Towards Sustainable Human–Land Symbiosis: An Empirical Study of Chinese Traditional Villages

Jianmin Wang, Xiaoying Wen (), Shikang Zhou, Zhihong Zhang and Dongye Zhao ()
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Jianmin Wang: Department of Urban and Rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Art, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Xiaoying Wen: Department of Urban and Rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Art, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Shikang Zhou: Department of Urban and Rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Art, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Zhihong Zhang: Department of Urban and Rural Planning and Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Art, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Dongye Zhao: Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182-1324, USA

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-21

Abstract: In response to the growing urban–rural dichotomy and escalating human–land conflicts in rural China, this study investigates the role of soundscapes as emotional mediators to enhance environmental satisfaction and foster sustainable human–land symbiosis. To address this need, we carried out a series of systematic field surveys at five representative traditional villages in a major provincial capital city in China, and we implemented a comprehensive questionnaire and surveyed 524 residents about their perceptions of sound, land affection, and environment. We employed a mixed-methods approach combining questionnaire surveys, association rule mining (ARM), and structural equation modeling (SEM) to explore the ‘sound–land–environment’ interaction chain. ARM analysis identified strong associations among tour guide narratives, local dialects, natural sounds (e.g., rustling leaves, birdsong), and tourist-generated sounds (support = 50%, confidence = 78%, lift = 1.33). SEM results revealed that soundscapes significantly and positively influence land dependence (β = 0.952, p < 0.001) and land rootedness (β = 1.812, p < 0.001), which in turn jointly affect environmental satisfaction (β = –0.192, p = 0.027) through a chain mediation pathway. These findings suggest that optimizing rural soundscapes can strengthen emotional bonds between people and land, thereby enhancing environmental satisfaction and promoting performance of sustainable human–land symbiosis. The study contributes theoretically by elucidating the emotional mechanisms linking soundscapes to human–land relationships and offers insights for incorporating soundscape considerations into village planning and developing policies to cultivate land attachment, supporting the sustainable development of traditional villages.

Keywords: soundscape; population–land conflict; symbiosis; land attachment; sustainable development; traditional villages (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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