Quantifying and classifying cultural ecosystem Services in Coastal China: An integrated text mining approach

Coastal areas provide critical Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES), but their multi-dimensional characteristics remain inadequately quantified, hindering integrated management. This study develops a novel CES assessment framework for China's Bohai Rim coastal zone, integrating social media data, automated text mining (ROST CM6), and Self-Organizing Map (SOM) clustering to analyze the spatial-temporal patterns and interrelationships of ten CES categories across 37 major tourist attractions. Results reveal pronounced heterogeneity in CES perceptions: nature appreciation (32.67%) and recreation value (19.35%) were dominant, whereas cultural heritage and educational value were minimal (2–4%). Temporally (2010−2023), recreation value increased modestly (1.2% annually), while cultural heritage perceptions declined. The functional roles of attractions were predominantly natural and recreational; other categories, such as cultural diversity and spiritual value, were less common, mirroring the observed perceptual patterns. Correlation analysis identified strong synergies – e.g., between spiritual and aesthetic values and between cultural heritage and inspiration – though cultural heritage showed weak associations with other CES. The integrated CES indicator framework developed here provides a methodological advance for ecosystem services research and supports evidence-based conservation of regional cultural ecosystems and socio-economic coordinated development and socio-economically coordinated development of regional cultural ecosystems.