Abstract
The study was designed to examine the relationship between features of forests and the quality of forest landscapes, and to determine the strength of effect of the features in the aesthetic value of the landscape. The methodology applied to assess forest landscapes took into account the following features: forest site humidity, age of forest, terrain slope, site index of stands, species composition of the tree layer, under-story cover, colour and composition, mosaic-like, as well as horizontal structure of the tree stands. The study was conducted in temperate forests located in Central-Eastern Europe – more precisely – in south-eastern Poland. In the investigated area the dominating tree species are: Pinus sylvestris L., Abies alba Mill., Fagus sylvatica L. and Quercus L. They cover 42.2%, 20.8%, 20.4% and 6.5% of the total forest area, respectively. The findings show that nearly 1% of the area of the examined forests within the relevant territory are characterized with very high landscape value, over 67% with high, 31% with medium, and less than 0.5% with low landscape value. A strong relationship occurs between terrain slope vs. aesthetic quality of landscape as well as forest site humidity vs. aesthetic quality of landscape. Weak effect was observed for site index of stands vs. aesthetic quality of landscape, and moderate relationship was identified in the case of the remaining features. The findings show the strength of relationship between the features of forests and the aesthetic quality of landscapes, consequently providing a tool for forest managers to develop attractive forest landscapes in selected areas.
Highlights
Looking through the Web of Science database one can find the earliest considerations related to landscape, dating from 1893 (Dennis, 1893)
The findings show that nearly 1% of the forest area within the relevant territory are characterized with very high landscape value, over 67% with high, 31% with medium, and less than 0.5% with low landscape value (Table 2)
The approach adopted in the present study did not take into account the impact of surface waters on the quality of forest landscape; yet the present study did investigate such effect of forest site humidity and showed a strong relationship between the latter factor and the aesthetic value of forest landscapes (Table 3), the most attractive being the forests growing in fresh habitats and the least attractive are those in marshy habitats
Summary
Looking through the Web of Science database one can find the earliest considerations related to landscape, dating from 1893 (Dennis, 1893). The first publication reporting a study of landscape dominated by forests dates from 1972 and discusses changes in landscape resulting from human activity over the ages in Great Britain (Nicholls, 1972). It is a well-known fact that forests positively impact the landscape quality of a given region and, apart from the lay of the land and surface waters, constitute the main component of landscape attractiveness (Dudek, 2012; Petrova et al, 2015; Senetra, 2015; Zhang, Deng, Ma, & Sasaki, 2015). It has been proved that in the spectator eyes more biodiverse landscapes are perceived as more attractive (Dudek, 2016b), is closely related to them (Bridgewater, 1988; Waldhardt, 2003; Thies & Tscharntke, 1999) and with the ways a given area is used (Sala et al, 2000; Falcucci, Maiorano, & Boitani, 2007; Haines-Young, 2009)
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