Human settlements are under the increasing challenges of persistent warming and extreme weather events driven by global climate change. Beyond urban areas, extreme heat also poses severe and ongoing challenges to agricultural production and rural living environments. However, most existing studies have neglected the planning and design of climate-resilient villages. Rural settlements constitute complex systems blending natural ecosystems, agroforestry semi-natural ecosystems, and human-made ecological systems. Compared to urban built-up areas, rural settlements exhibit greater dependence on natural environments and are more vulnerable to climate change impacts.
This study aims to focuses on Linpan–a heritage complex settlement unit–a typical spatial functional composite settlement unit developed through long-term co-evolution between rural settlements and the natural environment. It stands as the world's only artificially regulated and remaining functional agricultural civilization zone spanning millennia, while possessing unique value in regulating microclimates and improving thermal comfort. How to leverage and enhance Linpan’s climate-resilient value and to utilize its spatial components to create optimal thermal environment for habitation remains a question.
This study applied human settlement morphology classification methods to characterize Linpan units in Suburban Bishan, Chongqing, China. Field campaigns of microclimate and outdoor thermal comfort were conducted to initially reveal microclimate responses to different Linpan units. Furthermore, based on numerical simulation on ENVI-met platform, strategies for fine-tuning Linpan’s components and configurations were explored to optimize the heat mitigation performance. Overall, this study verifies traditional wisdom of climate adaptability and enables decision makers to perform science-based spatial optimization solutions for heat-resilient planning in heritage rural settlements.