The assessment of visual quality as a tool for the conservation of rural landscape diversity

Abstract

The visual components of a landscape not only represent an aesthetic value but also testify to the interrelation of cultural, economic and biological phenomena. In fact it is often possible to find a relation between the beauty of landscape and its richness in terms of bio-ecological factors. Though it is not always easy to apply techniques for the assessment of landscape visual quality, this quality can be reasonably considered as a resource which has to be preserved in order to protect rural landscape diversity. The paper describes the drawing up and the application of a new and operative technique for the assessment of landscape quality of a rural area between the city of Milan and the Ticino river. This technique derives from previous British and American experiences, which have been adapted to the Italian context (in terms of landscape character, survey techniques and available databases); it is based on the identification of landscape units by field survey and photo-interpretation of aerial photographs and on the preparation of a scale of landscape values (this is done by interviewing a sample of people who gave numerical assessment to photographs of typical landscape units of the area). Finally five classes of different landscape quality values were found and a landscape evaluation map for the area was drawn up. The five landscape classes differ in relief, vegetation, density of built-up areas, size of cultivated fields and presence of character elements such as hedgerows, small woods, canals, lines of poplars or willows.