ECO-SENSITIVE LANDSCAPE PLANNING WITH NATURE‑BASED SOLUTIONS A MULTI‑SCALE PATHWAY FOR RESILIENT WATERSHED SYSTEMS

Abstract

Global climate change and intensified anthropogenic activities have amplified basin-scale flood risk, whereas conventional grey infrastructure reveals inherent limitations when confronting systemic threats. Nature-based solutions (NbS), conceived as a systematic and adaptive ecological governance approach, demonstrate substantial potential for enhancing catchment resilience; yet their multi-scalar integration within landscape architecture and urban planning remains insufficient. To address this gap, we propose an ecological sensitivity–based, multi-scale NbS landscape-planning framework and pilot it in the Xin’an River basin, Huangshan City, China. By coupling GIS with the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), we synthesized five critical biophysical factors, namely elevation, slope, vegetation cover, land-use type, and riparian buffer distance, to delineate a distinct east-west gradient of ecological sensitivity across the basin. Building on this spatial diagnosis, the study moves beyond fragmented, site-by-site restoration paradigms and articulates a synergistic assemblage of three interconnected systems: grey–green infrastructure coupling, blue-green ecological networks and habitat rehabilitation. Strategies are vertically threaded through macro-level, meso-level and micro-level to form a coherent, operable design spectrum. The framework delivers a transferable methodology for bolstering fluvial resilience while reinforcing landscape architecture’s bridging role in transdisciplinary catchment governance.