Urban heritage, encompassing social, cultural, and economic aspects, is categorized into monumental sites, common sites, and new urban elements. Its three key dimensions are physical form, cultural associations, and vitality. Urban forests, often bordering cities, play a crucial role in preserving cultural heritage, including soundscapes. Soundscapes, while ephemeral, are a vital part of intangible cultural heritage, reflecting the acoustic environment of the past. Fuzhou, with its rich history and ecological environment, faces challenges in preserving its heritage amidst rapid development. This study aims to rediscover the vitality of Fuzhou's urban culture through the lens of ancient poems, introducing the concept of "historical sensing" to analyze poets' experiences and feelings of poetized locales and soundscapes. The study addresses challenges in collecting and interpreting scattered historical poems, translating ancient language, and verifying the accuracy of poetic descriptions against present-day reality. The ultimate objective is to provide methodological guidance and case studies for urban planning and marketing organizations, supplementing existing urban research frameworks.

Existing research has explored historical soundscapes linked to specific events and memories, as well as soundscapes reflecting social transformation and urban planning. Studies have analyzed soundscapes in literary works to understand cities' social and auditory aesthetics, examining how soundscapes are depicted in literature and their reflection of power dynamics and social class. In China, research on urban heritage often focuses on individual cases, while this study aims to address the gap in research on the distribution and conservation of urban heritage based on textual and pictorial sources like poems and ancient maps. The concept of "social sensing," which involves perceiving and reacting to the real and social environment, is used as a basis for "historical sensing", which focuses on analyzing the experiences and feelings derived from historical texts. This study will analyze the vegetation coverage in the past and present at sites mentioned in poems, poets' preferences for soundscape descriptions across different dynasties, tendencies toward specific locales, and the conservation status of poetized locales and soundscape heritage.

This study employs geographical text analysis to investigate ancient people's travel tendencies and soundscape preferences. The study area is Fuzhou, a historical and cultural city on China's southeast coast. The city's boundaries across different dynasties (Han, Jin, Tang, Liang, Song, Ming, Qing) were defined using ancient texts and maps to classify areas as inner city, suburbs, and exurbs. Data sources include five collections of ancient poems containing soundscape descriptions and eight ancient maps showing Fuzhou's city walls across dynasties. Data analysis involved three steps: extracting verses describing locales and soundscapes, mapping poetized locales using QGIS software based on descriptions in poems and ancient maps, and conducting field investigations to assess the present-day conservation status of these sites. The poetized locales were categorized as architecture (religious and non-religious), river systems, viewing platforms, and mountains, while the soundscapes were classified into natural sounds, animal sounds, sounds of life, and mechanical sounds. The research process involved five steps: poem collection and soundscape classification, mapping poetized locales and ancient city walls, data statistics on poets' preferences, field investigations to document the present-day conservation status, and a final analysis and mapping.

Analysis of 155 poems and 56 poetized locales reveals that most locations are in current urban green spaces, with a nearly equal distribution between the downtown and outskirts of Fuzhou. Gulou District contains the most locations, reflecting the historical development pattern of the city. The vegetation types mentioned in the poems are consistent with the current vegetation in these areas. Taijiang District has fewer locales, most located outside the ancient city walls. Jin'an District's locales are primarily mountains and hills, many of which remain as tourist attractions or green spaces. Cangshan District's locales are mostly mountains, many with preserved vegetation cover. Analysis of soundscapes across dynasties shows a preference for birds chirping (especially in the Ming Dynasty), bell ringing, and instrumental music. The Tang Dynasty poems primarily feature birds chirping and natural sounds. The Song Dynasty shows a more diverse range of sounds, including instrumental music and singing. The Yuan Dynasty has limited data, but instrumental music is prominent. The Ming Dynasty showcases the widest variety of soundscapes, while the Qing Dynasty shows a continued preference for birds chirping and instrumental music. Kernel density analysis reveals that the highest concentration of poetized locales across all dynasties is in Gulou, Jin'an, and Taijiang districts, corresponding to the well-preserved urban heritage areas. Hydrological changes throughout history have influenced the locations of poetized locales and the soundscapes recorded in poems, with a shift from predominantly inner-city locations in earlier dynasties to a wider distribution in the suburbs and exurbs in later dynasties. The current status of historical and cultural heritage protection shows an approximately equal number of preserved (31) and destroyed (25) sites. The destruction is attributed to both neglect and urban development.

The findings demonstrate the influence of dynasties and urbanization on the location and preservation of poetized places and their associated soundscapes. The study highlights the significant loss of historical and cultural sites due to both neglect and planned urban development. The shift in the spatial distribution of poetized locales over time reflects the expansion of Fuzhou city and its changing relationship with its natural environment. The high frequency of birds chirping in poems reflects the historically high forest cover in Fuzhou, and the prevalence of sounds associated with temples underscores the religious significance of many of the city's historical spaces. The study's findings have implications for urban planning and heritage conservation efforts. Preservation of urban forests and incorporation of historical soundscapes into urban design can enhance the quality of life for residents and the tourism experience for visitors. The disparity between the preserved and destroyed heritage sites highlights the need for more proactive heritage preservation strategies.

This research provides a novel methodology for understanding urban heritage and soundscapes through historical sensing. It highlights the significant loss of historical sites in Fuzhou due to urbanization, emphasizing the need for proactive conservation. The findings suggest that incorporating historical soundscapes into urban planning can enrich the urban experience. Future research could delve deeper into the poetic descriptions of scenery to reconstruct ancient landscapes and quantitatively assess the impact of soundscapes on visitor experience.

The study is limited by the availability and interpretability of historical poems and maps. The accuracy of poetic descriptions and their mapping to present-day locations relies on interpretation and may not always be precise. The study focuses on a single city and might not be generalizable to other contexts. Further quantitative studies on visitor experiences are needed to validate the potential benefits of incorporating historical soundscapes into urban design.