A Cultural Ecosystem Services Assessment Framework for Classical Gardens: Integrating Social Media Data and Public Perception in Chinese Classical Gardens

Abstract Chinese classical gardens, as green cultural heritage that integrates natural aesthetic creation with humanistic expression, possess irreplaceable cultural, artistic, and ecological value. They offer crucial references for contemporary cultural heritage conservation, sustainable landscape design, and the harmonization of human - land relationships. The cultural ecosystem services (CES) they embody serve as a key dimension for understanding the relationship between traditional garden - building wisdom and contemporary public experiences. In the era of big data, public experiences and perceptions of CES are increasingly expressed through evolving social media platforms, providing a rich data source for revealing the cultural service value of heritage sites. This study examines 21 representative Chinese classical gardens in Sichuan Province, China. Based on online user review data, it constructs an evaluation framework for classical garden CES based on visitor perception to identify and quantify the primary service types and their perceived intensity at cultural heritage sites. Combining sentiment analysis and clustering methods, it explores the perceptual characteristics and emotional tendencies of the public towards CES in Chinese classical gardens. Results indicate that aesthetic appreciation and historical/cultural value are the most frequently discussed CES categories, with generally positive sentiment evaluations. Services like educational research and ecological regulation, though less frequently mentioned, are often accompanied by highly positive emotions when referenced, exhibiting distinct “hidden value” characteristics. Cluster analysis based on CES word frequency further categorizes the 21 gardens into five types: natural and spiritual experience - oriented, history - culture and aesthetics - dominant, comprehensive service - oriented, religious and historical gathering place - oriented, and historical architecture and cultural display - oriented. This reveals the differentiated characteristics of cultural service provision in Chinese classical gardens. This study expands the evaluation methodology for the CES of green cultural heritage from the visitor perception perspective, providing methodological support and practical references for interpreting the value of classical gardens, formulating differentiated conservation strategies, and optimizing visitor experiences.