Objective Coastal cities are susceptible to both internal and external factors, making them difficult to recover under the frequent influence of human activities. These factors collectively contribute to the vulnerability of marine ecosystems, posing numerous challenges for the protection and construction of coastal cities in terms of ecology, culture, and environment. Among these challenges, the imbalance of ecological and cultural resources stands out prominently. This research aims to explore the construction of an ecological and marine cultural composite landscape network, so as to promote the coupling and coordination between marine culture and the ecological environment, and optimize the allocation of ecological and marine cultural landscape resources. This will not only protect important ecological resources and cultural habitats but also strengthen the connections between them.

Methods Morphological spatial patterns and landscape connectivity assessments are utilized to identify ecological source areas in Quanzhou. The MCR model is employed to construct an integrated resistance surface for Quanzhou and identify potential ecological corridors. The gravity model is applied to evaluate the importance of these potential corridors and extract critical ones from them to establish an ecological network. Based on cultural protection units at various levels, nine types of core areas of cultural landscape in Quanzhou are extracted using K-means clustering, considering the characteristics of cultural space layout, regional architecture, historical environment, and cultural customs. Utilizing the cultural resistance surface as the basis for resistance data, the Linkage Mapper tool in ArcGIS is employed to extract pathways. Cultural dissemination among the cultural core areas is facilitated through transportation routes, including land and water transportation. Combining the cultural landscape information dissemination model, the spatial pattern of the cultural network in the research area is defined. The coupling of the aforesaid ecological network and cultural network forms a composite landscape network pattern. An evaluation indicator system for the coupling degree of ecological and cultural functions is constructed, and the entropy weight method is used to calculate index weights and the coupling coordination degree. Functional evaluations and hierarchical optimizations of the composite landscape network are conducted.

Results The MCR model identifies 136 potential ecological corridors, totaling 4,381.139 km. Based on the evaluation results of the gravity model, these corridors are classified into first-class, second-class, and third-class corridors, forming the spatial pattern of the Quanzhou ecological network. Linkage Mapper identifies 19 cultural corridors, totaling 888.001 km, and combined with the influence scope of core cultural landscape information points, the spatial pattern of the Quanzhou cultural network is constructed. The dissemination range of cultural landscape information points is between 0.04 km and 15.19 km. The integration of the ecological and cultural networks results in a composite pattern of Quanzhou's marine cultural and ecological landscape network. Considering the corridor radiation range, a 1,000 m buffer along the composite corridor network is taken as the evaluation object for each corridor. Using the coupling coordination degree calculation formula, the coupling coordination degree of 62 corridors is calculated and classified according to the coupling coordination degree standard, forming the evaluation results of Quanzhou’s ecological and marine cultural composite landscape network. The results indicate that 1 corridor is severely imbalanced, 16 moderately imbalanced, 32 basically balanced, 11 moderately balanced, and 2 in excellent balance.

Conclusion The ecological and marine cultural composite landscape network effectively protects important ecological resources and cultural habitats while strengthening their interconnections. The regional comprehensive coupling coordination degree of the composite corridors reveals a gradual decrease as the distance from coastal and central urban areas increases. This is attributed to the better ecological conditions in the northern, western, and central areas, with a more extensive ecological network and evenly distributed cultural heritage sites. Although coastal and central urban areas have dense cultural heritage sites with higher cultural value and influence than inland areas, the severe fragmentation of ecological patches, lack of ecological source areas, and prominent ecological environmental issues in central urban areas lead to lower coupling coordination degrees of the composite corridors. Therefore, optimization efforts should focus on repairing ecological issues in dysfunctional networks in coastal and central urban areas, transforming culturally-oriented networks into ecological – cultural composite networks. Regional corridors need to emphasize the integration of marine cultural themes and the preservation and integrated improvement of ecological functions as the goal of the conservation and rehabilitation of corridors along the dislocated coast, with a focus on areas that have been disturbed by human activities for many years, so as to find out the focal points of regional eco-environmental problems, especially the protection of regional corridors with important ecological functions and values. In inland areas with basically coordinated corridors, cultural value should be appropriately enhanced around ecological functions and regional characteristics, and special natural resources and cultural landscapes should be leveraged to design experience routes of ecological tourism, and provide places for forest sightseeing, recreation and cultural tourism, nature education, etc. The construction and optimization strategies for Quanzhou’s ecological and marine cultural composite landscape network provide a basis for the integration, flow, efficient utilization, and overall protection of Quanzhou’s ecological and cultural resources, while also serving as a reference template for comprehensive coordinated protection and integrated sustainable development of ecology and culture in coastal cities.