Rural Recreational Resource and Leisure Planning of Bulgarian

CHE, Shengquan (chsq@sjtu.edu.cn) 

Professor and Ph. D, Associate Dean External Relations, Deputy director of Bulgarian Center, Director of Sustainable Ecological Design Center, Deputy director of Key Lab. of Urban Agriculture of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural, Director of Fraunhofer Project Center of Urban Eco-Development at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China). Member of National Master of Landscape Architecture Education Steering Committee, Member of Landscape Architecture Committee, Chinese Society for Urban Studies. 

Prof. Che has undertaken more than 30 projects on scientific research and key planning and design practice projects, including 2 National Natural Science Foundations, 3 National Key Technology Research Projects, 2 International Cooperation Projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology, 10 provincial and ministerial projects, and 2 international cooperation projects at the University level, 15 planning and design practice projects and other sub-projects. Prof. Che has also gotten several teaching and scientific awards including the “2016 Kaiyuan Top Ten Teachers Award” of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and 2014 “Yuanye Cup International Landscape Competition”; he has also published ten monographs and more than 80 papers, including 4 co-published books and 3 papers with Bulgarian scholars. 

Research Overview 

Bulgaria is a bridgehead along the “Belt and Road” in Central and Eastern Europe. As an important agricultural country in Europe, Bulgaria has a vast rural area and also faces the problem of rural development as China. Rural revitalization is one of the key areas of cooperation between two countries. The development of rural tourism was seen as an appropriate way to revitalize the Bulgarian countryside. Comprehensive evaluation and optimization of rural recreational resources are the prerequisite for the protection and sustainable development of rural landscapes. 

In this study, 16 typical Bulgarian villages were chosen according to terrain and industrial types, and recreational resources of which, including (spatial characteristics, architectural landscape, ecological landscape and cultural landscape) were investigated and analyzed. A comprehensive evaluation system for rural recreational resources was constructed and 16 villages were evaluated. Finally, an optimized leisure design plan was proposed for the representative settlement landscape in Ognyanovo village. It can provide a reference for the optimization and protection of rural landscape and depositing tourism development in Bulgaria.