Urbanisation is a significant driver of global climate change. It increases global temperatures, impacting the health of residents. To date, research on urban heat environments has focused on society or ecology, overlooking the value of integrating the two factors. The research objective is to integrate socio-ecological benefits, explore the construction methods of ecological-cooling networks, and provide reasonable guidance for urban climate planning, thus contributing to the alleviation of urban heat risks and improving thermal comfort. Using Fuzhou as an example, an environmental risk framework was used to construct an urban heat environment risk assessment strategy based on hazards (thermal comfort), exposure (human-development footprint), and vulnerability (natural geographic conditions). The source area was identified based on evaluation results, an ecological network was constructed using circuit theory, and key nodes were identified. Results showed that in 2005 and 2020, 3% and 12% of areas in Fuzhou had higher thermal environmental risks, the proportion of low-risk areas was 43% and 28%, respectively. In sum, 54 ecological source locations, 124 ecological corridors, 76 ecological pinch points, 110 obstacle points, and 12 stepping stones were identified during the construction of corridors in 2020. Compared with 2005, the source area has decreased by 1622.46 km² and the average length of the corridor has also decreased by 4.69 km.

The "three living" space is an important guideline for the rational optimization of national land space in China. In the process of implementing the project of returning fields to lakes to solve the shrinking surface of Dongting Lake and the various ecological problems arising from it, livelihood issues such as land use conflicts have emerged. In order to balance the relationship between people and lake under the policy, the paper starts from the "three living" space, and evaluates the appropriateness of the Dongting Lake by constructing the index system of the "three living" functional space of the Dongting Lake and combining Arcgis 10.7 software to superimpose the index factors to evaluate the spatial function of the Dongting Lake. The spatial variability of the index factors is also analyzed by geographic probes to reveal the suitability characteristics of the returned land to the lake. Based on the results of the study, it can reduce the conflict of land use in the return of Dongting Lake, avoid the loss of production and living caused by the return of land to the lake to the greatest extent, and enhance the ecological benefits of the return of land to the lake, provide a reference for the implementation of the Dongting Lake return of land to the lake project.