Synergy and regulation of the South China Karst WH site integrity protection and the buffer zone agroforestry development

As an authoritative institution in cultural heritage conservation, ICOMOS plays a crucial role in guiding local communities’ participation in heritage conservation. However, its scattered and vague descriptions of local communities pose significant obstacles to further research and practice of community participation in heritage conservation. Given the increasing importance of local communities in heritage conservation, it is essential to systematically explore the connotation of Local Community connotations within ICOMOS discourse. This research employs Natural Language Processing methods to analyze ICOMOS’s descriptions of Local Community. Utilizing computational techniques of word frequency calculation, LDA (Latent Dirichlet Allocation) topic model keyword calculation, and hierarchical clustering calculation, the research uncovers relevant keywords and its thematic clusters of Local Community. These findings are further elucidated by aligning them with the principles outlined in authoritative documents of ICOMOS. The research indicates that ICOMOS’s descriptions of Local Community can be summarized into four main keywords families. These keywords families can be summarized as a comprehensive Local Community “three-level, four-family” keywords system. The “Tourism” keywords family exhibits a close association with Local Community, highlighting ICOMOS’s heightened emphasis on heritage tourism. The “Management-Development” keywords family occupies the second level, emphasizing fundamental principles for local communities’ participation in heritage practices. The “Traditional-Knowledge” and “Social-Economic” Keywords Families, situated in the third level, respectively describe the value attributes and conservation approaches of local communities. Each keywords family formed over different periods, exhibiting varying trends of development. By systematically integrating ICOMOS’s descriptions of Local Community and employing Natural Language Processing for in-depth exploration, This research aims to construct a cognitive understanding of local communities from a new perspective of quantitative text analysis, with the intention of providing theoretical references for subsequent research on local communities.

Exploring the connotation of “Local Community” in ICOMOS discourse: a textual analysis based on authoritative documents

Xu,

Tang,

Zhang

2024

Assessment of ecosystem health and driving forces in response to landscape pattern dynamics: the Shibing Karst world natural heritage site case study

He,

Zhang,

et al. 2024

The Shibing Karst constitutes a pivotal component of the "South China Karst," and its ecosystem health integrity crucially influences the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the corresponding Natural World Heritage (NWH). Consequently, robust ecosystem health assessment (EHA) is imperative for the judicious conservation and management of this heritage, as well as for the sustainable progression of the region. This research assessed the health of the Shibing Karst ecosystem from 2004 to 2020 by employing changes in landscape patterns through the Vigor-Organization-Resilience-Ecosystem Services (VORS) model. Spatial autocorrelation was employed to discern the spatial coherence and evolutionary patterns of ecosystem health, whereas a geo-detector ascertained the pivotal determinants impacting regional ecosystem vitality. The findings revealed that: (1) The landscape patterns distribution in the study area exhibited considerable constancy, primarily comprising forest land, with a rising trajectory in construction land and water, juxtaposed with a recession in shrubland, grassland, paddy land, and dryland expanses. (2) From 2004 to 2020, the ecosystem of the study area maintained its health and remained stable, with mean values of 0.8303, 0.7689, 0.6976, and 0.7824, respectively, showing an evolutionary trend of an initial downtrend trend followed by an upswing, with 2016 marking a pivotal juncture. (3) Spatial clustering analysis highlighted significant clustering characteristics of ecosystem health, with a nominal decrease in the Global Moran's I index from 0.666 to 0.665, which is indicative of a subtle decrease in clustering over time. High-high clustering areas were predominantly located within the World Heritage Site (WHS), while low-low clustering areas were mainly distributed in the southeastern part of buffer zone. (4) Land use and cover change (LUCC) and Ecosystem Services (ESs) were identified as the primary indexes of EHA, with Ecosystem Resilience (ER), Ecosystem Vigor (EV), and Ecosystem Organization (EO) exerting relatively mild influences. This study provides a scientific framework for policymakers in local governance to devise strategies for ecosystem conservation and management, enhances the analytical perspective on the integrity and conservation of Karst Natural World Heritage (KNWH).

Mapping and assessment of karst landscape aesthetic value from a world heritage perspective: a case study of the Huangguoshu Scenic area

Zhang,

Xiong,

Zhao

et al. 2024

Aesthetic value is an essential component of outstanding universal value (OUV) for natural world heritage (NWH) site. However, comparisons of aesthetic value lack a set of effective evaluation systems. In the identification of aesthetic value, there is subjectivity and difficulty in quantifying the methodology suggested by the IUCN in the operation manual, and it is difficult to compare in different NWH sites. This study focused on establishing a universal system to map and assess the aesthetic value of karst NWH sites. The research focused on three dimensions: naturalness, diversity, and uniqueness. The final combination of the three is achieved by geographic information system (GIS)-based spatial map overlay analysis with multisource data. To verify the rationality of the model, the aesthetic value of a case study in the Huangguoshu Scenic Area in China at the WH nominated site was evaluated. The results revealed that the areas with low, relatively low, medium, relatively high, and high values accounted for 12.2%, 20.2%, 32.4%, 21.4% and 13.8%, respectively. The distribution of aesthetic value is basically consistent with the boundary division of the NWH site, and high scores are mostly distributed in areas with high protection levels. Moreover, the impacts of naturalness, uniqueness and diversity on aesthetic value in the research area are in decreasing order. Furthermore, the research analyses the aesthetic characteristics and causes at different levels. The research area combines the quintessential nature of karst, hills and water, caves, fenglin and historic villages; it unifies sturdiness, peculiarity, precipitousness, and peace. Among the 7 nominated NWH sites, the Huangguoshu Waterfall has the highest aesthetic value, while those of Tiantaishan Ancient Temple and Getuhe are relatively low. The rationality of the evaluation system for extracting areas with high aesthetic value was demonstrated. This study compensates for the limitation of the inability of existing studies to quantify the aesthetic value. This approach fills a previous gap in the research on the aesthetic value of WH and can provide a useful reference for better protection and management decisions.