Landscape quality evaluation using cultural ecosystem service assessment methods

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) have been widely researched for several years, but cultural ecosystem services (CES) have gained importance in recent years due to pressure on human well-being and public health. This literature review aims to continue research about ES assessment methods used in the valuation of landscape quality, analysing methods for CES assessment. The most assessed CES is aesthetic value being one of the most appreciated and widely known CES. Landscape quality assessment is complicated and rarely assessed, but several methods evaluate separate features of landscape quality, which gives an insight into accessible methods for landscape valuation. In this article, methods are analysed and categorised into four groups – economic, spatial evaluation, social and statistical analysis. Most analysed articles use several methods in one assessment giving more precise results. In CES assessment, the most used method is surveys and questionnaires and usually incorporating mapping methods to spatially explicitly represent the data.