Development types and design guidelines for the conservation and utilization of spatial environment in traditional villages in Southern China

In China, despite the continuous efforts to preserve traditional villages in recent years, a significant amount of cultural heritages continue to vanish. Commonly observed issues such as the lack of coordination between preservation and development, the imbalance in spatial environment conservation and utilization, are pervasive. Regrettably, there is a conspicuous absence of theoretical underpinning in addressing these challenges. In this study, The evaluation factor of spatial environmental protection was selected, and these factors were weighted through expert surveys and the Analytic Hierarchy Process, and applied the multi-objective linear weighting function method to obtain a comprehensive evaluation calculation formula. Subsequently, we conducted an assessment of 28 representative traditional villages in the southern Chinese regions of Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi. Their current issues were systematically analyzed and cluster analysis was applied to discern 11 distinct typologies of traditional village development. Besides, the temporal evolution patterns of these villages were delved into, and their development were categorized into five stages: initiation, enhancement, prosperity, over-development, and decline. Ultimately, based on the spatial environment characteristics of each development type and evolution stage, corresponding guidelines for spatial environment conservation and utilization are proposed, which provides necessary theoretical frameworks for future work this region.