Assessing Railway Landscape by AHP Process with GIS: A Study of the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway

Silvia Elena Piovan,Giovanni Luigi Fontana,Kun Sang

doi:10.3390/rs14030603

Silvia Elena Piovan, Giovanni Luigi Fontana + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14030603

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Journal: Remote Sensing	Publication Date: Jan 27, 2022
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Padua, Xiamen University Malaysia

Abstract

Landscape quality is a crucial factor for the heritage attractiveness of tourism, allowing tourists to experience both natural and cultural aspects along railway journeys. Moreover, railway landscape is a comprehensive system that defines the landscape observed and perceived by passengers and is characterized by the diversity and continuity of the train’s movement. Yunnan-Vietnam railway (YVR) heritage is the research object of this research, whose area encompasses various landscape types and heritage sites, providing great landscape enjoyment. Currently, the assessment methods specifically for railway landscape have been discussed less than for other landscape types, especially for a series of large linear sites like the YVR. To evaluate the value of railway heritage landscape along the railway, this paper proposes a methodology combining the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Delphi method, and GIS as an integrated spatial assessment. Creatively, this paper seeks to: (1) discuss the relationship between railway and landscape; (2) build a comprehensive evaluation system for the railway heritage landscape, covering the topics of history, tourism, ecology, heritage, social-culture, and visual quality; (3) quantify the landscape value of the YVR areas. Thus, the results of this research can be useful to future urban planning, development, and policymaking.

Highlights

Landscape is an interdisciplinary research object, which is defined differently in various fields and can be perceived differently by individuals
This paper aims to: (1) discuss the relationship between railway and landscape; (2) build a comprehensive evaluation system for the assessment of railway landscape, covering the topic of history, tourism, ecology, heritage, social-culture, and landscape quality along the railway; (3) quantify the landscape value of the areas passed by the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, which serves for its future planning and development
The relationship between landscape and railway is reviewed by the authors, which mainly transited from opposition to integration

Summary

Introduction

Landscape is an interdisciplinary research object, which is defined differently in various fields and can be perceived differently by individuals. It refers to the appearance of areas on the Earth that can be viewed because of a synthesis of people and the land of livings [1]. With the emergence of steam trains, the railway became a bearer of both industrial and technological achievements in modern history, its construction having both positive and negative impacts on the landscape and environment [4,5]. In the early days of its invention, as a large industrial machine of noise and pollution, the train/railway was in conflict with the concept of “picturesque,” when the landscape aesthetic was tied closely to nature and wildness.

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