Public Visual Preference for Dead Wood in Different Types of Landscape

Ling Qiu,Tian Gao,Yanan Gao,Tian Zhang,Na Yu

doi:10.3390/f12010044

Abstract

Although dead wood is considered to be one of the most reliable indicators for measuring the level of biodiversity, it was still seemingly unpopular with the public. In order to identify the public’s preferences for dead wood and explore the driving factors for it, this study investigated academic-related group and layman group preferences for a variety of forms of dead wood in different types of environment through the use of questionnaire surveys. The results showed: (a) The participants preferred the urban natural environments with dead wood, especially the layman group; (b) the existence of dead wood in semi-open/semi-closed green space and blue space was most likely to be appreciated; (c) the participants most liked the dead wood with a peculiar shape in the semi-open/semi-closed and the closed green space, and a regular shape in the open green space; (d) the information of landscape appreciation had the greatest positive influence on public’s dead wood preference, followed by the information of recreational facility and ecological education, and the information of “leading the way” was the least; (e) the present findings serve to provide a practical guidance for future optimal planning of urban environments from urban biodiversity and human recreation aspects.

Highlights

Landscape is an area perceived by people whose character is the results of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors ([1,2,3] and the European LandscapeConvention (ELC))
The preference scores of 11 photos with dead wood were higher than those without dead wood (Table 3), which indicated that the participants are able to accept the urban natural environments with large dead wood and deem those environments more in line with their visual aesthetics
Compared with the academic-related group, the layman group more preferred the dead wood with a peculiar shape, a regular shape, and a messy/straggly shape. These results indicated that the layman group had a higher level of acceptance for dead wood with different forms in the different types of the environments (Table 7)

Summary

Introduction

Landscape is an area perceived by people whose character is the results of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors ([1,2,3] and the European LandscapeConvention (ELC)). Different landscape elements can stimulate spontaneous aesthetic satisfaction in people [4] and influence public landscape preference. Dead wood refers to dry wood or downed logs formed as a result of competitive exclusion, aging, death, and interference of natural climate factors or the influence of human activities in the course of the growth of trees [6,7]. Studies on public preference for dead wood mainly focused on an aesthetic assessment of forest. Dead wood was usually considered as a “messy” element [8,9] and even a safety hazard due to the collapsing of wood and potential fires, [10,11] influencing the aesthetic and recreational values of forests and the landscape quality [12,13,14]. Several studies showed that dead wood was not popular with the public as well [17,18,19,20,21]

Objectives

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion