Planning authorities undertake landscape evaluations in order to formulate and operationalize policy in the areas of landscape preservation and protection, landscape improvement and recreation. Different evaluations provide different types of data as inputs to decision-making in these policy areas, and no one method of evaluation is appropriate to all four. The suitability of the data input is constrained by landscape-evaluation type, survey-unit size and the ease of up-dating evaluation results. Only with the correct balance of these three variables will the evaluation technique chosen fit the policy objectives to be met. THE current debate on the subject of landscape evaluation, fostered by the continuing round of structure and development planning, has centred on the merits and demerits of particular landscape-evaluation techniques, rather than on the use to which the results of evaluations might be put (Penning-Rowsell, i973b, i974; Penning-Rowsell and Hardy, I973; Dunn, I974; Crofts and Cooke, I974). But it is possible that all evaluative techniques measure landscape quality to some extent and that more attention should be given to fitting technique to purpose and less to the definition of the quintessential landscapeevaluation method. OBJECTIVES OF LANDSCAPE EVALUATIONS The objectives of planning authorities in undertaking a landscape-evaluation programme within a development plan context are varied and show the range of potential applications of landscape evaluations considered to date (Fig. I). It should be borne in mind that the use of landscape-evaluation methods within a practical planning framework is a relatively recent innovation and, consequently, the full potential of the application of evaluations has not yet been realized. Nevertheless, four main objectives of landscape evaluations, two of which are similar, can be identified from the work so far undertaken by local authorities, and Figure i shows on which of the objectives different authorities have focused. Needless to say, different planning departments of county and district authorities are taking different paths towards achieving these objectives. Landscape preservation is the first and, to a large extent, the most important objective of landscape evaluations for local authorities. Here evaluations provide primary data for identifying areas of countryside which can be designated as being worthy of preservation in as near their existing conditions as possible. Behind this type of policy lies the philosophy which led to the designation of Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (A.O.N.B.), although their designation was not based on any systematic application of landscape-evaluation methods, but rather on the considered opinions of local planning department and Countryside Commission personnel. Further designations of A.O.N.B.s are now being pursued, hopefully based on more systematic analysis of landscape quality. At a smaller scale, individual county and district authorities are designating 'Areas of Special Landscape Quality' and the like which they consider to be of A.O.N.B. status if not of extent. The difficulties of applying landscape evaluations in this context naturally centre around where to draw the line between designated and non-designated areas-an important decision considerably affecting subsequent development control practices. This decision must to a large extent be politically determined and related to the scarcity or abundance of high landscape quality in the county or district concerned and the extent of pressures for development in the affected areas.