Pareto Design of Heritage Corridors across Ecological Connectivity and Community Value

Abstract

The planning and management of heritage corridors represent a complex challenge at the intersection of environmental conservation and regional socio-economic development. Traditional spatial planning approaches often fail to balance the competing demands of enhancing ecological connectivity and maximizing community value, leading to suboptimal landscapes where either natural habitats are fragmented or local communities are marginalized. This paper introduces a multi-objective spatial optimization framework based on the concept of Pareto efficiency to address these inherent trade-offs. By integrating landscape resistance modeling for ecological connectivity with participatory geographic information systems for community value assessment, the study formulates a dual-objective problem. Evolutionary algorithms are employed to generate a spatial Pareto frontier, identifying a range of optimal corridor designs where no single objective can be improved without compromising the other. The methodology is designed to support transparent decision-making by quantifying the spatial synergies and conflicts between biodiversity conservation and socio-cultural integration. The findings demonstrate that while strict conservation scenarios severely restrict community access, and development-oriented scenarios fragment critical ecological stepping stones, the Pareto-optimal solutions provide robust compromise alternatives. This research contributes to the theoretical discourse on social-ecological systems and offers a pragmatic tool for planners to negotiate sustainable heritage corridor designs that respect both ecological boundaries and community needs.