Abstract
The upland olive groves of Andalusia (Southern Spain) are an example of fragile landscape from an ecological point of view. The wildfire and soil erosion risks that can result in the desertification of the area are the main components of fragility. This paper focuses on the visual quality assessment of this agricultural system as a mean to their economic and environmental sustainability. The case study is represented by the upland olive groves of the municipality of Montoro where rural tourism is an important economic activity. We carried out a personal interview survey on 480 citizens to determine their visual preferences regarding three representative types of olive plantation landscape to be transferred to landscape level through a Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) multicriteria decision-making technique was the method used to derive preferences from the survey. The results suggest that olive farming systems with grass vegetation cover between the trees are the preferred landscape type (0.42), followed very closely by the non-productive olive groves (0.41). The conventional olive farming system was the least preferred landscape (0.17). The visual quality map presents five categories, revealing that most of the olive groves in the study area belong to the very low visual quality category (93% of the total area).
Highlights
This paper concerns the visual quality assessment of such a specific agricultural landscape as upland olive groves
Guzmán-Álvarez and Navarro-Cerrillo [1] identified around 200,000 hectares of Andalusian olive groves as marginal using topographical and edaphic criteria, most of them situated in upland areas
The model proposed in this study evaluates the visual quality of the upland olive groves of MontTohreo matoladnedl spcraoppeolseevdeli.nTthheisevstauludaytieovnaolufavtiessutahlequvaisluitayliqs uaalwlitayysofatchhealulepnlagnindgoplirvoecegsrsodvuese otof iMtso“nftuozrzoya”t alannddssucabpjeectlievveeln. aTthueree[v4a0l,u4a1t]i.oTnhoefrevfiosurea,lwqueaaliimtyeids atolwcaoynsvaercthtahlelesnugbijnegctpivreocpeesrscdeputeiotoniotsf “thfuezpzyo”puanladtisounbijencttoivneunmateurircea[l4d0,a4t1a].thTahteraelfloorwe, uwsetaoimquedanttoifcyonthveervtitshuealsuqbujaeclittiyveopf earnceapgtiroicnuoltfutrhael psyosptuemla.tioInn ionrtdoenrutmo earcichaiel vdeattahtihsaotbajleloctwivue,s wtoequcoamntbifiynethdeavimsuualltiqcuriatleirtiyaotfeacnhnaigqruiceu, ltthueraAl snyasltyetmic
Summary
This paper concerns the visual quality assessment of such a specific agricultural landscape as upland olive groves. This assessment is performed via the joint use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) decision-making technique. The marginal upland olive groves represent a fragile landscape from an ecological point of view. Their fragility consists of their vulnerability to wildfires and soil erosion that lead to desertification of the area [2]. The presence of high soil erosion risk in upland olive groves is explained by the presence of steep and long slopes, the absence of any vegetation cover to protect the soil and the irregularity and intensity of rainfalls typical of this climate [4]. The desertification is a consequence of wildfire and soil erosion: once the soil has disappeared from the upland area, vegetation has difficulty
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