established an urban diversity assessment model based on the diversity of urban spatial composition.
For example, Zheng believed that space diversity included the basic characteristics of urban space, basic elements of urban space and other physical attributes of urban space, and the diversity of spatial types was the most direct criterion for evaluating space diversity Yang defined space diversity as the diversity of spatial structure, and considered that urban space diversity was the material carrier and spatial appeal of the city's "social ecological chain" Xu et al. Some researches proved that the theories and methods of species diversity in the taxonomy of plant communities could be used to quantitatively analyze urban space diversity. And the theory was widely applied to the research on rural settlements diversity.
Subsequently, numerous scholars extended the theory further into the diversity of land use, diversity of landscape pattern, and spatial composition diversity. In the 1950s, American scholar Jane Jacobs introduced the theory of Urban Diversity, proclaiming that diversity is nature to big cities. As the carrier of various activities of the settlement, space is of great significance in the structural protection and cultural inheritance of traditional settlements. Therefore, the study of traditional settlements has also become a hot topic in current research on urban and rural development. As an organic whole, urban and rural settlements must emphasize on sustainable development and mutual support. But with the process of urbanization, traditional settlements are facing the threat of homogenization and disappearance. By analyzing the space diversity law and its driving factors of the Tunpu settlements, this study could provide an important scientific basis for the protection planning and management of traditional settlements.Īs an important carrier of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, traditional settlements have important cultural heritage protection value. Among them, policy factors and cultural factors were the dominant factors in the space diversity characteristics of the Tunpu settlements. (3) The space diversities of the Tunpu settlements were affected by the multiple synergies of natural environment, policy support, social-economic factors and cultural customs. (2) There was a significant correlation between the spatial network and spatial morphological indicators and space β-diversity among the Tunpu settlement, and the stepwise regression showed that spatial morphological indicators had a strong explanatory power for the space β-diversity among the Tunpu settlements. The space α-diversity of different types of the Tunpu settlement presents a variety of changes from the core protected areas to coordinated control areas. The results showed that: (1) On the whole, the space α-diversities of the military Tunpu settlements and the commercial Tunpu settlements were relatively high, with strong spatial similarity, while the residential Tunpu settlements had a lower degree of space α-diversity and significant difference. In this study, taking 10 Tunpu settlements in central Guizhou as the research objects, the space diversity of the Tunpu settlement and its influencing factors were analyzed based on the theory and calculation method of plant community species diversity. The Tunpu settlements are the historical product of the co-evolution development of the unique geographical and cultural environment of Guizhou and the military defense policies of Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 AD), which created products such as the station troops and station farms.