Abstract
During the last decade, agriculture has lost its importance in many European mountain regions and tourism, which benefits from attractive landscapes, has become a major source of income. Changes in landscape patterns and elements might affect scenic beauty and therefore the socio-economic welfare of a region. Our study aimed at modeling scenic beauty by quantifying the influence of landscape elements and patterns in relationship to distance. Focusing on Alpine landscapes in South and North Tyrol, we used a photographic questionnaire showing different landscape compositions. As mountain landscapes offer long vistas, we related scenic beauty to different distance zones. Our results indicate that the near zone contributes by 64% to the valuation of scenic beauty, the middle zone by 22%, and the far zone by 14%. In contrast to artificial elements, naturalness and diversity increased scenic beauty. Significant differences between different social groups (origin, age, gender, cultural background) occurred only between the local population and tourists regarding great landscape changes. Changes towards more homogenous landscapes were perceived negatively, thus political decision makers should support the conservation of the cultural landscape.
Highlights
All over the European Alps, major land-use changes result in altered landscape patterns [1,2,3].Whereas productive areas continue to be used, less productive areas have been abandoned, leading to natural reforestation [4,5]
To evaluate the influence of distance, and the composition of the landscape in the near zone on the perception process and, on the scenic beauty of landscapes, we developed a general model allowing us to compare landscape properties and to evaluate its scenic beauty
Series indicated that the influence of landscape elements on scenic beauty depends on distance
Summary
Whereas productive areas continue to be used, less productive areas have been abandoned, leading to natural reforestation [4,5]. Such land-use change produces a change in the appearance of the landscape. The visual character of landscapes affects human well-being in different ways, especially in terms of aesthetic appreciation, human health, and human relations [6,7,8]. An attractive environment can support a positive future development in Europe’s mountain areas, especially, in terms of economic benefits related to tourism, as mountain landscapes are appealing environments [4,9,10,11]. Scenic beauty assessments and modeling approaches, which consider recent landscape dynamics, can support the local decision makers and landscape planners towards a sustainable development [4,12]
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