Distant Landscape Research Articles

Signal contribution of distant areas to cosmic-ray neutron sensors – implications for footprint and sensitivity

Abstract. This paper presents a new theoretical approach to estimate the contribution of distant areas to the measurement signal of cosmic-ray neutron detectors for snow and soil moisture monitoring. The algorithm is based on the local neutron production and the transport mechanism, given by the neutron–moisture relationship and the radial intensity function, respectively. The purely analytical approach has been validated with physics-based neutron transport simulations for heterogeneous soil moisture patterns, exemplary landscape features, and remote fields at a distance. We found that the method provides good approximations of simulated signal contributions in patchy soils with typical deviations of less than 1 %. Moreover, implications of this concept have been investigated for the neutron–moisture relationship, where the signal contribution of an area has the potential to explain deviating shapes of this curve that are often reported in the literature. Finally, the method has been used to develop a new practical footprint definition to express whether or not a distant area's soil moisture change is actually detectable in terms of measurement precision. The presented concepts answer long-lasting questions about the influence of distant landscape structures in the integral footprint of the sensor without the need for computationally expensive simulations. The new insights are highly relevant to support signal interpretation, data harmonization, and sensor calibration and will be particularly useful for sensors positioned in complex terrain or on agriculturally managed sites.

Analysis on the characteristics of eye movement and the evaluation of psychological perception for forest waterscape space

For landscape architects, how to provide a highly quality forest landscape for visitors has always been an important topic. This study based on the results of previous field observation, combined with eye tracking technology and psychological perception questionnaire, and used the Wilcoxon rank sum test, T test and Spearman’s rho correlation analysis in SPSS 23.0 to statistically analyze the data. The main purpose is to clarify the relationship between visual behavior characteristics and psychological perception evaluation of the forest waterscape space where tourists have more behavioral evaluations during forest walk. Main results are as follows: 1. There are differences eye movement behaviors of different types of forest waterscape space, especially in the visual span; 2. There are significant differences visitor’s psychological evaluation of different types of forest waterscape in five indices, which in whether the landscape content is changing, whether the color is rich, whether the color is bright, whether the space is open and whether you can see the distant landscape; 3. There is a correlation between human eye movement behavior and psychological perception evaluation in different types of forest waterscape spaces. The scenes with a large number of fixations also have higher satisfaction, and fixations count have positively correlated with the spatial perception evaluation results, which including plant diversity, landscape richness, permeability and the layering. That is to say, richness of landscape elements and color, permeability of the space and the regularity of the forest waterscape space affect the participants’ eye movement observation mode. Through the above analysis, we suggest that in the planning and design of forest waterscape space should be considerate the characteristics of different landscape elements, meanwhile we should pay attention to the interspersion of appropriate heterogeneous landscape space.

ЭСТЕТИЧЕСКАЯ ОЦЕНКА ТЕРМАЛЬНЫХ ИСТОЧНИКОВ ТЮМЕНСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ

Thermal waters are the most valuable resource for the Tyumen region along with hydrocarbons, and they have a considerable potential for use. At the present stage, the practice of using groundwaters as thermal springs has reached its maximum positions, the region has 23 sanatoriumresort and recreational facilities where thermal waters are used for recreational and wellness purposes. Of particular interest for tourists are thermal springs in the open air, where the temperature regime of the water allows for water procedures under all weather conditions. The article presents a method of aesthetic evaluation of thermal springs of the Tyumen region which is based on conservative signs of assessing the landscape diversity and landscape expressiveness of the view from a hot pool. Moreover, there are presented methodological developments for assessing the improvement of hot springs thatreflect the nature of the transition from the near to the distant landscape view, the potential possibilities of enriching the landscape, the degree of modernity of the site. For each criterion, there was developed a scoring scale (0–2 points). 13 objects (recreation centers) from 7 municipalities of the region were used as representative research sites where the aesthetic properties of the surrounding landscape were evaluated from two key points. The results of the study demonstrate that the score-based differentiation of the aesthetic attractiveness of landscapes makes it possible to objectively assess the visual environment of the territory of hot springs, to rank the landscapes of recreation centers by aesthetic value as low-, medium-, and high-value landscapes, and to identify general trends in the arrangement of hot spring facilities.

ІСТОРИЧНІ ПАРКИ УКРАЇНИ. ВІД ІСТОРІЇ ДО СУЧАСНОСТІ

Abstract. The article explores the issues of the emergence and development of historical parks in Ukraine. There are four periods of formation and development of historical parks in Ukraine: the first ‒ from the times of Kievan Rus to the middle of the 17th century (the origin of park building), the second ‒ from the middle of the 17th century before the revolution of 1917 (construction of mainly private palaces and park ensembles), the third ‒ from 1918 to 1991 (soviet period), the fourth ‒ from 1991 to the present (the period of independence of Ukraine). The definition of the concept «historical park» is given. The park is a work of art. A unique situation in human practice: to create a living and perfect work of art at the same time. Gardens and parks provide this opportunity. The park is history. The historical park preserves and broadcasts this history to us ‒ it is an object of cultural heritage, our common heritage. Sometimes the park is also a museum-reserve and bears the function of preserving heritage. Historical gardens and parks often acquire the status of monuments. Monuments of landscape gardening art are historical and cultural monuments that organically include plants, landscape features (hills, water sources and waterfalls, stream or river valleys, stones, rocks, distant landscape perspectives, sometimes wetlands), architectural structures, sculptures, flower beds, etc. Historical parks of cities include palaces and manor complexes, botanical gardens, city parks and memorial parks, as well as parks-monuments. In total, there are 88 historical parks-monuments of landscape gardening art of national and 426 local significances in Ukraine. Parks-monuments of landscape gardening art of local importance include: parks of culture and recreation, arboretums, woodlands used as recreation parks, and other objects. In particular, in the Odessa region there are 22 parks-monuments, in the city of Odessa ‒ 5 parks-monuments of gardening art (T. Shevchenko Park, Dyukovsky Garden, City Garden, Victory Arboretum, Park named after Savitsky). The article highlights the main problems in the restoration work of historical parks and solutions. The history of the emergence and development of parks in Ukraine is analyzed. It was concluded that the historical parks are multifaceted and interesting not only for architectural ensembles, but also for their biocenosis.

In the wings of the dove: bird's-eye view and more-than-human gaze in the wildlife documentary series Earthflight

ABSTRACT This article explores deterritorialisation of the human gaze and negotiations of animal life and environment through nonhuman vision. The article focuses on the aerial view and aesthetics of the wildlife documentary series Earthflight and the nature of the gaze in a more-than-human sense. Wildlife documentaries tend to represent animals in a way that imitates human vision while the anthropocentric gaze produces speciesed animals. However, the series Earthflight produces a perspective of a bird's-eye view through small cameras attached to birds' backs or drones gliding among a flock, providing images of flying in close proximity to birds' movements and bodies. I argue that with the concept of the ‘more-than-human gaze,’ it is possible to examine a perspective that binds together technology, nonhuman animals, and human viewers. The aerial filming extend a perceived territory towards nonanthropocentric vision. The bird's-eye view as the more-than-human gaze deterritorialises the human ways of looking, while showing that birds are not just objects to be looked at but rather active subjects to gaze with. This kind of assembled gaze produces new unfoldings of the environment, perceived not merely as a distant landscape to be admired but as a lived, material environment shared with other nonhuman animals.

Augmenting the landscape scene: students as participatory evaluators of mobile geospatial technologies

ABSTRACTThis paper provides a two-phase study to compare alternative techniques for augmenting landscape scenes on geography fieldtrips. The techniques were: a pre-prepared acetate overlay; a custom-designed mobile field guide; a locative media app on a smartphone; a virtual globe on a tablet PC; a head-mounted virtual reality display, and a geo-wand style mobile app. In one field exercise the first five techniques were compared through analysis of interviews and student video diaries, combined with direct observation. This identified a particular challenge of how to direct user attention correctly to relevant information in the field of view. To explore this issue in more detail, a second field exercise deployed “Zapp”, a bespoke geo-wand-style app capable of retrieving information about distant landscape features. This was evaluated using first-person video and spatial logging of in-field interactions. This paper reflects upon the relative merits of these approaches and highlights particular challenges of using technology to mimic a human field guide in pointing out specific aspects of the landscape scene. We also explore the role of students acting as design informants and research co-participants, which can be mutually beneficial in promoting a critical appreciation of the role of technology to support learning about the landscape.

Which visibility indicators best represent a population’s preference for a level of visual air quality?

ABSTRACTSeveral studies have been carried out over the past 20 or so years to assess the level of visual air quality that is judged to be acceptable in urban settings. Groups of individuals were shown slides or computer-projected scenes under a variety of haze conditions and asked to judge whether each image represented acceptable visual air quality. The goal was to assess the level of haziness found to be acceptable for purposes of setting an urban visibility regulatory standard. More recently, similar studies were carried out in Beijing, China, and the more pristine Grand Canyon National Park and Great Gulf Wilderness. The studies clearly showed that when preference ratings were compared to measures of atmospheric haze such as atmospheric extinction, visual range, or deciview (dv), there was not a single indicator that represented acceptable levels of visual air quality for the varied urban or more remote settings. For instance, using a Washington, D.C., setting, 50% of the observers rated the landscape feature as not having acceptable visual air quality at an extinction of 0.19 km−1 (21 km visual range, 29 dv), while the 50% acceptability point for a Denver, Colorado, setting was 0.075 km−1 (52 km visual range, 20 dv) and for the Grand Canyon it was 0.023 km−1 (170 km visual range, 7 dv). Over the past three or four decades, many scene-specific visibility indices have been put forth as potential indicators of visibility levels as perceived by human observers. They include, but are not limited to, color and achromatic contrast of single landscape features, average and equivalent contrast of the entire image, edge detection algorithms such as the Sobel index, and just-noticeable difference or change indexes. This paper explores various scene-specific visual air quality indices and examines their applicability for use in quantifying visibility preference levels and judgments of visual air quality.Implications: Visibility acceptability studies clearly show that visibility become more unacceptable as haze increases. However, there are large variations in the preference levels for different scenes when universal haze indicators, such as atmospheric extinction, are used. This variability is significantly reduced when the sky–landscape contrast of the more distant landscape features in the observed scene is used. Analysis suggest that about 50% of individuals would find the visibility unacceptable if at any time the more distant landscape features nearly disappear, that is, they are at the visual range. This common metric could form the basis for setting an urban visibility standard.

Urbanism and Anthropogenic Landscapes

Humans consistently modify their environments—both directly and indirectly. However, the linkage between human activity and anthropogenic landscapes intensifies in urban situations. The artificial landscapes and dense concentrations of human populations encountered in urban environments create a centripetal pull for resources that results in continual and distant landscape changes, thus inextricably linking urbanism and anthropogenic landscapes. Examining past and present patterns of urban settlement and environmental impact provides context for this symbiotic relationship. Archaeological data, methodology, and technology offer insight into the similarities and variations in urban anthropogenic landscapes across time and space, suggesting that ancient practices can be compared with contemporary ones and that ancient models may have applicability for future-focused urban planning.

Modelling landscape experience using “experions”

This research provides a method for modelling landscape experience that combines space, time, and landscape character. The visual landscape experience is particularly challenging to model because it involves perception that is specific to an individual, views that vary in extent, a period of time that the experience takes place, and a complex interaction of landform and land-cover, including cultural elements. Landscape experience is important to the quality of people's lives and is a substantial component of the tourism industry. To represent such experiences there is a need to develop techniques to model landscape experience. The method demonstrated is based on the landscape experience while walking a track and combines GIS viewshed analysis with a GIS generated landscape character classification. This method takes into account near and distant landscape views and weights the area that each landscape type is viewed by the length of time that it is viewed. The results produce a new metric that combines space and time and has the units of hectare-hours. This paper argues that there is a need for a unit that combines space and time so that landscape experience can be measured, compared and researched. It is proposed that this unit be called “experions” and this paper shows how such a unit can be measured using GIS. This metric measures landscape character experience rather than quality, but can be converted to quality when combined with landscape preference information.

Medieval people: vivid lives in a distant landscape from Charlemagne to Piero della Francesca

Medieval people: vivid lives in a distant landscape from Charlemagne to Piero della Francesca

Wulfstans kodex og Schumachers liste. Om den ældste fortegnelse over håndskrifter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek

Wulfstans kodex og Schumachers liste. Om den ældste fortegnelse over håndskrifter i Det Kongelige Bibliotek

An Everyday Wilderness: Dwight Perkins and the Cook County Forest Preserve

At the turn of the twentieth century, the architect Dwight Perkins spent nearly two decades campaigning to preserve 67,000 acres of native prairie forests surrounding Chicago, efforts that marked him as an early pioneer in the conservation and cultural heritage movements and that ultimately resulted in the creation of the Cook County Forest Preserve in 1913, one of the largest county-owned nature preserves in the United States. Entirely overlooked in histories of preservation, Perkins’s nascent environmentalism challenges many received tenets of the discipline, particularly the assumption that preservation works in opposition to urban market forces and concentrates on singular monuments. The Cook County Forest Preserve was not a sublime, distant landscape but an “everyday wilderness” that was accessible to nearby communities, thus Perkins’s preservation battles were local, concerning ordinary people and everyday spaces. Informed by the social sciences, he viewed the forest preserve as an urban-planning strategy capable of rationalizing urban expansion, not as a counterpoint to the metropolis, and also as a didactic strategy for acculturating diverse ethnic and economic groups to democratic practices. The final result was a plural landscape, both functional and cultural, where nature and the metropolis, imagined histories and extant realities, social ideals and failures, coexisted. Such a complex, layered model of preservation may help expand our definitions of what constitutes cultural landscapes and how those landscapes should be interpreted, as well as provide a sustainable model for a responsible treatment of our lived, not just preserved, environments.

Homeland and foreign land: Cherry tree and poetry of Milos Crnjanski

Milos Crnjanski became familiar with the poetry of the East in Paris, towards the end of the 1920s, when he gathered material for his anthology of Chinese and Japanese poems. This was the moment when cherry blossom, not cherry fruit, entered his writings. While preparing and editing two collections of translated poetry Antologija kineske lirike (1923) and Pesme starog Japana (1928), he also wrote poems featuring the image of cherry blossom as an important symbolic topos. In his poems Sumatra (1920), Poslanica iz Pariza (1920), Povorka (1921), Serbia (1925) and Stražilovo (1921-1929) cherry trees appear to carry a particular symbolic message, especially the blossom. It creates a light, translucent, ethereal and often even mobile poetic image. This image blends the light and the dark, joy and sorrow, physical and metaphysical, life and death. The cherry tree consumed by fog creates an unusual picture in which everything simmers down in the arms of the nature. It may well be the very heart of the metaphysical, transcendental world of Milos Crnjanski. The cherry entered his poetics from the East, from the lands he had never visited. At the same time, it created a real bond with his native Srem which he had left years before. It was connected to a real image of a foreign land, like Tuscany, where the poet was but a stranger. We can say that cherry blossom connects three spatial entities: the far-away homeland left behind by the poet; the foreign land where he lives as a stranger; and a distant landscape he had never visited.

Géotope, géofacies et géosystème : une grille de lecture des paysages géomorphologiques ? Le cas de la Réserve naturelle nationale des Aiguilles Rouges, Chamonix-Mont-Blanc (Haute-Savoie, France)

Using the scenery provided by the glacial Lac des Chéserys (Figure 1) as a supporting example (Aiguilles Rouges National Nature Reserve, France), we discuss the concept of landscape value by combining the sliding scale of landscape analysis developed by G. Bertrand (1968) with more recent approaches that have emerged with the promotion of geomorphological important sites, or geomorphosites, as natural heritage (Panizza et Piacente, 2003. Reynard et al., 2009). We first elaborate on the semantic distinction between landscape and geomorphic landscape, and through a comparative examination of the views of Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc on Mont-Blanc in the 19th century we revisit the concepts of scientific value, of additional value, and discuss the benefits of popularised science for the outdoor industry. We go on to review perceptual filters in landscape appreciation and propose a distinction between cultural filters and functional filters (Table 1). These issues are then illustrated with a worked example in which the concept of landscape value is tied to a geomorphosite where the field of view combines near-field and far-field landforms. This situation corresponds to a common occurrence along panoramic footpaths in mountain ranges (Table 2). We compare a typical postcard image of an alpine landscape near Chamonix (Figure 2) with a more didactic image of scenery nearby (Figure 3). Irrespective of viewing point elevation, we find that all lookout points from the Chamonix side of the Aiguilles Rouges massif offer views of Mont-Blanc that are of approximately equal quality. The total value of the distant landscape component varies therefore very little. The global value of a geomorphosite in such a setting will thus depend more heavily on the nature of the features located in the foreground : the need to select optimal locations, i.e. those that will be of greatest scientific and/or educational interest, then cannot avoid a systematic survey. Given that the focus of any observer will switch back and forth from the near-field objects of the foreground to the panoramic vistas of the horizon, we discuss how the encapsulation of maximum space-and time-depth in a single field of vision can be put to best advantage, and summarize the complex and dynamic succession of natural and human forces that were involved in producing the alpine landscape under scrutiny (Table 3).

Mobile capture of remote points of interest using line of sight modelling

Recording points of interest using GPS whilst working in the field is an established technique in geographical fieldwork, where the user′s current position is used as the spatial reference to be captured; this is known as geo-tagging. We outline the development and evaluation of a smartphone application called Zapp that enables geo-tagging of any distant point on the visible landscape. The ability of users to log or retrieve information relating to what they can see, rather than where they are standing, allows them to record observations of points in the broader landscape scene, or to access descriptions of landscape features from any viewpoint. The application uses the compass orientation and tilt of the phone to provide data for a line of sight algorithm that intersects with a Digital Surface Model stored on the mobile device. We describe the development process and design decisions for Zapp present the results of a controlled study of the accuracy of the application, and report on the use of Zapp for a student field exercise. The studies indicate the feasibility of the approach, but also how the appropriate use of such techniques will be constrained by current levels of precision in mobile sensor technology. The broader implications for interactive query of the distant landscape and for remote data logging are discussed.

Using viewsheds, GIS, and a landscape classification to tag landscape photographs

Landscape scenery is inherently difficult to conceptualize because of its perceptual nature. Yet landscapes are an extremely important resource for tourism and quality of life so there is a need to classify and manage landscapes. This paper shows how viewshed analysis based on the known location and direction of a photo can be used to tag a photo and this provides a method for assessing the New Zealand Landscape Classification. GIS visibility and overlay functions are combined with digital elevation data and a landscape classification to produce the tagged photos. This tool links an oblique view with multiple distance perspectives to a GIS dataset. There are complexities associated with distance perspectives and the appropriate balance of foreground and distant landscape. This paper argues that the benefits of automated tagging of landscape photos are threefold. The process of modelling landscape tags forces researchers to confront the complexity of landscape character classification. This in turn leads to improved methods for representing and classifying landscape character. Secondly, once tagging methods have been developed then people may choose to use these tools rather than to manually tag photos. Thirdly, such a tool provides the opportunity to utilize the increasingly important volunteered geographic information on the Internet for understanding landscape categories. Landscape photographs and associated tags on the Internet provide insight about landscape categories employed by the public. This could lead to the development of what is labelled “tag clouds” and a landscape “folksonomy”.

Passage to Arcadia

In the poetry of Theocritus and Virgil, the pastoral landscape of Arcadia was developed as an ideal region of benevolent nature, shepherds and hunters, and the ardent springs of poetry. In Virgilian nature, close to the sources of art and scholarship, meditation could be practiced, and awareness of ultimate reality achieved. During the Middle Ages, a severe kind of Arcadia was brought to life in monasteries and hermitages. In the Renaissance, Arcadia was further developed as a realm of humanistic study, combining solitude in nature with book learning. Arcadia was later reimagined as a distant classical landscape of the arts and humanities. In late modernity, the humanities are challenged by the norms of totalizing reason, and a sense of historical closure. Drawing upon an anonymous journal, the author seeks passage to Arcadia.

Gerard David’s The Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Gerard David’s <i>The Rest on the Flight into Egypt</i>

View and discomfort glare from windows

There is less discomfort glare from a window with an interesting view than from either a neutral screen or a window with a poor view having the same daylight glare index. A view with patches of high luminance is more glaring than a more uniform view with the same mean luminance. In two experiments carried out during May and June 2005, subjects assessed glare from windows in a 20-storey building in Sheffield, UK. The rooms used were identical except that at different levels and orientations the prospects varied from close views of other buildings to extensive urban and natural scenes. In the first experiment, with 72 university students as subjects, the reported discomfort glare from a diffusing screen covering the window was compared with that from a view onto a nearby obstructing wall and from a view with trees and distant landscape. The weather was changeable so each scene was observed over a range of different luminances. In the second experiment, with 96 subjects, the glare from an urban view that included nearby elements, the middle distance and the far distance was compared with a restricted urban view, with an extensive natural view and with a restricted natural view. Independent groups of subjects rated the interest of all the views. It was found that subjects' reported discomfort from glare varied significantly between all three cases in the first experiment and all four cases of the second experiment: glare discomfort decreased as interest increased. The luminance range within a view also affected the experience of glare. The results are consistent with those of an earlier study of glare from small screens.

Requesting Distant Robotic Action: An Ontology for Naming and Action Identification for Planning on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission.

This paper focuses on the development of a naming convention and the use of abbreviated names and a related ontology for science work and distant robotic action that comprise requests for a robotic rover during the NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). We demonstrate how abbreviated names and an associated ontology support sharing and identifying information among teams and software tools. An ontology of distant action must take into account a dynamic environment, changing in response to physical events and intentional actions, and reflect the influence of context on the meaning of action. The nascent domain of Martian tele-robotic science, in which specialists request work from a rover moving through a distant landscape, as well as the need to consider the interdisciplinary teams involved in completing that work, required an empirical approach. The formulation of this ontology used ethnographic methods and grounded theory to study human behavior and work practice with software tools.