The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched the conservation initiative of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) in 2002, providing a new solution to current global problems such as widening gap between rich and poor, environmental pollution, biodiversity destruction and degradation of agro-ecological functions. However, since the implementation of GIAHS, few studies have evaluated the role of GIAHS in regional sustainable development. To fill this research gap, this paper attempts to build an evaluation index system that integrates economic, social and environmental sustainability by matching the 169 subgoals and 232 indices of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with five FAO-GIAHS selection criteria and selecting the indices. The index weights are determined through Delphi method (expert scoring) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Then the GIAHS site of the Kuaijishan Ancient Chinese Torreya Community in Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province is taken as an example for evaluation to enhance the empirical study. The results show that the comprehensive score for this heritage site is 77.90 points, of which economic, social and environmental sustainability scores 88.27, 86.12 and 69.71 points respectively, showing a descending trend. Thus, ecological protection of the Kuaijishan Ancient Chinese Torreya Community should be strengthened and be given prominence in the future. As for the contribution to further research, this SDGs-based GIAHS sustainability evaluation framework can serve as an important guide for assessing the approaches and effects of GIAHS in promoting the achievement of the SDGs. It can also be used for future international GIAHS sustainability assessment and comparison and provide a basis for adjusting the development model of GIAHS sites.

Introduction: Agricultural heritage systems depend on the coordinated maintenance of natural resources, ecological functions, rural livelihoods, and cultural continuity. This study assessed village-level resource and environmental carrying capacity in the Wujiang dike–pond agro-aquaculture and sericulture cultural system. Methods: Using 2024 cross-sectional data from 150 administrative villages, a 17-indicator framework covering resource, environmental, and socio-economic carrying capacity was constructed. Village and subsystem scores were calculated using hierarchical entropy weighting, and direct entropy weighting was used to test sensitivity to the weighting structure. Results: The hierarchical entropy-weighted ARECC scores ranged from 0.1251 to 0.6840, with significant differences among the seven township groups. Subsystem comparisons showed that similar composite scores could arise from different combinations of resource, environmental, and socio-economic conditions. The two weighting schemes produced positively correlated scores, but village classifications and township rankings were only partly consistent. Regression analysis showed a negative association between pesticide application intensity and the hierarchical entropy-weighted ARECC score. Under direct entropy weighting, the labor-force share showed a marginal positive association and the tertiary-industry output share showed a marginal negative association, indicating that the regression pattern was sensitive to the weighting structure. Discussion: These findings indicate that the carrying capacity of an agricultural heritage site depends on the coordinated support of resource endowments, environmental maintenance, agricultural production, livelihoods, institutional support, and cultural transmission. Village-level assessment can identify differentiated constraints and support targeted conservation and adaptive management.