Abstract
River ecosystems are widely considered to be of high value for nature conservation. This judgment has been validated for biodiversity and regulating ecosystem services. However, little is known about the role of landscape aesthetic quality (LAQ) of river landscapes compared to other landscapes. The objective of this paper is to assess river landscape aesthetic quality (RLAQ), with an indicator-based approach, and to investigate whether river landscapes deserve special protection because of their attractiveness.We compare RLAQ with the aesthetic quality of other landscapes and explore specific indicators of RLAQ by using GIS and descriptive statistics. The results demonstrate that river courses and adjacent recent floodplains achieve higher LAQ scores than other landscapes of Germany, whereas LAQ of historical riparian zones is rated lower than in other landscapes. This is, mainly, due to the large modification of historical riparian zones. Areas with high RLAQ scores are mostly characterized by rare land cover types and, particularly, high relief diversity. In contrast, low RLAQ scores are found in agglomerations and in intensively cultivated historical riparian zones.RLAQ is an important contribution to multifunctional river landscape development as it supports the public acceptance of renaturation measures.
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