Evaluation of the winter landscape of the plant community of urban park green spaces based on the scenic beauty esitimation method in Yangzhou, China.

Canliu Li,Shiguang Shen,Zhihan Lv,Li Ding

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239849

Abstract

Plant landscapes are fundamental components of the green space of urban parks and are often dynamic, changing throughout the year. Winter is a season with poor plant landscape effects in urban park green spaces. However, plant community landscapes in the winter in urban park green spaces could be further optimized. Here, we conducted scenic beauty estimation (SBE) of the landscape factors in 29 winter plant communities in four typical urban parks in Yangzhou, China using partial correlation analysis and multiple linear regression. The standard SBE values of the 29 plant communities ranged from -0.981 to 1.209. Complex plant community landscapes with abundant plant species, beautiful plant community morphology and obvious seasonal changes generally received high scenic beauty scores. Six landscape factors, including the diversity of plant species, the proportion of evergreen tree species, the morphological characteristics of plants, the ground cover rate, the overall sense of harmony and the color composition, greatly influenced the scenic beauty of the plant landscape in the winter. Generally, the results of this study provide insight into how the plant community landscape in urban parks could be improved.

Highlights

Social and economic conditions have changed greatly as urbanization has accelerated
We found that the scenic beauty of the winter plant landscape in the four parks was average overall and that six landscape factors: species diversity of the plant community, the ratio of evergreen trees, morphological characteristics, the ground cover ratio, the overall sense of coordination and color composition were highly correlated with the scenic beauty of winter plant communities
The following measures should be taken to improve the beauty of the winter plant landscape

Summary

Introduction

The increase in income and leisure time has increased the number of visitors to urban park green spaces. As the most important component of urban green space systems [1,2,3], urban parks are important for improving the urban environment and maintaining ecosystem health, but they provide the public with visually appealing landscapes and places for recreation [4,5,6]. Plant landscapes are defined as images composed of vegetation, plant communities and individual plants that contribute to the perception of beauty and its association through visual perception [7], and plant community landscapes are basic components of urban parks and have higher aesthetic value. In Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, China, plant landscapes in urban parks in the winter are often more

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Conclusion