As a significant component of hydraulic cultural heritage within the Grand Canal Cultural Belt, ancient stone bridges serve as vital physical evidence reflecting the evolutionary patterns of water conservancy and settlement spaces in Wuxi. Consequently, understanding their distribution holds critical significance for the holistic protection and revitalized utilization of the heritage. This study investigates 118 ancient stone bridges in Wuxi, China, employing ArcGIS spatial analysis methods, specifically average nearest neighbor, kernel density estimation, and standard deviational ellipse, to examine spatiotemporal characteristics. Additionally, a random forest (RF) model is utilized to quantify the importance of natural environmental factors influencing their distribution. The results reveal the following: (1) Temporally, the distribution transitioned from a random pattern in the Song Dynasty to a highly clustered pattern during the Ming, Qing, and Republic of China periods. (2) Spatially, the distribution centroid exhibited a distinct southwestward trend, evolving from a dispersed structure into a multi nuclei aggregation model centered on Yixing and Wuxi City. (3) Environmentally, bridges are predominantly located in low-elevation plains, gentle slopes (2° to 5°), and stable zones far from geological hazards. They exhibit a preference for northeast and northwest aspects, with the highest concentration within 100 m of rivers and in paddy or yellow–brown soil regions. (4) The RF model identifies rivers as the absolute dominant factor, followed by aspect, geological hazards, slope, and elevation, while soil factors have the lowest importance. These findings enrich the conservation theory for hydraulic cultural heritage and provide a scientific basis for the risk assessment, hierarchical protection, and integrated tourism planning of ancient stone bridges.

Historic linear corridors in living-heritage settings concentrate identity, everyday mobility, and visitor experience. Balancing authenticity, adaptability, and publicness therefore benefits from evidence that jointly characterizes long-term physical change, network accessibility, and eye-level interface conditions. Existing assessments often focus on façades or single time slices, leaving limited evidence that relates decades of built-fabric reconfiguration (changes in building footprints, street edges, and open-space fragmentation) to multi-scale accessibility and pedestrian-facing qualities. We propose an integrated and interpretable workflow for the Beishan Street corridor in the West Lake World Heritage core (Hangzhou) over 1929–2024. Scale-sensitive morphological metrics, multi-radius network measures (integration and centrality), and street-view semantic segmentation are aligned at corridor-segment resolution and examined together with segment-level functional intensity derived from POIs using transparent linear models. The results indicate a long-term shift from a lakeshore-led to a road-led spatial logic, followed by post-2000 stabilization near saturation. Average integration increases, while the high-integration tail becomes thinner. In connector-removal scenarios, the eastern segment shows a relative accessibility decline, and a central hinge node emerges as a vulnerability hotspot (bottleneck) where through-movement concentrates. Eye-level profiles differ by segment: the west exhibits maximal canopy and lower sky visibility, the center shows stronger continuous walls around compounds with intermittent forecourt openings, and the east is characterized by compact residential heritage frontage with low vegetation. Segment-level associations suggest that address and wayfinding density tends to co-occur with clearer frontages, wider sky cones, and stronger tree cover. Transportation-related and access/passage facilities tend to co-occur with higher ground-plane legibility, measured as wider and more continuous road and sidewalk surfaces. Medical and government clusters tend to co-occur with lower sky openness. Recommended actions include the following: (1) mesh-aware protection of key connectors and the hinge, (2) segment-specific targets for façade share and ground cues with planned punctuations, (3) tailored interface standards for institutional clusters, (4) scalable address and wayfinding systems, and (5) event staging that preserves effective roadway and sidewalk capacity.