Land-Use Policy and Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience: A Structured Review of Conceptual Pathways to Rural Revitalization

Abstract

Under pressure from climate change, market volatility, and policy adjustments, rural livelihood systems face increasing vulnerability, which threatens poverty reduction gains. Livelihood resilience—the ability to withstand shocks, sustain livelihoods, and drive transformation—has become central to assessing sustainable rural development; however, its concepts, metrics, and links to land-use policies have not yet been systematically integrated. This review synthesizes existing research on farmers’ livelihood resilience and its relationship with land-use policy, yielding three main findings: (1) It synthesizes existing definitions and clarifies major assessment approaches based on the distinction between resilience and vulnerability. (2) Multiple drivers influencing livelihood resilience were identified, many of which can be directly or indirectly influenced, mediated, or coordinated through land-use policy and related rural governance instruments. (3) Three potential pathways linking land-use policies to buffering, adaptive, and transformative capacities were identified, with policy effects varying across households and contexts and potentially contributing to rural revitalization through changes in livelihood resources and opportunities.

1. Introduction

Farmers’ livelihood resilience refers to the capacity of farm households to maintain basic livelihoods, restore production and living conditions, and pursue adaptive adjustment and sustainable development under external shocks such as climate change, market volatility, resource constraints and institutional change [1,2]. Farmers’ livelihood resilience is a core issue in resilience research and the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [3]. With over 40% of the global population still residing in rural areas, this topic has become increasingly important as farm households face the compounded impacts of climate variability, fluctuations in agricultural product prices, labor mobility, and changing resource constraints [4,5,6,7]. For farm households, land is not only a basic input for crop and livestock production, but also a property asset, residential space, source of ecosystem services and platform for rural industrial development [8,9,10]. Changes in land acquisition, security of tenure, transferability, land-use restrictions, infrastructure, and compensation may not only alter the livelihood resources that farmers own and can mobilize, but may also influence their behavioral choices, such as production investment, labor allocation, and livelihood diversification [11,12,13,14]. These land allocation processes do not arise spontaneously but are rooted in the institutional environment shaped by land-use policies. Consequently, land-use policies may influence farmers’ livelihood resilience—their ability to buffer against shocks, restore production, and achieve transformation—by reshaping access to rights and resources, altering livelihood capital, and inducing changes in farmers’ behavior [9,10].

Existing research has developed along two main lines. The first focuses on farmers’ livelihood resilience itself, drawing mainly on the sustainable livelihoods framework and social–ecological resilience theory to examine its conceptual meaning, measurement dimensions and determinants. The sustainable livelihoods framework emphasizes that farm households cope with vulnerability by combining human, natural, physical, financial and social capital, while access to and allocation of these forms of capital are strongly shaped by institutions and policy environments [15,16,17,18]. Resilience theory further highlights the capacity of systems to absorb disturbance, adapt and transform under external shocks [19,20,21]. Building on this foundation, Speranza et al. [2] proposed a livelihood resilience measurement framework centered on buffer capacity, self-organization and learning capacity, advancing the operationalization of farmers’ livelihood resilience. Subsequent studies have shown that modern agricultural production systems, specialized village development, ecological compensation, income diversification and knowledge learning mechanisms are associated with increased farmers’ livelihood resilience by improving resource access, strengthening external support and building agency [22,23,24]. The second line of research approaches the issue from land institutions and rural spatial governance, examining how policy instruments such as land consolidation, tenure documentation, idle homestead revitalization, ecological compensation and rural living-environment governance affect land-use efficiency, resource accessibility and farmers’ development capacity [10,12,13,14].

Overall, although existing research has revealed the capacity structure of farmers’ livelihood resilience and the resource allocation effect of land policy, a unified analytical framework for land policy evaluation has not yet been formed. According to Barrett et al., existing resilience research still exhibits significant differences in conceptual definition, dimensional classification, and measurement methods, thus necessitating further clarification of how farmers’ livelihood resilience is conceptualized and operationalized in empirical research [25]. In their systematic review and meta-analysis, Fan et al. identified multiple factors influencing livelihood resilience, such as income, food access, and adaptability, but have not further determined which of these factors can be affected, mediated, or coordinated through land-use policies [26]. Natarajan et al. further emphasize, through their critical review and reconstruction of the sustainable livelihoods framework, that institutions and policies are important structural processes shaping access to livelihood resources and livelihood pathways; however, from the perspective of policy evaluation issues addressed in this paper, this framework does not further establish the correspondence between specific land policy instruments, changes in livelihood capital, and different resilience capacities [27]. In contrast, Higgins et al. and Huntington & Lisher’s reviews of evidence on land tenure and land governance show that land system reform has formed a basic path of action from tenure security, investment, and resource allocation to farmer development outcomes, but the relevant evidence mainly revolves around outcomes such as investment, productivity, income, and welfare, and the strength of evidence for different outcomes is inconsistent. This further suggests that existing research lacks a policy-oriented analytical framework that can systematically compare how different land-use policy tools are linked to changes in livelihood capital and different resilience capacities [28,29].

Against this background, this study re-examines the formation of farmers’ livelihood resilience from the perspective of land-use policy, responding to the practical needs of rural revitalization and sustainable rural development. This study employs a structured literature review, combining bibliometric and qualitative content analysis methods, to address three questions: (1) How is farmers’ livelihood resilience conceptualized and operationalized in empirical research? (2) What factors influence farmers’ livelihood resilience, and can these factors be influenced, mediated, or coordinated through land-use policies? (3) How can a policy-oriented framework be developed—based on China’s land policy system—to assess the potential impacts of various land-use policies on farmers’ livelihood resilience? To this end, the study aims to integrate research on land-use policy with that on farmers’ livelihood resilience, thereby laying a theoretical foundation and providing analytical tools for optimizing land policy design, enhancing farmers’ livelihood resilience, and advancing rural revitalization. This study comprises eight sections; the next section details the review methodology employed. Section 3 reviews the evolution and definition of farmers’ livelihood resilience. Section 4 synthesizes existing assessment methods for farmers’ livelihood resilience, while Section 5 summarizes the factors influencing it. Section 6 analyzes the interactions between land policy and farmers’ livelihood resilience. Section 7 presents a discussion, comparing the proposed framework with existing ones and addressing its scope of applicability and research limitations. Section 8 summarizes the study’s key findings, policy implications, and directions for future empirical validation.

2. Research Methodology

This study employs a structured literature review approach, combining bibliometric analysis with qualitative content analysis. Given the distinct objectives of these two types of analysis, two separate datasets were constructed: a bibliometric dataset to identify development trends and the knowledge structure of research on rural livelihood resilience and land-use policy; and a core review dataset to address the research questions and facilitate full-text evidence extraction, comparison, and conceptual synthesis.

2.1. Bibliometric Dataset and Analysis

To identify the knowledge structure and thematic evolution within this research field, a bibliometric search was conducted in October 2025 using the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC), specifically covering the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) and the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). The search query combined the terms “rural livelihood resilience” and “land use policy,” with the publication period restricted to 2015–2025; all retrieved records were included in the bibliometric analysis.

CiteSpace 6.3.R1 was employed for the bibliometric analysis, covering the period from 2015 to 2025; the g-index was selected for node selection, with the parameter k set to 9. The analysis focused on annual publication trends, burst detection, and keyword co-occurrence to identify key research themes, knowledge linkages, and the evolution of research in the field. To provide a supplementary view of annual publication trends for related themes, Figure 1b also presents statistics on annual publication counts from 2015 to 2025 based on the search terms “rural resilience” and the combination of “rural resilience” and “land management,” which reflect themes frequently identified in the keyword co-occurrence analysis.

2.2. Core Literature Search and Screening

Building on the bibliometric analysis, the core review was intentionally focused on the intersection between rural livelihood resilience and land-use policy. The literature underpinning the qualitative synthesis was independently re-searched in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) in May 2025, restricted to the SCI-EXPANDED and SSCI indexes, using the terms rural livelihood resilience AND land use policy. No lower publication-year limit was imposed, allowing all records available in WoSCC up to the search date to be considered. Retrieved records were exported with bibliographic information, including publication year, publication date, source journal and abstract, and were initially screened for relevance on the basis of titles and abstracts. Studies were eligible if they provided substantive evidence addressing at least one of the following research questions: (1) how household or rural livelihood resilience is conceptualized and measured; (2) which factors shape farmers’ livelihood resilience; and (3) through what mechanisms land-use policies, land institutional arrangements or land-use transitions influence farmers’ livelihood resilience and its associated outcomes. The search identified 496 records. After duplicate removal and title-and-abstract screening, 161 articles were retained for full-text assessment. Application of the eligibility criterion described above during full-text review resulted in a final sample of 81 independent studies for qualitative synthesis. The complete study-selection process is presented in Supplementary Figure S1.

2.3. Data Extraction and Qualitative Synthesis

Full texts of the 81 included studies were reviewed and systematically coded using a structured data-extraction matrix (Supplementary Table S1). Extracted information included definitions of farmers’ livelihood resilience, research questions, resilience measures, key influencing factors, farmers’ coping and adaptive responses, principal findings, relevant land-use policies or institutional arrangements, evidence on policy–resilience relationships, and reported limitations and future research directions. Where information was not reported or was not applicable, the corresponding cells were left blank; no information was inferred or supplemented beyond that provided in the original studies. To further assess the credibility of the evidence base, methodological quality was appraised using the Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT, 2018) [30]. MMAT was applied to 58 empirical studies; the remaining 23 conceptual, review, or modeling studies fell outside its design categories (Supplementary Table S2).

The qualitative synthesis was initially structured around the three research questions and subsequently refined through comparative full-text analysis. Recurring themes included resilience concepts and measures, influencing factors, land policy instruments, changes in livelihood resources, farmer responses and policy outcomes. Across these themes, we identified a recurrent analytical pathway linking policy instruments, changes in livelihood resources, farmer responses and resilience outcomes. The resulting responses were further interpreted in terms of buffering, adaptive and transformative capacities, providing the basis for the conceptual framework used in the subsequent analysis.

Given the methodological heterogeneity of the included studies, evidence was interpreted jointly according to study design and study-specific methodological quality. Quasi-experimental and longitudinal studies with fewer methodological concerns provided comparatively stronger evidence for assessing policy-related effects, whereas cross-sectional studies were used primarily to identify associations. Qualitative, case-based, and modeling studies were used mainly to elucidate mechanisms and contextual variation. Accordingly, stronger effect statements were made only where the design and analytical strategy of the original study provided a clear basis for such inference.

3. The Development and Definition of Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

3.1. The Origin and Development of Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

The concept of resilience derives from the Latin resilio, meaning “to rebound” or “to return to an original state”. Initially used in engineering to describe the capacity of materials or systems to recover after a disturbance, resilience was introduced into ecology in the 1970s as a property of systems exposed to stress or disruption [19]. In this context, resilience refers to the ability of a system to absorb disturbances while retaining its core functions, structures and feedback mechanisms. It is commonly understood through four interrelated dimensions: resistance, adaptation, recovery and transformation [31,32,33]. With the development of social–ecological systems theory, the meaning of resilience has expanded from an emphasis on internal stability to a broader concern with dynamic interactions between systems and their external environments [34]. Resilience is therefore multidimensional: it encompasses the robustness required to withstand shocks and maintain essential functions, the adaptive capacity to respond to changing conditions, and the transformative capacity to reshape structures and functions through proactive governance [35,36,37].

From the 1990s onwards, intensifying climate change and social transformation shifted resilience research toward questions of human agency and development [38,39]. Within this broader turn, farmers’ livelihood resilience emerged as a distinct field of inquiry. The sustainable livelihoods approach advanced by the UK Department for International Development provided an important resource- and institution-based foundation for later livelihood resilience research [18], while subsequent work explicitly linked livelihood perspectives with resilience, agency, rights, and transformation [1]. As research has progressed, farmers’ livelihood resilience has come to denote the capacity of individuals and groups to sustain livelihoods, adapt to changing pressures and pursue transformation under conditions of uncertainty. Compared with urban areas, which often benefit from stronger economic resources and institutional support, rural areas generally face weaker development foundations, lower stress resistance and more limited capacity for proactive transformation [40,41]. The application of resilience thinking to livelihoods has therefore provided an important lens for understanding rural development challenges and has become a growing focus of both academic research and policy practice [42,43].

During the 2010s, livelihood resilience research entered a phase of interdisciplinary integration and quantitative indicator development, accompanied by continuing debate over its definition and measurement [44,45]. Conceptually, many early definitions placed disproportionate emphasis on economic resilience, while giving insufficient attention to social dimensions such as income sustainability, welfare, equity and livelihood security. In terms of measurement, Ifejika Speranza et al. [2] proposed three core dimensions for assessing livelihood resilience from the perspective of social actors: buffering capacity, self-organizing capacity and learning capacity. This framework became an important operational basis for constructing farmers’ livelihood resilience indices. However, overlaps remained between social capital under buffering capacity and institutional organization under self-organization capacity. Tanner et al. [1] further argued that agency, rights and transformation should be incorporated into livelihood resilience analysis, thereby shifting the focus from maintaining existing livelihoods toward enabling structural change and strengthening links with policy and development practice.

In recent years, global and regional shocks, including COVID-19 and extreme droughts, have accelerated research on farmers’ livelihood resilience, especially in relation to spatial inequality, mechanism identification and policy intervention effects [7,46]. Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement in 2015, farmers’ livelihood resilience has become a key concept linking disaster risk reduction, sustainable agriculture and rural revitalization. Research in higher-income rural contexts has often emphasized climate adaptation, collaborative governance, and knowledge co-production [47,48]. By contrast, studies in lower- and middle-income rural contexts have more often emphasized vulnerability, livelihood sustainability, poverty reduction, and disaster resilience [46,47,48,49,50]. Together, these studies have advanced livelihood resilience from a conceptual framework to a measurable and policy-relevant field, producing an interdisciplinary and cross-regional body of knowledge on agricultural risk and sustainable development.

Recent work also shows that methodological advances and macro-level policies are reshaping the assessment and governance of livelihood resilience. Longitudinal approaches have enabled more detailed assessment of resilience dynamics; for example, a 22-year study of Behramkale (Assos), Türkiye, traced changes in rural community resilience [51,52]. At the policy level, secure and adaptable land tenure arrangements can strengthen farmers’ incentives and capacity to respond to climate change [53]. However, policy outcomes may remain constrained by deeper structural inequalities, including gendered access to resources and uneven livelihood opportunities [54,55,56].

Future research should develop a multi-scalar governance framework that combines objective and subjective indicators and grounds resilience assessment in context-specific rural settings. Such work should remain attentive to persistent challenges of rural poverty and land governance [57,58]. Integrating livelihood resilience into the design and evaluation of land-use policies would enable more targeted interventions across key processes, including shock resistance, adaptive adjustment and livelihood transformation [1,57,59]. Such an approach could help coordinate rural economic vitality, social inclusion and ecological restoration in a more coherent manner [13,57]. It would also provide an analytical basis for identifying structural constraints on rural development, while offering institutional and governance support for consolidating poverty alleviation gains and advancing rural revitalization [13,57,58].

3.2. Definition of Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

The theory of farmers’ livelihood resilience is moving beyond a single disciplinary construct toward a broader framework for understanding the sustainability of rural communities [60]. Under the combined pressures of climate change and global poverty reduction, this concept is central to reconciling short-term responses to risk with long-term rural transformation. Yet, as shown in

Table 1. Representative conceptualizations relevant to farmers’ livelihood resilience.

Study Context	Analytical Level	Definition Emphasis	References
Resettlement	Household	Information processing, purposeful action and reflective learning	[56]
Hazard-prone areas	Household	Coping, adaptive and transformative capacities	[63]
Poverty alleviation	Household	Maintenance, adaptation and transformation of livelihood functions	[64]
Rural transition	Community	Resistance, absorption, adaptation and recovery	[36]
Land-use transformation	Social–ecological system	Interaction between ecosystem services and human well-being	[59]
Agricultural development	Agricultural system	Resistance, recovery and functional optimization	[65]

, no consensus has been reached on its definition. Existing studies variously emphasize the capacity of farmers and rural communities to adjust to external shocks, cope with future uncertainty, optimize agricultural systems, and process information. One strand of research conceptualizes rural areas, like urban areas, as social–ecological systems. From this perspective, farmers’ livelihood resilience refers to the capacity of rural communities to maintain or restore dynamic equilibrium through the coupling of ecosystem services and human well-being, encompassing ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions of resilience [59,60,61,62]. A second strand defines rural areas primarily through their agricultural functions and focuses on the resilience of smallholders. This perspective examines how farmers respond to multiple shocks under conditions of limited land resources through organizational optimization, technological innovation and the coordinated enhancement of agricultural robustness, adaptability and transformability.

Here, farmers’ livelihood resilience is defined as the capacity of rural households to maintain essential livelihood functions, adapt livelihood strategies and reconfigure longer-term livelihood trajectories in response to external shocks and persistent change. Evidence at the community and regional levels is used primarily to characterize the governance arrangements, social networks, and geographical contexts that condition household-level resilience, rather than as an equivalent measure of household livelihood resilience. This definition foregrounds both household agency and the institutional conditions that shape livelihood choices [66]. It also distinguishes resilience from vulnerability. Whereas vulnerability refers to exposure, sensitivity and constrained coping capacity, resilience extends beyond risk absorption to include learning, self-organization and transformative change [38,67,68].

4. The Assessment System of Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

Farmers’ livelihood resilience is an interdisciplinary and multidimensional concept that spans sociology, economics and environmental science. Existing studies commonly quantify this concept by constructing assessment frameworks and assigning weights to indicators using different methods. This review systematically synthesizes and analyses the measurement criteria for farmers’ livelihood resilience in the existing literature (

Table 2. Comparison of selected approaches to livelihood resilience assessment.

Framework	Core Dimensions	Typical Methods and Data	Strengths	Limitations	Typical Applications	Representative Source(s)
Livelihood resilience indicator framework	Buffer capacity; self-organization; learning capacity	Composite indicators; household/community surveys	Integrates buffering, organization, and learning	Potential overlap among dimensions and indicators	Household/community livelihood resilience	[2]
Three-capacity resilience approach	Absorptive; adaptive; transformative capacities	Multidimensional indicators; household/community surveys	Distinguishes maintenance, adjustment, and transformation	Capacity boundaries and indicators vary across studies	Shock response and resilience-capacity comparison	[63,69]
Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF)	Five livelihood capitals; vulnerability context; transforming structures and processes	Household livelihood, asset, institutional, and contextual data	Identifies resource endowments and institutional conditions	Does not directly distinguish resilience capacities or policy-effect pathways	Livelihood resources, constraints, and strategies	[27]
RIMA/resilience-capacity index approach	Basic services; assets; social safety nets; adaptive capacity	Household surveys; factor-based/composite resilience indices	Integrates multidimensional household resources into a comparable measure	Sensitive to indicator and model specification	Household resilience and food security	[70]
Six-attribute community-resilience framework	Knowledge; networks; infrastructure; economic diversity; governance; people–place relations	Longitudinal or mixed community-level data	Captures social, spatial, and long-term community change	Limited direct inference about household or single-policy effects	Rural community, tourism, and heritage transitions	[51]
DPSER framework	Driver; pressure; state; effect; response	Ecological, socioeconomic, and policy indicators; composite weighting	Organizes system change and policy responses coherently	Long indicator chains may obscure household heterogeneity	Regional rural-resilience assessment	[71]
Disaster-management cycle approach	Preparedness; response; recovery; prevention	Disaster surveys, event information, and composite indicators	Highlights disaster-response and recovery processes	Less suited to gradual or long-term livelihood transformation	Disaster-risk and recovery assessment	[72]
Social–ecological systems (SES) framework	Resources; actors; governance; subsystem interactions	Multi-scale ecological, socioeconomic, and governance data	Captures cross-scale human–environment interactions	Data-intensive; household policy effects are difficult to isolate	Territorial and rural human-settlement resilience	[73]
Perceived community-resilience approach	Leadership; collective efficacy; preparedness; place attachment; social trust	Perception surveys; profile/regression or comparative analysis	Captures subjective and social dimensions of resilience	Subjective measures may diverge from objective livelihood outcomes	Community resilience perceptions and typologies	[74]

). On this basis, it further examines assessment methods for rural resilience, integrates commonly used indicators, and establishes a conceptual analytical framework for organizing and comparing existing measurement dimensions and indicators.

Early research on farmers’ livelihood resilience largely focused on “static resilience,” with evaluation indicators mainly covering independence, collaboration, connectivity, interdependence, and stability. As research advanced, scholars further introduced the DPSER model to represent “dynamic resilience,” focusing on the evaluation of buffering capacity, self-organization, and recovery [71,75]. In 2008, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) introduced and applied the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis (RIMA) framework to measure farmers’ livelihood resilience [70]. Frankenberger et al. [69] first proposed the influential three-dimensional resilience capacity model, dividing resilience into absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities, and developed corresponding community-level indicators. Subsequently, the Food Security Information Network and the Resilience Measurement Technical Working Group introduced a unified causal framework to promote conceptual and operational harmonization, while Constas et al. [76] emphasized that resilience should be anchored to specific development outcomes such as food security, poverty reduction, or health. Building upon this foundation, the FAO [70] formally adopted the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes model, treating indicators of resilience capacities as causes of a latent resilience variable and food security indicators as its outcomes, thereby quantifying the relative contribution of each capacity to overall resilience. In parallel, TANGO International developed a capability-based measurement approach using factor analysis, extending the three-dimensional capacity model [77]. Despite these advances, many frameworks still under-represent dynamic processes, and debate persists over the empirical overlap between absorptive and adaptive capacities during assessment [2,63]. Based on these advancements and issues, this review summarizes the three-dimensional livelihood resilience framework into buffering capacity, adaptive capacity, and transformative capacity, corresponding to different stages of livelihood development, enabling a more systematic and comprehensive assessment of farmers’ livelihood resilience.

Recent work has also drawn on the livelihood capital lens to assess resilience [22]. The UK DFID proposed five types of capital required for sustainable livelihoods—financial capital, physical capital, natural capital, human capital, and social capital—that are typically used as primary indicators and quantified through several secondary indicators, with methods like entropy weighting used to measure farmers’ livelihood resilience [17,18,78]. On this basis, Zheng and Chou [43] added cultural and built capital, though both conceptually overlap with social and physical capital. Some studies have incorporated psychological factors into assessments of livelihood resilience [63]. However, evidence from the studies included in this review is insufficient to establish psychological capital as a distinct form of livelihood capital. We therefore do not treat psychological capital as a validated sixth livelihood-capital category. Instead, psychological dimensions are considered supplementary factors only where they are explicitly measured in the original studies (Figure 2).

In summary, this review integrates soft factors, such as social capital and cultural traditions, with hard conditions, including infrastructure and economic indicators, within a conceptual framework that combines livelihood capital with resilience capacities. Livelihood capital captures the resource base available to rural households, whereas the capacity-based perspective differentiates livelihood responses to policy interventions. The selection of specific indicators should nevertheless remain sensitive to the research question, policy instrument, study context, and data availability, and their discriminant validity and responsiveness to policy interventions should be further evaluated through empirical analysis.

5. Factors Influencing Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

Multiple factors from multiple levels affect farmers’ livelihood resilience. At the foundational level, livelihood capital constitutes the resource base for risk buffering [17,18,79]. Livelihood transitions associated with migration and non-agricultural labor mobility can also alter household resource portfolios and livelihood options [80]. Such buffering capacity is typically shaped by the interaction of household-level resources and institutional support. At the household level, member health, labor availability, access to information, and participation in community affairs are generally associated with more effective coping and stronger livelihood resilience [7,81]. At the institutional level, governance effectiveness and the quality of institutional arrangements may further influence resilience through resource allocation and coordinated action [82]. Overall, higher educational attainment, better household health and stronger social ties are consistently associated with greater capacity to absorb shocks and sustain livelihoods.

At the meso-system level, community and regional characteristics play a critical mediating role. The geographical location of villages, transport accessibility and land-resource endowments directly shape production conditions and operating costs, thereby constituting the initial sources of variation in resilience [7,22]. The maturity of land markets and differences in resource endowments can influence the efficiency of regional resource allocation [8,11,83]. Stronger capacity to optimize land resources can support more diversified economic structures and thus exhibit greater resilience to exogenous shocks from natural disasters or pandemics [7]. The openness of the market environment promotes the iterative upgrading of adaptive capacity through income diversification and the creation of non-agricultural employment opportunities [5,84,85]. At the macro-policy level, fiscal transfer payments drive resilience generation via both direct capital injections and indirect incentives for livelihood strategy innovation [86]. Additionally, technological innovation and the enhancement of production factors through urbanization supply breakthrough power for the extension of rural functions, thereby promoting the resilience of farmers’ livelihoods [87,88,89].

The complexity of studying the factors influencing farmers’ livelihood resilience is further demonstrated by the fact that, in most cases, it results from the coupling effect of multiple dimensions. The group trust mechanisms in social networks and women’s empowerment practices may enhance policy responsiveness by lowering community collaboration costs. Demographic characteristics in social networks affect whether individual farmers can recover from adversity, with variables such as gender, education, and age all influencing livelihood resilience [56,82,90]. Cultural traditions, such as local identity and knowledge-sharing models, strengthen the foundation of resilience by enhancing collective learning capacity [43,82]. Sustainable use of ecological resources, such as wetland protection and farmland quality maintenance, provides stability in conjunction with the efficiency of public service provision within governance systems, collectively maintaining the resilience threshold of the system [73]. Current challenges in resilience building include endogenous issues such as labor shortages and cultural fragmentation caused by population aging, as well as exogenous pressures such as global fluctuations and extreme weather events [84,91,92,93,94]. Existing research suggests that addressing these challenges may require coordinating policy design, digital infrastructure development, and community capacity-building; fostering synergies between resource accumulation and institutional adaptability; and providing support to enhance farmers’ resilience, adaptive capacity, and ability to transition.

In sum, livelihood capital, livelihood transitions, and livelihood buffering constitute the foundational drivers of resilience, with land endowment, tenure security, and transportation conditions as the core geographic elements. The formulation and implementation of land policies can shape these key geographic factors through top-level governance, thereby influencing livelihood resilience. Because many components that influence livelihood resilience can be directly or indirectly influenced, mediated, or coordinated through land-use policy and related rural governance instruments, examining the interaction between land-use policy and farmers’ livelihood resilience is essential. Effectively balancing government regulation and market flexibility to enhance farmers’ livelihood resilience remains an important area for further research (Figure 3).

6. Interactions Between Different Land-Use Policies and Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience

Persistent urban–rural dualism and a long-standing policy bias toward urban development have contributed to disordered land-use in rural areas, including farmland fragmentation, village hollowing, and ecological degradation [83,95]. These conditions may weaken the resource base of rural households and constrain their capacity to cope with external shocks [71]. As the most fundamental allocative resource in rural areas, land plays a decisive role in shaping the trajectory and quality of rural transformation through the design and implementation of land-use policies [83].

6.1. Conceptual Assessment Framework and Selection Logic for Farmers’ Livelihood Resilience Under Land-Use Policies

Land-use policies can reshape the livelihood resources available to farming households, including land assets, income, infrastructure, labor, social relations and market opportunities. Changes in livelihood capital alone, however, do not indicate the type of resilience capacity that policy interventions ultimately generate. Building on the evaluation frameworks synthesized in Section 4, this review therefore takes the farming household as the primary unit of analysis and adopts buffering, adaptive and transformative capacities as the three conceptual dimensions for organizing and interpreting land policy effects. These dimensions capture whether policy interventions strengthen households’ ability to maintain basic livelihood functions, adjust existing livelihood strategies or restructure longer-term livelihood pathways, respectively [63,69,96]. The specific factors presented in Figure 4 are intended as illustrative examples synthesized from the reviewed literature and are not presented here as an empirically validated or standardized indicator set.

The three dimensions were selected because they distinguish resilience outcomes according to both the nature of household responses and the extent of livelihood change. Buffering capacity refers to the ability of households to limit losses and maintain essential livelihood functions during periods of stress by drawing on existing or mobilizable resources, including land, income, savings and household health. Adaptive capacity reflects the ability to respond to changing environmental or institutional conditions through resource reallocation and adjustments in production, employment and market participation; it is shaped by factors such as policy accessibility, the effectiveness of local institutions, cooperative networks, access to information and public participation. Transformative capacity denotes the ability to reconfigure longer-term livelihood pathways through education and skills development, technological adoption, employment diversification and participation in new markets. These capacities are therefore not defined by a strict pre- and post-shock sequence, but instead represent increasing degrees of livelihood response—maintenance, adjustment and restructuring.

6.2. Pathways Linking Land-Use Policy, Livelihood Resilience, and Rural Revitalization

This section uses China’s land policy system as the basis for classifying policy interventions and examines how three broad policy domains—land-use planning, land-based economic policies and multifunctional land-use transitions—shape farmers’ livelihood resilience through buffering, adaptive and transformative capacities (

Table 3. Evidence linking land-use policy instruments to livelihood resilience mechanisms and capacities.

Policy Category	Mechanism	Resilience Capacity	Study Context and Design	Key Finding	References
Land-use planning and consolidation	Reconfigures farmland and settlement land, integrates ecological restoration, and improves resource conditions	Buffering (primary); adaptive	Hubei, China; farmer survey; livelihood resilience index; difference-in-differences	Land consolidation improved livelihood resilience	[97]
	Combines spatial planning, mitigation measures, and collaborative governance to reduce hazard vulnerability	Buffering; adaptive	Rural counties along the Mississippi River, United States; modeling, content analysis, and comparative case evidence	Outcomes varied with planning quality and governance conditions	[98]
	Promotes priority-crop specialization; production shifts and relative prices affect household food consumption	Buffering	Rwanda; household panel data; propensity-score matching combined with difference-in-differences	Adverse effects were stronger under high-intensity consolidation	[99]
Land-based economic policies	Reallocates land and livelihood capital and may alter employment, social networks, and knowledge access	Adaptive (primary); buffering	Shenyang, China; 329 farm households; propensity-score matching	Participation in farmland transfer was associated with higher livelihood resilience levels	[100]
	Reallocates rural land through land market development and government regulation	Adaptive; transformative	Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Wuxi, China; comparative rural-scale study; multidimensional resilience indicators	Resilience outcomes differed across development models	[59]
	Social–ecological feedbacks alter livelihood decisions and social networks, while social ties provide buffering support	Buffering; adaptive	Poor rural community, China; household scale; social-network analysis and agent-based modeling	Modeled livelihood resilience declined under the existing policy scenario for 2013–2030	[101]
Multifunctional land-use transition policies	Spatial adaptation, knowledge updating, and enterprise collaboration reshape livelihood assets and livelihood strategies	Adaptive; transformative	Upper Yihe River, China; 262 tourism smallholders; household survey	Livelihood resilience levels were associated with different risk-response strategies among tourism smallholders	[102]
	Skills, networks, infrastructure, diversification, and participatory governance support livelihood adjustment	Adaptive; transformative	Assos, Turkey; longitudinal community case study, 2000–2022	Lower dependence on a single livelihood capital and stronger cross-level collaboration were associated with greater adaptive capacity	[51]
	Diversification, hybrid planning, and internal–external networks connect local actors with expertise and markets	Adaptive; transformative	Wushi Village, Hunan, China; village/community case study	Resilience gains were linked to multifunctional development	[103]

).

(1)

Land-use planning and consolidation: strengthening the resource base for risk buffering

Land-use planning and land-consolidation policies can strengthen buffering capacity by improving the material conditions underpinning agricultural production and rural livelihoods [12,13,58,97]. Farmland consolidation, construction-land adjustment, improvements in irrigation and transport infrastructure, and ecological restoration can modify the spatial configuration, quality, and functional use of land, thereby alleviating production constraints and improving households’ capacity to withstand production-related and environmental risks [12,13,104]. Evidence from farming households in several counties and cities in Hubei further indicates substantial heterogeneity in these effects. Gains in livelihood resilience vary across income groups and levels of agricultural dependence and are greater in plain areas than in hilly regions [97]. Improvements in land quality, production conditions and factor allocation therefore do not translate uniformly into greater resilience; their effects are conditioned by pre-existing livelihood structures and local biophysical circumstances.

Land-use planning, village spatial governance and associated infrastructure can also reduce exposure to flooding and other natural hazards while improving preparedness and response capacity [98]. Their effectiveness, however, depends on the extent to which planning interventions correspond to local livelihood needs [94,99]. For households with limited labor, strong dependence on land or few alternative income sources, highly standardized land-use arrangements or rapid changes in established production practices may restrict the scope for autonomous adjustment [105].

The contribution of planning and consolidation to livelihood resilience, therefore, extends beyond gains in land-use efficiency. More fundamentally, it depends on whether these interventions secure households’ sustained access to productive land, infrastructure and risk-protection resources. Their principal contribution lies in strengthening the resource base for buffering shocks, although outcomes remain contingent on household livelihood characteristics, geographical conditions and the complementary measures accompanying policy implementation.

(2)

Land-based economic policies: resource reallocation and livelihood adaptation

Land-based economic policies influence adaptive capacity primarily by shaping households’ ability to reallocate resources and adjust livelihood strategies. Secure and predictable property rights can reduce uncertainty and expand the scope for livelihood adjustment [11,28,53], whereas the outcomes of land reallocation are further conditioned by land market development, transaction rules, and the governance capacity of local governments and village organizations [59,83,106]. Transparent transactions, stable tenure expectations, effective information provision and accessible dispute-resolution mechanisms can lower the risks associated with livelihood adjustment [53]. Conversely, restricted participation or unequal benefit distribution may limit the gains available to particular households.

Evidence on fiscal support similarly suggests that the structure of policy provision may be as important as its scale. Fiscal transfers can strengthen livelihood resilience by increasing livelihood capital and facilitating the reallocation of livelihood factors, but their effects vary according to the composition of expenditure. Livelihood-oriented public spending tends to reach a broader range of households, whereas direct cash transfers may produce weaker, or, in some settings, adverse effects because of limited coverage or the displacement of other public expenditures. Village-level fiscal capacity and dependence on external transfers can further condition policy outcomes [86].

Taken together, these findings suggest that land-related economic policies enhance adaptive capacity when they expand the range of feasible livelihood choices available to households. Secure tenure, well-functioning markets, and public investment can create such opportunities, but their effects depend on whether policy resources can be combined with household labor, skills, capital, and market access. Policy provision alone is therefore insufficient; resilience gains emerge when institutional support can be converted into a sustained capacity for livelihood adjustment.

(3)

Multifunctional land-use transition policies: diversification and long-term livelihood transformation

As rural land-use expands beyond agricultural production to encompass residential, ecological, cultural and asset-related functions, the link between land use and livelihood transitions becomes increasingly important [82,103,107,108,109]. Rural tourism, ecological conservation, specialized industries, digital economic activities and other emerging land-uses can alter how land value is realized while creating income sources and market connections beyond conventional agriculture [51,82,89,110,111]. Across the literature, livelihood diversification emerges as a recurrent mechanism of resilience. Dependence on a single land-use, industry or income source increases household exposure to market, environmental and policy shocks, whereas diversified production and employment opportunities can spread risk and increase the scope for resource reallocation when existing livelihoods are disrupted [51,84,103].

Evidence from Wushi Village in Hunan shows that multifunctional rural transition is not driven by a single new industry but by interactions among industrial diversification, local social networks and planning processes that combine top-down and bottom-up initiatives. Connections between external expertise, market information and local actors can generate mutually reinforcing changes in economic activity, social relations and local development capacity [103]. Studies of industrial restructuring and rural tourism similarly indicate that new economic activities are more likely to support sustained livelihood adjustment and innovation when accompanied by skills development, organizational cooperation, access to information and stronger market linkages [82,103,112].

Multifunctional transition does not, however, necessarily increase resilience. Ecological conservation may improve ecosystem conditions while constraining traditional production activities, and new opportunities in tourism or commerce may generate uneven benefits because households differ in capital, skills and market access [51,52,112]. Evidence from ecological compensation programs further suggests that interventions can create additional livelihood pressures for households with limited land, labor shortages or few viable alternatives. Social networks, productive infrastructure and skills training can mitigate some of these constraints [101,113].

The contribution of multifunctional land-use transitions to resilience therefore lies less in the short-term income generated by individual projects than in their capacity to broaden livelihood options and to build new skills, social relationships and market connections. Such transitions are more likely to generate transformative capacity when emerging livelihood opportunities are durable and accessible across different types of rural households (Figure 5).

Overall, land-use policies shape farmers’ livelihood resilience through interrelated buffering, adaptive and transformative pathways. No policy instrument produces a uniform resilience effect. Rather, outcomes depend on how policy interventions alter the resources households possess or can mobilize and, in turn, the range of livelihood options available to them. A single policy may simultaneously strengthen resource endowments, facilitate livelihood adjustment, and create opportunities for longer-term transformation, while imposing new constraints on households with fewer resources or limited capacity to participate. These processes provide an important link between land policy and rural revitalization. The contribution of land-use policy to rural revitalization therefore depends not only on improving land-use efficiency, but also on whether the opportunities generated by land-use change can be converted into sustained and inclusive livelihood capacities for rural households.

7. Discussion

The sustainable livelihoods framework provides a useful basis for identifying household resource endowments and incorporates policy and institutional influences through “transforming structures and processes”. However, it is primarily designed to explain how such structural conditions shape access to assets and livelihood strategies, rather than to compare specific policy instruments and their differentiated effects on resilience. Vulnerability frameworks, by contrast, focus mainly on exposure, sensitivity, and populations at risk, whereas resilience-oriented approaches emphasize capacities such as buffering, self-organization, and learning, or, more broadly, absorption, adaptation, and transformation. These frameworks therefore offer complementary perspectives for understanding the relationships between land policy and livelihood resilience [67,114]. The contribution of this review is not to propose a new theory of resilience or an additional category of livelihood capital. Instead, it positions land-use policy as the institutional axis linking specific policy instruments to policy-sensitive livelihood resources, household responses and the development of buffering, adaptive and transformative capacities. Relative to existing frameworks, this structure places greater emphasis on the correspondence between policy instruments, their mechanisms of action and the household and institutional conditions that shape their effects, thereby facilitating comparison of the potential resilience pathways associated with different land policies.

Future empirical research could integrate household surveys with land-use data, cadastral records, remote-sensing observations and participatory evidence to improve the measurement of policy-sensitive dimensions of livelihood resilience. Cross-context validation should also adopt comparable case study designs. Cross-national comparisons are likely to be most informative when cases are selected with explicit consideration of differences and similarities in governance arrangements, land tenure systems, agricultural histories and broader economic conditions [28,53,115].

This review has three main limitations. First, the literature search was restricted to the SCI-EXPANDED and SSCI indexes in the Web of Science Core Collection and therefore did not capture all regional journals, policy reports or gray literature, potentially introducing selection bias. Second, the policy classification was derived from China’s land policy system. International evidence was used primarily to compare mechanisms and boundary conditions, and extrapolation across institutional contexts should therefore be undertaken with caution. Third, the included studies were heterogeneous in their definitions of resilience, indicators, analytical scales, and research designs, encompassing cross-sectional surveys, case studies, modeling analyses, and quasi-experimental approaches. Associations identified across these designs were therefore not uniformly interpreted as causal effects.

8. Conclusions

Through a structured literature review integrating bibliometric analysis and qualitative content synthesis, this study examines how farmers’ livelihood resilience is conceptualized, assessed and shaped, and how land-use policies relate to buffering, adaptive and transformative capacities. The literature reveals substantial heterogeneity in definitions, indicators and research designs, alongside pronounced variation in policy outcomes across households and institutional settings. Rather than operating as uniformly effective interventions, land-use policies appear to influence livelihood resilience through context-dependent changes in household resources, opportunities and livelihood strategies.

Three potential pathways emerge from the synthesis. Changes in the allocation, accessibility and quality of land resources are most closely associated with buffering capacity; shifts in tenure security, property-right expectations and factor mobility may enable adaptive adjustments in livelihood strategies; and changes in skills, technology adoption, employment opportunities and asset use may support longer-term transformative capacity. Together, these pathways provide a structured account of how land-use policies may contribute to rural revitalization through farmers’ livelihood resilience. Such contributions, however, depend on whether policy-induced changes generate durable and inclusive livelihood capabilities. Future research should test these pathways and their boundary conditions using longitudinal, quasi-experimental, and cross-institutional comparative designs.