Public perception of cultural ecosystem services in Dalian Xijiao Forest Park: A biomechanical perspective

Forest parks constitute one of the crucial types of urban green spaces. Studying cultural ecosystem services (CESs) in forest parks is critical for ecological conservation and human well-being. Taking Xijiao Forest Park (XFP) in Dalian, Liaoning Province, as the study area, the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model was applied to extract latent topic classifications from web text data. An evaluation system was established by integrating the public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) and the social values for ecosystem services (SolVES) model, which is a spatially explicit tool that quantifies perceived social values through participatory mapping and environmental variable integration. This approach was used to analyze the spatial distribution of the value of its CESs and to identify the environmental factors influencing these values. The results indicate the following: (1) Public perception encompasses 28 topic levels, which incorporate seven value dimensions: Aesthetics, recreation and ecotourism, social relationships, wellness, education, cultural heritage, and inspiration. (2) The values of diverse CESs within the park (XFP) exhibit considerable spatial heterogeneity, depicting a pattern where high values occur in the north and south and low values occur in the east and west. The aesthetic, recreation and ecotourism, social relationship, and wellness values are relatively highly favored by the public. (3) The three environmental factors, namely, scenic spots, water bodies, and roads, have a more pronounced effect on the CES value. This study uses the novel approach of constructing models for web text data to evaluate the CES value.