Rui Ji
Rui JI is a PhD student at the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests center on environmental health and wellbeing, with a particular focus on vulnerable groups in urban areas.
Research interest: Urban health; Environmental justice; Environmental psychology; Environmental behavior; Environment psychology
B.A. JIT; MLA. ZAFU; PhD student in LA HKU
Email: jirui6872@connect.hku.hk
Are Natural Soundscapes Always Beneficial?
Important Publication
Children's Nature-Deficit Disorder
Important Publication
Storm Surge Response Atrategy
Design project
Awards
National Scholarship for Graduate Students. 2022
Honor for Outstanding Graduate – Zhejiang Province. 2023
Excellent Presentation Award – 7th National Urban Safety and Disaster Prevention Planning Annual Forum of the China Urban Planning Society– for the keynote presentation “Study on the Psychological Restorative Characteristics of Natural Water Soundscapes in Open Spaces”. 2023
First Class Academic Scholarship for Graduate Students – External Special Enterprise “Sunshine” Scholarship. 2022, 2021
School-level Outstanding Master’s Thesis. 2023
Research & Scholarship
Ji, R., Li, S., Bai, Z., Xu, B., & Hu, Z. (2025). Are natural soundscapes always beneficial? Evaluating the restorative qualities and influencing mechanisms of natural water soundscapes. Applied Acoustics, 227, 110205. doi:10.1016/j.apacoust.2024.110205
Ji, R., Lin, S., Li, S., & Wu, H. (2022). Study on the changes of soundscape of Shuile Cave in the West Lake Scenic Spot [In Chinese]. Chinese Landscape Architecture, 38(5), 139–144. doi:10.19775/j.cla.2022.05.0139
Ji, R., Shi, Y., & Li, S. (2023). International experience and enlightenment in dealing with storm surge disaster under the concept of resilience [In Chinese]. Urban Planning International, 38(2), 48–59. doi:10.19830/j.upi.2021.377
Ji, R., Li, S., & Shao, Y. (2022). A study on the characteristics of children’s natural activities in the neighborhood and their influencing factors: Evidence from Hangzhou, China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(23), 16087. doi:10.3390/ijerph192316087
Ji, R., & Li, S. (2023). On the characteristics and construction of soundscape from the perspective of “site investigation” in Yuan Ye [In Chinese]. Traditional Chinese Architecture and Gardens, (1), 92–97.
Wu, H., Ji, R., & Jin, H. (2023). Parental factors affecting children’s nature connectedness. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 87, 101977. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.101977
Bai, Z., Ji, R., Qi, J., Gao, F., Liu, S., & Zhang, Y. (2026). From numerical attribution to semantic interpretation: Environmental associations of noise perception with LLM and Geo-XAI. Building and Environment, 305, 115243. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.115243
Bai, Z., Ji, R., Gao, F., Mao, Y., & Liu, S. (2026). Quantity or structure? Asset or burden? Causal evidence of street greenery’s impact on housing prices from sequential data. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/23998083261420306
Bai, Z., Ji, R., & Qi, J. (2024). Deciphering motorists’ perceptions of scenic road visual landscapes: Integrating binocular simulation and image segmentation. Land, 13(9), 1381. doi:10.3390/land13091381
Teaching Assistant
Master’s Course on Climate-Friendly Design for Zero-Carbon Community, School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University. March 2023 – July 2023
Undergraduate course in Landscape Engineering, College of Landscape Architecture and Architecture, Zhejiang A&F University. March 2021 – July 2021.
Public Social Activities
Volunteer for Citipedia (一览众山小 — Sustainable City and Transport)—— I co-organized the Hangzhou events for Jane’s Walk, a public welfare project created in memory of urban planning pioneer Jane Jacobs. 2022 Hangzhou Jane’s Walk, West Lake Community × Urban Biodiversity; 2023 Hangzhou Jane’s Walk, Liangzhu Culture Village × Community Playground
Teaching Volunteer, Rural Children’s Program, Future Talents Summer Camp, 2021
Research Project
Soundscape
Research Question: What are the intrinsic and derived values of soundscapes in Chinese classical gardens?
Research Process: This research began with soundscapes in classical Chinese gardens. My early work traced the historical changes of the “heart-washing” and “ear-washing” soundscapes at Shuile Cave in the West Lake World Heritage Site, and analysed how Ji Cheng’s Yuanye constructed soundscapes across different terrains. Shaped by concerns over historical authenticity, the limits of semantics and exegesis, and an anthropological view of societal benefit (imagining how Ji Cheng would address contemporary practical needs), I turned to quantifying this traditional wisdom through environmental psychology and physiology, so that it can guide contemporary sound environment design. My master’s thesis, awarded Outstanding Master’s Thesis, tested the restorative effects of five typical natural water soundscapes and the classical construction paradigms behind them, such as “Resting the Head on Flowing Water” and “Viewing and Hearing the Tide.”
Children’s pro-nature behaviour
Research Question: What are the characteristics of children’s nature-deficit disorder in the Chinese context (a post-entry modernizing country), and how can it be responded to from a planning and design perspective?
Research Process: This research stems from a social phenomenon I observed during my long-term volunteering with children: in a performance-driven and utilitarian society, children are increasingly disconnected from the natural environment. As the project lead, I coordinated a team of six PhD and master’s students to apply for the “Peng Qing” Youth Public Welfare Fund [6000 RMB] for a project titled Exploring Strategies to Address Children’s Nature-Deficit Disorder. In the project, we surveyed 900 parent-child pairs on nature contact and analysed the influencing factors from two perspectives, opportunity (nowhere to play) and orientation (no wish to play). Finally, this work has produced several journal papers and a set of practical initiatives promoting children’s nature contact, including a nature education manual for 900 families, offline classes for 59 children in grades 4 and 5, and a WeChat public account “Pea Seed” for the wider public.
