The Relationship of Observer and Landscape in Landscape Evaluation

Abstract

The observer's physical, perceptual and evaluative relationship with the landscape is difficult to measure. Landscape occurs as an independent, objective phenomenon something like the image in a vertical air photograph, but is seen very differently by the observer as a series of oblique views which are unique to the viewer and viewpoint. The landscape/observer perceptual relationship is one of environment rather than object perception, a notion which allows the visible landscape to encompass the influence of the nature of the activities in which the observer is engaged, various forms of peripheral information and properties of meaning or atmosphere attached to the landscape. None of these is directly visible but each is widely held to influence landscape perception and valuation. Measurement of landscape quality can be concerned with either the observer's personal preferences and opinions or his assessment of the value of the landscape against an objective aesthetic standard common to his culture. LANDSCAPE evaluation is at a stage where there is a need for investigation of some of the more fundamental problems so that evaluation can be based on knowledge and assumptions of greater validity. In this context this paper is concerned with the definition of landscape and with landscape evaluation in relation to aspects of the observer's landscape experience. THE NATURE OF THE LANDSCAPE AND LANDSCAPE EVALUATION The landscape may be regarded as one of the parameters of land evaluation. It can be defined as the appearance of the land at the interface of the earth's surface and atmosphere. So defined, it is a composite of the visual aspects of all other land parameters. Essentially its study is concerned with the morphology of its visual attributes, rather than with their underlying social, economic and physical, past and present explanations and processes. The features composing the landscape are thus the visible aspects of the shape of the ground and the superficial land-use features, but landscapes derive distinctive character as much from the spatial arrangement and relative dispositions of individual components as from the ground shape and land-use features. In addition to these more permanent features the appearance of any landscape is affected by transient conditions of weather, lighting, diurnal and seasonal changes and the presence of people, animals and vehicles. It is difficult to include such transients in landscape studies, but they can be surprisingly dominant. Landscape evaluation is a complex process, which may be subdivided into three phases. Operationally it may not be necessary, or even desirable, to keep them separate, but it is suggested that recognition of the different phases is an aid to clear thinking about the nature of evaluation problems and to the identification of areas where more fundamental work is required. The three phases may be defined as follows. Landscape measurement is the objective description and classification of the landscape which produces an inventory of what actually exists, with no consideration of'scoring' on a qualitative basis. Landscape preference or value measurement is the investigation and measurement of value judgements or preferences for the visual landscape. Within this phase are included perception problems relating to the nature of the landscape images for which qualitative assessments are to be made. These stages offer two complex and widely different mensuration problems, the results of which have to be related together to produce the third phase, a landscape evaluation, defined as the assessment of the quality of the objective visual landscape in terms of individual or societal prefer-