Wetland Park Routes Differ in Perceived Restorativeness: Evidence from a Continuous Walking Study with Visitors

Urban wetland parks combine ecological functions with everyday opportunities for recreation and perceived restoration, and researchers have increasingly examined how landscape sequences are associated with restorative evaluations during walking exposure. However, it remains unclear within urban wetland parks whether recurrent route settings differ systematically in their perceived-restorativeness profiles and whether the associations between environmental perceptions and perceived restorativeness vary across these settings. Using Fengxiang Wetland Park in Haikou, China, as a single-park case study, a within-participant repeated-measures design was used in which 76 participants sequentially experienced four route settings: open, waterfront, woodland, and wetland routes. Repeated-measures analysis of variance and person-centered linear mixed-effects models were conducted using 304 repeated route-level evaluations nested within the 76 participants. The results showed that: (1) the woodland route achieved the highest overall perceived restorativeness, while the wetland, open, and waterfront routes showed distinct advantages in Fascination, Scope, and Coherence, respectively; (2) the four routes differed significantly in most environmental perception factors and all dimensions of perceived restorativeness; and (3) the 15 environmental perception factors were jointly associated with within-participant variation in perceived restorativeness, but no individual factor or route-specific interaction remained significant after false discovery rate correction. These findings indicate that perceived restorativeness within the studied park was associated with both ecological resources and conditions related to safety, accessibility, comfort, and service facilities. By clarifying how these ecological and use-support conditions coexist across heterogeneous route settings, the study provides context-specific evidence for sustainable and setting-sensitive wetland park planning that preserves environmental diversity while supporting continued public use.