Before Becoming a World Heritage: Spatiotemporal Dynamics and Spatial Dependency of the Soundscapes in Kulangsu Scenic Area, China

Abstract

Kulangsu is a famous scenic area in China and a World Heritage Site. It is important to obtain knowledge with regard to the status of soundscape and landscape resources and their interrelationships in Kulangsu before it became a World Heritage. The objective of this study was to explore the spatial dependency of the soundscapes in Kulangsu, based on the spatiotemporal dynamics of soundscape and landscape perceptions, including perceived sound sources, soundscape quality, and landscape satisfaction degree, and the spatial landscape characteristics, including the distance to green spaces, normalized difference vegetation index, and landscape spatial patterns. The results showed that perception of soundscape and landscape were observed in significant spatiotemporal dynamics, and the dominance of biological sounds in all sampling periods and human sounds in the evening indicated that Kulangsu scenic area had a good natural environment and a developed night-time economy, respectively. The green spaces and commercial lands may contribute to both the soundscape pleasantness and eventfulness. Moreover, the soundscape quality was dependent on the sound dominant degree and landscape satisfaction degree but not on the landscape characteristics. The GWR model had better goodness of fit than the OLS model, and possible non-linear relationships were found between the soundscape pleasantness and the variables of perceived sound sources and landscape satisfaction degree. The GWR models with spatial stationarity were found to be more effective in understanding the spatial dependence of soundscapes. In particular, the data applied should ideally include a complete temporal dimension to obtain a relatively high fitting accuracy of the model. These findings can provide useful data support and references for future planning and design practices, and management strategies for the soundscape resources in scenic areas and World Heritage Sites.