Developing a dynamic evaluation framework for rural heritage regeneration from the perspective of rural revitalization

Within the context of rural revitalization, the discourse on rural heritage regeneration is shifting from traditional static protection to one more concerned with dynamic activation of historic sites through adaptive reuse and community participation. This transformation focuses on heritage protection and inheritance and revitalizes rural areas through heritage regeneration. To assess the effectiveness of rural heritage regeneration, scholars have established evaluation systems encompassing rural heritage transformation and revitalization. However, these evaluations still face challenges, including a lack of dynamic indicators, poor availability of data at the village level, and neglect of the correlation between regeneration effects and measures. In addition, there is a mismatch of indicators and dimensions between economically focused rural evaluations and conservation-focused heritage evaluations, resulting in a lack of holistic and integrated rural heritage evaluations. Therefore, this study summarizes the transformation process of rural heritage regeneration from individual to overall protection, from static to dynamic management, expert-led to multi-participation, and physical space to cultural coordination by sorting out the conceptual system and policy evolution of rural heritage. Based on these findings, the study aims to develop a heritage evaluation framework that incorporates rural revitalization perspectives and provides a foundational structure for building a more systematic and sustainable evaluation system.