Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 2811: Understanding the Rural Production Space System: A Case Study in Jiangjin, China (Sustainability)

Rural China is experiencing a phase of rapid transition and new conflicts have arisen between the sharp shrink of rural production space and the high goal of rural economic development due to the spatial competition amongst multiple stakeholders and the disordered spatial allocation of rural production resources. To explore how conflicts can be alleviated, this study applies dissipative structure theory to the rural production space system (RPSS). It points out that RPSS belongs to the dissipative structure category, which exhibits a series of characteristics, i.e., an opening system, being far from equilibrium, a nonlinearity regime and random fluctuations. The information entropy principle is introduced to RPSS to build a quantitative analysis model and to quantify the variation in the entropy changes of RPSS. This study uses the Jiangjin District, located in southwestern Chongqing (China), as an example to analyze the entropy changes in its RPSS, by applying the quantitative analysis model, and to identify the reasons for these changes. Results are helpful in overcoming the spatial allocation of rural production resources and in providing a means to enable the sustainable transformation of RPSS.