Exploring the relationship between cultural landscapes and psychological well-being through indigenous environmental design in rural China

Introduction Indigenous environmental design in rural China is increasingly affected by modernization, tourism development, and ecological change. However, empirical evidence concerning the relationship between cultural landscape fidelity and residents’ psychological well-being remains limited. This study developed the Cultural Landscape–Psychological Well-being (CL-PWB) Nexus Model to examine the association between Indigenous Environmental Design Fidelity (IEDF) and psychological well-being, considering place attachment, perceived restorativeness, and cultural identity continuity as mediators, and ritual-spatial synchrony (RSS) and social cohesion (SC) as potential moderators. Methods A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed. The quantitative phase involved a cross-sectional survey of 420 residents from four ethnic minority villages in rural China. Confirmatory factor analysis and regression-based moderated mediation analysis with bootstrapped confidence intervals were used to examine the proposed relationships. The qualitative phase comprised thematic analysis of 40 in-depth and key-informant interviews to contextualise and complement the quantitative findings. Results IEDF was positively associated with psychological well-being. This association was statistically accounted for by place attachment, perceived restorativeness, and cultural identity continuity, with the direct association becoming non-significant after the mediators were included. Conditional indirect associations were generally stronger at higher levels of RSS and SC, although the patterns varied across the mediating pathways. At lower levels of RSS and SC, the indirect association through place attachment was no longer statistically distinguishable from zero, whereas the associations through perceived restorativeness and cultural identity continuity remained significant but weaker. Four qualitative themes—ancestral memory, designed restoration, ritual erosion, and communal cohesion—provided contextual support for the quantitative finding. Discussion The findings suggest that the relationship between indigenous environmental design and psychological well-being extends beyond the preservation of physical landscape features to include place-based emotional connections, restorative experiences, cultural continuity, ritual practices, and community interaction. Given the cross-sectional and self-reported nature of the data, the findings indicate associations rather than causal effects. The study provides an empirical basis for longitudinal and multilevel investigations and suggests that culturally informed rural development and mental-health policies should consider both the material and lived dimensions of indigenous cultural landscapes.