The assessment of visual environment quality at Solomyansky district, Kyiv city

Abstract

The visual pollution is among the environmental problems of modern urban ecosystems. Thus, visual environment quality is considered an important element of the quality of life for residents of cities. The formation of the visual pollution concept has been showed, indicating the lack of uniform formulation. The differentiation of elements of visual pollution as well as the properties of visual fields has been performed. The analysis of methods for visual pollution assessment has demonstrated mostly descriptive character of corresponding research worksю Some works have been performed using complicated instruments, but their results are eventually interpreted in descriptive forms as well. The special method of visual environment quality evaluation has been developed, accounting such parameters as degree of aggressiveness and homogeneity, pollution with advertisements and retail outlets, transport and population loading, area and location of green zones, shading level and presence of landfills. Each parameter included in the assessment is provided with rating scale and weighting index, which reflects its contribution to the scenery formed. The method has been applied to the assessment of the visual environment at the Solomyansky district of the Kyiv City has been performed. The results demonstrate the high level of visual pollution along the major highways and streets, namely Borschagivska Street, Vadyma Getmana Street, Kosmonavta Komarova Avenue, Chokolivsky Boulevard and Povitroflotsky Avenue. The minor streets, in particular Levanovskogo Street, Nizhynska Street and Valeria Lobanovskogo Avenue, with predominantly residential buildings demonstrate predictably lower intensity of pollution, but increased area of low quality visual fields. The most common element of visual pollution is garbage accumulations, traffic jams, unregulated retailing and lack of green plantations. The recommendations on the improvement of visual environment quality have been formulated, including the need for development of the city’s visual environment standard.