Analysis of the effect of human settlement environment management and influencing factors in the Zhangye section of the Heihe River Basin

The implementation of rural human settlement environment governance is a vital aspect of rural revitalization and a practical necessity to fulfill people’s long-held aspirations for a better life. To reveal the effectiveness and influencing factors of rural human settlement environment governance in the Zhangye section of the Heihe River Basin, this study adopts a micro-perspective and focuses on five dimensions: farmers’ environmental awareness, village environmental infrastructure, village economic strength, village social capital, and village governance capacity. Based on survey data collected from 434 sample households in the Zhangye section of the Heihe River Basin, this study employs a structural equation model to conduct a quantitative analysis of the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance and its influencing factors. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) 85.24% of farmers have a high level of satisfaction with the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance. However, there is also a portion of farmers who are not highly satisfied or even dissatisfied. 2) The effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance is influenced by multiple factors. Higher levels of farmers' environmental awareness, more complete village environmental infrastructure, and stronger economic strength all contribute to more significant improvements in rural human settlement environment governance.3)Among the factors that have a positive impact on the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance, the ranking based on the size of the impact effect is as follows: village environmental infrastructure, farmers' environmental awareness, and village economic strength. 4) Village governance capacity has a significant negative impact on the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance, while village social capital does not have a significant impact on the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance. 5) There are interactions among the various influencing factors. Richer village social capital and stronger village governance capacity tend to result in higher levels of farmers' environmental awareness. Higher levels of farmers’ environmental awareness, coupled with stronger village economic strength and governance capacity, facilitate the construction and maintenance of village environmental infrastructure. It can be seen that the influencing factors of rural human settlement environment governance are multifaceted and complex. Based on the above conclusions, the following countermeasures and suggestions are proposed: efforts should be made to strengthen the promotion of rural environmental protection, enhance farmers’ awareness and participation in environmental protection, consolidate the economic foundation for village environmental governance, cultivate new types of social capital in villages, and strengthen the organizational support for village environmental governance, in order to improve the effectiveness of rural human settlement environment governance.