📄 earth_science

Risk Assessment of Linear Cultural Landscapes from the Perspective of Nature-Culture Integration: A Case Study of the Core Area of the Shandong Section of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park

This study constructs a coupled natural-cultural risk assessment framework for the Shandong Section of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park using multi-source data and the H-E-V model, revealing distinct spatial risk patterns and proposing a hierarchical protection strategy to address the superposition of natural and human-induced threats.

Original authors: Feng Song, Wenkang Zhao, Yue Wang

Published 2026-06-29

📖 5 min read🧠 Deep dive

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Feng Song, Wenkang Zhao, Yue Wang

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

Imagine the Grand Canal in Shandong, China, not just as a historic waterway, but as a living, breathing spine connecting the past and present. This paper is like a medical check-up for that spine, trying to figure out where it's healthy, where it's sick, and what might cause it to break in the future.

Here is a simple breakdown of what the researchers did and found:

The Big Problem: A Double-Edged Sword

Think of the Grand Canal as a long, delicate necklace made of two types of beads: Nature beads (rivers, lakes, forests) and Culture beads (ancient towns, bridges, old buildings).

For a long time, people studied these beads separately. They asked, "Is the water clean?" or "Is the old building safe?" But the researchers realized that these two types of beads are tangled together. If the water gets dirty (Nature risk), the old buildings rot faster (Culture risk). If a city grows too fast and paves over the riverbank (Culture risk), the water floods more easily (Nature risk).

The paper argues that to protect the canal, we have to look at the whole necklace at once, checking for risks where nature and culture crash into each other.

The Tool: A "Risk Scanner"

The team built a special digital scanner to look at the Shandong section of the canal. They didn't just use one map; they stacked many layers of data on top of each other, like a multi-layered cake:

Satellite photos to see the land.
Weather records to see storms and floods.
City plans to see where people are building.
Field surveys to see the actual condition of old buildings.

They used a formula called the H-E-V Model (Hazard, Exposure, Vulnerability). Think of this like a safety test for a car:

Hazard: How bad is the storm coming? (The weather).
Exposure: How many valuable things are in the path of the storm? (The old towns).
Vulnerability: How easily will those things break? (Are the buildings weak? Is there a plan to fix them?).

What They Found: The "Risk Map"

When they ran the data, three main patterns emerged:

The Nature Risk (The "Wild Card"):
The risk to the natural environment is clumped together in several spots along the main river. It's like having a few "hot zones" where the land is fragile. These spots are often where cities have grown too fast, crushing the natural landscape. The risk is highest in the middle of the canal's path.
The Culture Risk (The "North-South Divide"):
The risk to the historic towns and buildings is different. It's high in the north and low in the south.
- Why the North? Places like Linqing and Liaocheng are packed with valuable history, but they are also under heavy pressure from modern life, fires, and earthquakes. It's like a museum that is too crowded and has a leaky roof.
- Why the South? The southern areas are generally safer because there are fewer people crowding the historic sites, and the natural environment is more stable there.
The "Coupled" Risk (The Perfect Storm):
This is the most important finding. When they overlaid the Nature map and the Culture map, they saw that the worst danger spots are right where the two overlap.
- The biggest danger zones are the major towns along the canal.
- Here, the "Nature" is degrading (pollution, erosion) at the same time the "Culture" is getting damaged (buildings crumbling, loss of history).
- It's a vicious cycle: A weak natural environment makes the historic towns more likely to fall, and the busy towns make the natural environment weaker.

The Solution: A Tiered Protection Plan

The researchers didn't just point out the problems; they suggested a "tiered" way to fix them, like a doctor prescribing different treatments for different patients:

For the Critical Patients (High Risk): In the dangerous towns (like the ancient cities of Linqing and Taierzhuang), they need emergency care. This means building green belts (like a protective shield of trees) along the river to stop floods and reinforcing the old buildings so they don't collapse.
For the Recovering Patients (Medium Risk): In the areas connecting the big towns, the goal is connection. They need to rebuild the "bridges" between nature and culture, planting native plants to heal the land and keeping the stories of the canal alive.
For the Healthy Patients (Low Risk): In the quiet, safe areas, the goal is maintenance. Keep the natural landscape intact so it acts as a buffer, protecting the more fragile areas from future trouble.

The Bottom Line

The paper concludes that you can't save the Grand Canal by just fixing the water or just fixing the buildings. You have to treat them as a single team. By understanding where nature and culture are hurting each other, we can create a smart, layered plan to protect this incredible piece of history for the future.

Technical Summary: Risk Assessment of Linear Cultural Landscapes from the Perspective of Nature-Culture Integration

Problem Statement
Linear cultural landscapes, such as the Grand Canal, face severe threats from the superposition of natural risks (e.g., extreme weather, geological hazards) and human disturbances (e.g., rapid urbanization, excessive tourism). Existing protection frameworks often treat natural and cultural dimensions separately or focus solely on static heritage preservation. There is a critical lack of holistic risk assessment models that integrate "nature-culture" dual dimensions to address the compound disasters eroding the survival foundation of these landscapes. Specifically, current methodologies lack sufficient interpretation of linear risk transmission mechanisms and the quantification of exposure values within a coupled framework.

Methodology
The study employs a multi-source data integration approach to construct a coupled risk assessment framework for the core area of the Shandong Section of the Grand Canal National Cultural Park (15,370.49 km²).

Data Integration: The research synthesizes remote sensing data (land use, DEM, vegetation indices), geographical data (geological, meteorological), socio-economic statistics, and field survey data.
Dual-Factor Framework: The authors propose a framework combining two distinct assessment models:
- Natural Element Risk: Assessed using the Landscape Pattern Index Method. The study area is divided into 2km×2km grids. Indices calculated include landscape fragmentation, separation, and fractal dimension to derive a landscape disturbance index. This is coupled with a landscape vulnerability index (based on expert scoring of land use types) to generate a Natural Risk Index ( $ERI_k$ ).
- Cultural Element Risk: Assessed using the H-E-V (Hazard-Exposure-Vulnerability) model. 107 cultural nodes (e.g., sluices, towns, relics) were identified.
  - Hazard: Quantifies natural (meteorological, geological, ecosystem), human-induced (fire, urbanization, tourism), and biological disaster pressures.
  - Exposure: Measures the distribution density and value (historical, scientific, cultural, aesthetic, social) of the nodes.
  - Vulnerability: Evaluates susceptibility (structure/materials), response capacity (policy/social awareness), and recovery capacity (security/funding).
  - Weights were determined via the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) based on expert consultation.
Coupling Analysis: The natural and cultural risk maps are superimposed to generate a "Nature-Culture Coupled Risk" distribution map, revealing spatial correlations and synergistic mechanisms.

Key Contributions

Theoretical Advancement: The paper redefines linear cultural landscapes through three attributes: Materiality (interwoven linear forms), Hierarchy (nested micro-to-macro scales), and Relevance (dynamic mutual feedback between nature and culture).
Methodological Innovation: It constructs a specific "Nature-Culture Dual-Factor Coupled Risk Assessment Framework" that bridges the gap between landscape ecology indices and disaster risk models (H-E-V) for linear spaces.
Empirical Application: The study provides a comprehensive risk mapping of the Shandong Section, identifying specific high-risk clusters and the spatial logic of risk transmission.

Results

Natural Risk Distribution: Natural risks exhibit a "multi-core agglomeration" pattern along the main stream of the Grand Canal. High-risk areas are concentrated in main urban areas and mining zones (e.g., Decheng, Chiping, Dongchangfu, Rencheng) due to ecological degradation and human interference. Low-risk areas are found in wetland parks and nature reserves (e.g., Dongping Lake, Weishan Lake).
Cultural Risk Distribution: Cultural risks display a "North-High, South-Low" spatial pattern. 15% of the area is classified as relatively high or higher risk. Six core high-risk clusters were identified: Northwest Decheng, Northwest Linqing, Ancient City of Liaocheng, Ancient City of Jining, Tonghui Sluice Group (Weishan), and Ancient City of Taierzhuang. These risks stem from high hazard intensity, high exposure density, or high vulnerability (lack of institutional/material resilience).
Coupled Risk: The superposition of natural and cultural risks reveals a pattern of "High in the South, Low in the North," with high values densely gathering along major canal towns. The study confirms a significant spatial correlation between "natural degradation" and "cultural damage," particularly in urbanized zones where high-intensity human activity drives both ecological fragmentation and heritage vulnerability.

Significance and Claims
The paper claims to offer a new perspective for the protection of the Grand Canal's linear cultural landscapes by moving from "static preservation" to "dynamic conservation" based on integrated risk assessment.

Scientific Basis: The identification of the "natural degradation - cultural damage" synergistic mechanism provides a scientific basis for a dual-dimensional risk management system.
Practical Framework: The study proposes a hierarchical protection paradigm: "Natural Safety - Cultural Continuity - Spatial Integration - Hierarchical Adaptation." This framework suggests specific interventions based on risk levels, such as constructing ecological buffer belts in high-risk urban areas and establishing collaborative networks in secondary hubs.
Limitations and Future Work: The authors modestly acknowledge limitations, noting that the data is primarily static (lacking temporal evolution analysis) and that value scores rely on team surveys rather than local community evaluation. They suggest future research should integrate social network analysis to address non-physical risk factors and expand comparative studies to other linear cultural landscapes to establish cross-regional prevention mechanisms.