Urban Landscape Quality Index – Planning Tool for Evaluating Urban Landscapes and Improving the Quality of Life

Abstract

Researchers and planners worldwide have emphasized the need for a better planning in an urbanizing world. The expansion of urbanized areas has increased people's access to modern facilities and urban infrastructures but decreased the quality of life due to social imbalances characterizing large cities. The quality of urban landscape can be used as an indicator of high or low quality of life levels. Our study proposesed the assessment of urban landscape using an Urban Landscape Quality Index (ULQI) used for mapping the landscape quality within a city. The methodology used for calculating ULQI was based on an expert assessment of the urban landscape items from a first rank city from Romania followed by the calculation of the index itself. The assessment was made at a neighbourhood level and using the generated values we were able to process a map representing the quality of the urban landscape in the inhabited areas of Ploieşti. The results were compared with the answers from a survey targeting the landscape quality perception of the locals. A 75% accuracy was recorded between the visual assessment of the urban landscape and the perception of the locals. The study showed that using visual assessment of the landscape and calculating ULQI is an efficient and useful approach that doesn’t require a high amount of resources and can generate an outline over a city in short period. ULQI values can be used by planners, landscapers or authorities in order to prioritize the areas of an urban area that need to be taken into consideration.