Study on the Flow of Rural Labor Force and the Contribution of Terrain Factor in Shaanxi, China

The flow of rural labor to urban is a significant phenomenon in China during the last 20 years. In spite of many researches focus on the driving force of economy, terrain is an important index in the rural development. There is a question that whether the flow of rural labor has some relationships with terrain. The study used the relief degree of land surface (RDLS) as terrain index, and the cost distance model and the center of gravity model to analyze the relationship between terrain and labor flows. The results indicated: (1) In the last 20 years, the rural labor force was not simply flowing to the low terrain region in Shaanxi province. And the RDLS was constantly strengthening the influence on the movement. (2) The RDLS was low in Guanzhong region, and the translation of rural labors relatively was not significant. Since North Shaanxi act as the energy industry base, the number of rural labors there increased faster than in South Shaanxi. (3) The movements of economical centers took an important role in the change of rural labor centers, and terrain factors also showed a high correlation with them. It is found that the lower of the terrain index, the higher of the land intensive degree, the more intensive of non-agriculturalization process.