A New Livelihood Sustainability Index for Rural Revitalization Assessment—A Modelling Study on Smart Tourism Specialization in China

Abstract

In our rapidly urbanizing world, the problem of rurality versus urbanization is becoming a source of concern. Rural tourism development may become a new important stimulus for promoting a sustainable transformation of the farmers’ livelihood. This calls for a smart specialization in rural tourism where the focus is on a balanced rural revitalization strategy. As part of the empirical research, this paper introduces a livelihood sustainability index. This index helps to construct a balanced system for the evaluation of livelihood sustainability achievements in rural tourism destinations. It is based on livelihood capital, livelihood strategy, and the interlinkage between livelihood and environment, in order to dynamically assess the livelihood sustainability of rural households. Taking Huangpi District of the Wuhan area in China as our applied case study, the livelihood sustainability index appears to show over the past years a significant rise, based on a comprehensive index method, an entropy method, and a coupling coordination model. Our findings show that the development of rural tourism has clearly promoted livelihood sustainability. This has inter alia resulted in the accumulation of livelihood capital, an asset of which both social and cultural capital have benefitted greatly; livelihood strategies have also improved, and therefore so have livelihood diversity and stability; and finally, the interlinkage and coordination degree between livelihood and the environment has also changed positively from a primary to intermediate balanced development. However, the livelihood sustainability index in the area concerned is still relatively low, and has not yet reached its possible optimal level. Hence, there is still much room for improvement. Various approaches can be proposed to achieve a more sustainable livelihood, such as enhancing livelihood capital; narrowing the economic gap between farmers by participating in professional tourism activity; establishing the mechanism of industrial integration and the development of rural eco-tourism; and coordinating a balanced development of livelihood and environmental quality.

Impact of Collaborative Forest Management on Rural Livelihood: A Case Study of Maple Sap Collecting Households in South Korea

“…After participating in effective agricultural practices from the Grain for Green program in China, farmers' livelihood assets and strategies were diversified, and their incomes improved [36]. Similarly, participating in rural tourism as part of a rural revitalization strategy of the Chinese government, farmers' livelihood assets increased, and their livelihood strategies tended to be more diversified, resulting in increased livelihood sustainability [37,38]. In Pakistan, households linked to forest enterprises who implemented a large-scale afforestation project, had more livelihood assets, generated more income, and came to have a higher wealth index as compared to households not linked to such enterprises [39].…”

“…Participation in the policy program and the project changed households' livelihood strategies into more diversified strategies because it increases available assets and accessible resources in previous research [36][37][38][39]. As tapping maple sap in the SNU Forest in early spring only for 2 months, CFM participating households can engage in agriculture, tourism and other businesses for the rest of the year.…”

Evaluation of Livelihood Sustainability in the Context of Natural Forest Land Degradation Vulnerability: A Case Study of Five Counties in China

“…Household labor force ratio (0.0052) [32,34] Total labor force population/total household population Labor education (0.0079) [34] Below primary school = 0; primary school = 1; junior high school = 2; high school = 3; college and above = 4…”

“…Labor skill training (0.0379) [34] Not trained = 0; trained with no effects = 1; trained with a little effects = 2; trained with great effects = 3…”

Assessing Sustainable Rural Development Based on Ecosystem Services Vulnerability

“…Some studies remarked specifically on the importance of vulnerability of ecological components to assess sustainability [31,[39][40][41] but only a few recent works consider specific measures of vulnerability to develop sustainability composite indicators. Li et al [42] proposed a sustainability CI based on livelihood considering indicators of natural capital, such as land capital or drinking water quality, to develop an evaluation index system of livelihood sustainability in rural destinations in the Wuhan area in China. To identify weights of sub-indicators they used a degree of coupling between livelihood and ecosystems.…”