Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
of the surrounding landscape, vegetation cover along
the banks (including bank protection), channel shape,
and colour and turbidity' (Mosley, 1989, p. 11). Thus,
the restoration of braided and meandering rivers aims
to re-establish diverse in-stream and riparian habitats,
involving river widening or relocation of flood levees.
These river engineering operations induce changes in
water quantity and quality, altering not only the forms of
aquatic environments but also vegetation and wildlife.
However, all the visible features, such as water depth,
width, colour, odour, or movement, have implications
for riverscape aesthetics, recreation purposes and other
human activities.
Moreover, some of the rivers that are protected or
proposed for conservation (notably braided rivers) may
be less appreciated by the general public than familiar
and accessible rivers - such as the rivers that run through
urban and rural areas and are simply pleasing to the eye
(Mosley, 1989). Reasons for the conservation of these
rivers include factors that people generally do not take
into account.
There is thus a need to identify the river-corridor
features that the general public prefers and to include
the public in the selection of river management plans.
House and Sangster (1991) estimated that 'although the
public may not possess formal knowledge of the best
environmental options available for river works, they have
a strong preference for certain environmental features'
(p. 312). People have some very definite ideas of what
they consider to be their ideal riverscape.
The use of photographs as a surrogate for landscape
is well-established in environmental evaluation and pref-
erence surveys. This chapter focuses on defining valid
methodological principles and describing some of the
applications for environmental perception surveys. At
first, a critical literature review indicates that several
paradigms explore the assessment of public perception.
In addition, it clarifies methodological issues and the
implications for data analysis. Several examples of the
evaluation of basic channel types corresponding to more
or less humanised environments are presented. Differ-
ent components of riverscape are then studied, and in
particular water, gravel bars, and in-channel wood. These
surveys were carried out in France and ten other countries,
and designed to accomplish various objectives of land-
scape management. An effort was made to take account
of public preferences when conceiving river operations,
to improve the understanding of the motivations for
maintaining watercourses and to show the influence of
socio-cultural context on riverscape perception. Finally,
the advantages and limits of photo-questionnaires are
demonstrated, and findings are discussed in terms of
environmental education.
18.2 Conceptual framework
Several classifications present the numerous existing
landscape studies in an orderly way. Turner (1975)
distinguished three broad categories: (a) measurement
techniques based on sophisticated statistical analysis that
skilled professionals may achieve, (b) preference tech-
niques derived from studies of perception and behavioural
sciences, and (c) consensus approaches which are 'perhaps
currently held in low esteem for their want of objective
method' (p. 157). Gregory and Davis (1993) identified
three types of research on the evaluation of riverscapes:
(a) component or inventory approaches which provide
an overall value judgment on river aesthetics (Morisawa,
1972), (b) approaches based upon uniqueness of specific
areas (Leopold and Marchand, 1968; Leopold, 1969a and
b; Williams, 1986), and (c) approaches which are more
interested in public perception of riverscapes (Mosley,
1989; Gregory and Davis, 1993).
Studies on landscape perception and evaluation are
diverse and research has evolved into different paradigms
(Table 18.1). The most-cited classification and termi-
nology were developed by Zube et al. (1982) and are
used in Table 18.2, with a gradient in terms of respon-
dent involvement (from the experiential to the expert
paradigm).
The experiential paradigm is based on user-dependent
methods that provide respondents with every opportu-
nity to express freely their opinions, attitudes and feelings
about their environment (Table 18.2). Coeterier (1996)
used a verbal approach based on open, partially structured
interviews. These are better suited to explore inhabitants'
meanings of landscape than user-independent meth-
ods such as photo-questionnaires. He estimated that
'after six or seven interviews no new information about
perceived qualities was added' (p. 30). Whereas photo-
questionnaires involve the researcher taking or choosing
the photographs, the photo-projective method asks indi-
viduals to take photographs of their surroundings and
to describe each scene on site (Yamashita, 2002). How-
ever, the experiential paradigm has received relatively
'little attention in resource and environmental manage-
ment because it has been considered to be idiosyncratic,
individualistic and subjective' (Dakin, 2003, p. 190).
Search WWH ::
Custom Search