Spatiotemporal Changes and Simulation of the Architectural Ethnicity at World Heritage Sites under Tourism Development

This study was the first to integrate the quantitative analysis and simulation of spatiotemporal processes into research on the ethnicity of tourist destinations. Selecting the world heritage site of Jiuzhaigou in China as a case study, we employed remote sensing images and field observation to obtain the spatial distribution data of the site’s architectural ethnicity of 2005 and 2015. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the mechanism driving changes in architectural ethnicity. Then, we proposed a Logistic-CA-Markov coupling model to analyse architectural ethnicity transformations and simulate the spatiotemporal patterns of the ethnicity of architecture at the site in 2025 and 2035. It was found that from 2005 to 2015, the overall architectural ethnicity at the heritage site trended downwards and displayed an uneven spatial distribution: weak ethnicity in the west and strong in the east. A tight relationship was found between the ethnicity of heritage architecture and the level of tourism development although the ethnicity of tourism architecture was weaker than that of nontourism architecture, and the ethnicity of tourism architecture was continuously strengthening. Factors affecting spatial changes in architectural ethnicity mainly included altitude, slope, distance from main transport lands and waters, and the original type of ethnicity. It is expected that, from 2015 to 2035, the overall architectural ethnicity in Jiuzhaigou will increase.