Abstract
For centuries, agricultural activities have marked and defined the landscape with its own distinctive features. The consideration of the rural landscape as a resource has gained traction in recent years. In Europe, the European Landscape Convention offers a solid framework that places landscape at the forefront of European policies on cultural heritage, environment, and territorial ordination. The most important new development is the integrated vision of the landscape in its cultural and natural aspects, and the introduction of its social dimension. This work analyses the influence of different factors on preferences for rural landscapes in the locality of Campo de Criptana (Ciudad Real), representative of the singular rural landscape of the La Mancha plain. The method for assessing landscape is the people’s aesthetic response to it. Specifically, an analysis has been made of the observers’ preferences in relation to their educational level (university educated or not), gender, age, and place of origin (whether they come from the locality itself or from outside). This is one of the few works that analyse the place of origin of the observer. In view of these results, it can be concluded that all the demographic factors analysed have an influence on preferences in rural landscapes.
Highlights
The concept of landscape is difficult to characterise, as it describes a multipurpose element [1] whose definition has evolved over time
The rural landscape of Campo de Criptana is characterised by the frequency of four landscape attributes that previous investigations [7] considered important in the assessment of its visual quality: presence of fauna, cultural resources, presence of vegetation, and breadth of the viewshed
The catalogue of photographs was completed with two images showing the combination of attributes that could not be obtained in the field, which were available under license on a Spanish nature photography network in 2000 [37]
Summary
The concept of landscape is difficult to characterise, as it describes a multipurpose element [1] whose definition has evolved over time. There are numerous recent examples of case studies of landscape assessment based on observers’ preferences at the European level, for natural [20,21], agricultural [22], and urban landscapes [23,24] The results of this type of analysis have identified strategic lines. The results of this type of analysis have identified strategic lines to enhance the landscape function of agricultural systems with a view to their sustainable development, in the sphere of rural tourism [25,26,27,28]. Preferences in relation to their cational level (university educated or not), place of origin (whether they come from the educational (university not), locality itselflevel or from outside),educated gender, or and age.place of origin (whether they come from the locality itself or from outside), gender, and age
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