Dominance Level of Significant Features in Post-mining Landscapes as a Predictor of Perceived Scenic Beauty

Abstract

The reclamation of post-mining landscapes presents a unique opportunity to create beautiful landscapes. Public participation in the design of new landscapes is possible if assessing landscape preferences is treated as a part of the reclamation process. During reclamation, emphasis should be given to particular landscape features because people tend to pay more attention to these features when perceiving a landscape. Most previous studies have evaluated only the effect as to the presence of features in a landscape upon its attractiveness, not the effect of their dominance levels. Moreover, this issue has not been studied comprehensively in post-mining landscapes, which are unique not only for the degree of human influence but especially for the occurrence of specific landscape features. This study therefore focuses specifically on the dominance level of the relevant features in post-mining landscapes as one of the factors affecting visual preferences for this landscape type. Based on spatial image analysis of ground photographs of post-mining landscapes in the North Bohemian Brown Coal Basin in combination with a preference questionnaire survey, we found that the dominance level of most of the studied features affects the aesthetic value of the entire landscape scene. The attractiveness of the scene diminished with increasing dominance of the active surface coal mine and of urban structures in the surrounding landscape, while the attractiveness of the scene increased with rising dominance of water features and rural structures. Other selected landscape features increase or decrease landscape scenic attractiveness only when their levels of dominance are low. Our findings thus point to the importance of the dominance level of essential features in post-mining landscapes as one of the key predictors of the landscape’s attractiveness to the public and thus, to some extent, to the success of the reclamation process.