Resilience of Linpan Cultural Landscape and Its Response to Major Public Health Events

The rapid expansion of novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) is incurring the rethinking of the capacity building of every field or industry in responding and mitigating the impacts of major public health events. For urban and rural planning and development, the traditional concepts and visions should be also reviewed accordingly. Linpan (wooded lot), as a unique agricultural cultural landscape or socio-ecological system distributed on the Chengdu Plain, with its dispersed spatial pattern, has sustained the resilience for many centuries in facing external pressures or shocks, and supported the long-term prosperity of ‘The Land of Heavenly Abundance’ . Based on the analysis of spatial pattern of linpan and the functions of rural periodic markets as the socio-economic nexus in the landscape, this study suggested that the spatial interval of linpan settlements should be maintained in the future development planning, and enough attention be paid to the role of grass-root communities played in controlling and defending epidemic diseases. It is hoped that this traditional knowledge or eco-wisdom could be integrated into the national program of rural revitalization, enhance the resilient capacity of the rural landscape against external shocks or hazards, and contribute to the sustainable development.