean to deal with complex system problems based on an ecological network, it guides rural spatial planning towards integrated ecology and land use management, thus achieving the concurrent growth of social, economic and environmental benefits.

4.1. Attach Importance to Planning Guidance and Optimize the Structure of Rural Land Use

4.1.1. Living Space Reconstruction

It is urgent to analyze the current reconstruction of rural living space layout. On the one hand, with the change of the modern agriculture and modern transportation mode, it is necessary to adjust the decentralized living mode formed under the original “nearby farming” pattern. On the other hand, inadequate public services lead to population outflow and serious “hollowing” of rural housing, so further optimization of rural living space structure is required. Studies have shown that community cohesion, a sense of belonging and an individual health status are key factors affecting rural resilience [24]. Through a centralized arrangement of rural public service facilities, it is possible to improve rural public services, strengthen the cohesion and sense of belonging of rural communities, direct the rural living settlement space to gather at the central community or central town, refine the construction of the rural environment, thus forming a healthy rural development. On the basis of respecting public opinion and making life and production convenient for villagers, and taking towns and townships as units, it is necessary to coordinate township construction in steps in a planned way to form a new stable state of rural living space, which is the premise for realizing the goal of revitalizing ecologically livable rural area.

4.1.2. Production Space Reconstruction

Heijman believes that, seen from the perspective of rural industry, rural resilience is closely related to regional competitiveness in regional specialized production. Then, he further emphasized the role of the agricultural industry cluster and rural service industry cluster in land use through spatial agglomeration [25]. The rural industrial space in Jianghan Plain is mainly for the primary production development, with planting and breeding as the dominant industries and for the emerging industry development with township enterprises or rural tourism as the dominant industry. The main goal of production space reconstruction is to guide industrial spatial agglomeration through industrial spatial planning, strengthen the ecological adaptability of rural space, and construct rural resilience (Figure 11).

It is necessary to reconstruct agricultural planting space under the goal of constructing a modern agricultural system. The degree of agricultural mechanization, agricultural land productivity and agricultural labor productivity can be improved by changing the original cultivation subjects and farming modes. The planning should aim to guide the construction of high-standard basic farmland suitable for large-scale farming, effectively guide the concentrated layout of cultivated land, and implement large-scale management, so as to provide the basic conditions for strengthening the construction of agricultural modernization infrastructure and accelerating the implementation of agricultural industrialization and modernization.

It is necessary to reconstruct the agricultural breeding space under the goal of optimizing the layout. In comprehensive consideration of the relationship between different breeding industries, on the one hand, reasonable green isolation zones should be established between breeding areas of different varieties and between breeding areas and villagers’ living areas to ensure the safety of breeding and reduce the impact of production pollution on villagers’ lives. On the other hand, we should give serious consideration to the centralized treatment of aquaculture pollutants, the change of the original extensive production mode and the reuse of organic matter.

It is necessary to plan rural emerging industrial areas under moderate guidance. Due to the limited capacity of pollution prevention and control in rural areas, the emerging industries in villages and towns can be uniformly planned by counties and cities, thereby facilitating systematic and standardized pollution prevention and control. For the development of new industries and new forms of business in rural areas with relatively small pollution, it is necessary to carry out reasonable planning and layout, optimize spatial structure and refine industrial land use structure, construction intensity and discharge mode, so as to minimize the impact of rural industries on rural ecological environment.

4.2. Divide Rural Ecological Resilience Zones

Spatial resilience emphasizes the self-adaptability of natural environment. For rural non-point source pollution in plain and lake area, water and soil conservation technology and non-point source pollution abatement technology can effectively control and reduce agricultural non-point source pollution. Where, soil and water conservation technology mainly to reduces surface runoff, improve fertilizer utilization rate and conserve water source. Non-point source pollution abatement technology reduces the contents of chemical pesticides, nitrogen, phosphorus and particulate matter in water by establishing ecological conservation areas through the interaction of biology, earth and chemistry [26]. From the perspective of spatial resilience, it is an important measure to prevent and control non-point source pollution and protect the ecological environment by forming an ecological protection area, ecological buffer transition area, sewage control area, agricultural planting area and wetland regulation and storage area through rural planning, coordinating village land resources, so as to improve spatial ecological resilience and build a stable rural ecosystem (

Table 8. Rural ecological resilience areas and their functions.

Ecological Resilience Area	Scope	Function	Engineering Resilience Means
Ecological protection area	Ecologically sensitive mountain forests, rivers and lakes	Ecological conservation	Maintenance of natural ecological communities
Ecological buffer area	Areas surrounding ecological protection area	Alleviate the influence of external pollution on ecological protection area, plain and lake area can be used for comprehensive water regulation and storage, water body purification, reduction in watershed pollution, and ecological restoration.	Set ecological fluctuation zone, seek water quality improvement by ecological hydraulic method, water quality improvement by ecological shoreline method, build small and micro wetlands.
Agricultural planting area	Paddy field, dry land and economic forest land	Agricultural production	Regulate surface runoff, improve the use rate of pesticides and fertilizers and reduce the loss of pesticides and fertilizers. Set up productive wetland with water purification function, develop modern agricultural infrastructure.
Sewage control area	Living land, land for emerging industries, breeding	Control disordered discharge of living and production sewage, reduce the mutual interference between life and production.	Develop circular economy by functional zoning and moderate centralization, rain and sewage diversion.
Wetland regulation and storage area	Low-lying area of the site	Use the existing low-lying area to store rainwater, give play to its regulation and storage role, and reduce the impact of natural disasters and other external disturbances on rural areas.	Form productive wetlands, build small and micro wetlands.

).

4.2.1. Ecological Protection Area

Based on local natural resources, ecological protection areas can be set up in mountains, forests, rivers, lakes and other ecologically sensitive and fragile areas. A beautiful ecological environment and ecological absorption function can effectively supplement the rural green space and rural ecological environment, and help to control the pollution in the region to a certain extent. Any polluting construction or agricultural production activity should be prohibited in the ecological protection area. The Qingyanggang ecological protection area is mainly planned and constructed to achieve the protection of water environment and ecological environment in Songzi River and Xindianzi River basins.

4.2.2. Ecological Buffer Area

The ecological buffer area is the buffer transition zone of ecological protection area, which belongs to the front zone of ecological protection area. Set in the periphery of ecological sensitive areas such as mountains, forests, rivers and lakes, it mainly reduces the influence of external pollution on the ecological protection area. In the plain and lake area, a river and lake ecological buffer transition zone can be set up in the land–lake ecotone and highland on both sides of the river. The land–lake ecotone along the river not only serves as a bridge between the highland vegetation on both sides and the river, but also has the function of maintaining species diversity. Through the plant configuration in the land–lake ecotone, it is possible to form the water body purification zone, effectively intercept and filter the material flow, which helps to purify the surface water entering the ecological protection area. At the same time, the constructed wetland in the ecological buffer area can also regulate the effluent quality of domestic sewage in a small range and play the role of water purification. The river and lake ecological buffer transition zone can be set up along the land–lake ecotone in plain and lake area to give full play to the functions of water regulation and storage, water conservation and ecological restoration of the whole basin.

4.2.3. Sewage Control Area

Rural sewage control area, such as agricultural breeding areas, rural living areas, emerging industrial areas, controls large discharge of domestic and production pollution through sewage control, reasonable organization of domestic and production sewage discharge. However, for small-scale domestic and production sewage, ecological treatment is carried out by construction of wetland. In the construction of emerging industries, concentrated rural communities or large-scale breeding bases, the township should take the lead in building sewage treatment plants or centralized disposal facilities to control or reduce the disorderly discharge of pollutants. For breeding farms and township enterprises with air pollution and bacterial transmission, pollutant prevention and treatment facilities should be constructed in downwind and downstream areas through overall site selection and centralized deployment so as to reduce interference to the surrounding environment with the help of ecological isolation zone.

4.2.4. Agricultural Planting Area

Rural agricultural planting areas mainly include paddy field, dry land, economic forest and other planting areas in villages. Basic farmland protection areas should be clearly defined within these areas to promote modern agriculture. In agricultural planting areas, non-point source pollution control technology should be adopted to improve the utilization rate of pesticides and fertilizers, reduce the loss of pesticides and fertilizers, and reduce rural non-point source pollution by reducing the surface runoff velocity, adjusting the surface runoff direction and other engineering technical means. Meanwhile, in agricultural planting areas, it is necessary to popularize green agricultural technology, actively advance modern agricultural infrastructure, and improve the quantity and quality of agricultural products.

4.2.5. Wetland Regulation and Storage Area

The wetland regulation and storage area is set up in low-lying areas to form productive wetland by utilizing the storage retention control ability of agricultural land. By establishing wetland regulation and storage areas in plain and lake areas, it is possible to help accumulate rainwater, improve the regulation and storage capacity of rural space, and reduce the impact of natural disasters and other external disturbances on rural areas in river and lake areas [22].

4.3. Establish an Ecological Zoning Control System

The ecological zoning control system is built to clarify the pollution discharge standards for different land use control areas, coordinate the division of living, production and ecological function areas within the village, and conduct classified control of land use within the region according to the nature of land use and the strength of ecological carrying capacity (Figure 12). Ecological protection and conservation areas, characterized by a beautiful natural environment and fragile ecology, can be set as first-level control areas. Except for necessary ecological tourism construction and development, all forms of land addition, reconstruction and expansion are prohibited. The Songzi River and Xindianzi River in Qingyanggang Village and the ecological fluctuation zones on both sides are set as first-level control areas. Major crop producing areas and wetland regulation and storage areas with productive wetland functions are taken as secondary control areas. Water and soil conservation technologies, fertilization optimization and reduction technologies, water-saving irrigation and water-fertilizer integrated technologies should be implemented to strictly control ecological problems caused by non-point source pollution. Villagers’ living areas, livestock and poultry farming areas, and emerging industrial areas with a great environmental impact and centralized sewage discharge function can be taken as third-level control areas. According to different land properties, different levels of pollutant discharge standards can be set, and different pollutant disposal methods should be adopted and strictly implemented in combination with engineering resilience measures.

4.4. Achieve the Adaptive Cycle of Rural Water Ecosystem

The adaptive cycle of water system (Figure 13) in plain and lake area aims to control the quality of water discharged into the river and lake, and form a healthy water ecological circulation system in the agricultural planting area, wetland regulation and storage area, ecological buffer area and ecological protection area. The specific measures are to plan productive wetlands and small and micro wetlands with a water purification function in the wetland regulation and storage area, and implement the purification of aquaculture wastewater through underground pipeline. By organizing surface runoff, eutrophic water with a high nitrogen and phosphorus content is introduced into agricultural planting areas and used as a source of nutrition for the growth of related crops or other plants, and then discharged to natural water bodies, such as rivers and lakes, or used to replenish farmland. Thus, a win–win model of resource circulation and water purification is formed through “eutrophication wastewater—small and micro wetland—purified effluent to replenish farmland”. In addition to application in the “village” area, this model can also be popularized and applied in a larger area. By coordinating the planting and breeding production areas of towns and villages based on rational planning and overall deployment, it is possible to achieve an adaptive cycle of rural water ecosystem in a larger scope. Figure 13 shows the ecological zoning and adaptive cycle of water ecosystem in Qingyanggang Village.

4.5. Implement Water System Connectivity to Improve Water System Pattern and Achieve Ecological Self-Repair

The natural connectivity of the water system enables good self-repair ability of water ecosystem under external impact and interference. Jianghan Plain is flat and characterized by slow water velocity, where sediment accumulation and an elevated riverbed often occur, leading to the suspension of river channels and a decrease in water self-purification capacity. In order to strengthen the anti-interference capacity of the rural natural ecological environment and improve the self-sustaining power of the water system, it is necessary to dreg the broken river and channel, open new necessary river channels, strengthen the water conservancy connection among river, channel, pond and other water systems, increase the channel network density, and then selectively build “blue” and “green” ecological corridors considering the concept of resilience, thus ensuring the safety of regional living and production water.

In plain and lake areas, rivers are characterized by continuity, which makes them the carriers of material flow, energy flow and information flow, and therefore, the lifelines of aquatic organisms [27]. Considering the restoration of river ecosystem, the scale of watershed can well reflect the integrated characteristics of the ecosystem. By optimizing the ecological water environment of the rural area, it is possible to promote rural revitalization and ecological environment construction in river and lake basins from the point to the area.

5. Conclusions

This study takes Qingyanggang Village as the research object and summarizes the reasons for the fragile rural spatial ecology in the river and lake areas of Jianghan Plain from three perspectives. From the perspective of rural spatial resilience, it is proposed that: (1) We should attach importance to planning guidance and the optimization of rural land use structure; (2) Dividing rural ecological resilience zones; (3) Establishing ecological zoning control system; (4) Implementing water system connectivity, improving water system patterns to achieve ecological restoration; (5) Form the overall plan of rural space utilization by the adaptive cycle of the rural water ecosystem, and explore the paths and methods of rural resilience planning in river and lake areas.

As an emerging research field, the concept of spatial resilience is introduced into the study of rural planning. Based on the spatial organization mode, the spatial organization elements are sorted out to establish the co-evolution mechanism of rural spatial pattern and internal changes, which is the main paradigm of spatial resilience research. In the process of village analysis, the research method mainly focuses on field investigation and qualitative analysis, and at present, some evaluation may not be objective enough; the results are still in the implementation stage at the present stage, and the post-evaluation is insufficient. In the future, quantitative analytical methods can be introduced, and the practical transformation and post-evaluation of the planning concept should be introduced in the further study of rural spatial resilience.