Ground Imagery and Environmental Perception: Using Photo-questionnaires to Evaluate River Management Strategies - Fluvial Remote Sensing for Science and Management - page 395

Table 18.1 Several classifications of landscape perception paradigms (Based on Dakin (2003)).

References Approaches to Landscape Evaluation

Dakin, 2003 Expert Experimental Experiential

Daniel and Vining, 1983 Ecological or formal

aesthetic

Psychophysical Psychological Phenomenological

Porteous, 1982 Planner Experimentalist Humanist

Punter, 1982 Landscape perception Landscape quality Landscape interpretation

Zube et al., 1982 Expert/professional Psychophysical Cognitive Experiential

Turner, 1975 Measurement

techniques

Preference techniques Consensus approaches

The expert paradigm involves the assessment of visual
quality by trained and skilled observers working within
a fine arts, landscape design, or ecosystem perspective
(Table 18.2). It is assumed that experts are able to identify
and objectively evaluate common features and relation-
ships between landscape elements that contribute to the
intrinsic aesthetic quality. These tasks are motivated by the
pragmatic purposes of environmental planning, design,
or management. They have produced rough categories of
formal aspects (shapes, lines, colours, and the patterns
combining these aspects) and formal qualities (balance,
proportion, unity, and diversity). The expert approach has
benefited from the tools and techniques of geomatics, such
as remote sensing and geographic information systems.
Penning-Rowsell and Hardy (1973) pointed out that this
approach requires improvements to take into account
'the landscape user's preferences for certain landscape
features' (p. 160).
The experimental paradigm is based on the responses
of the selected groups of respondents, including non-
expert judgments (Table 18.2). Observers make sense of
surroundings according to their experience, expectations,
or socio-cultural context. Nature does not 'possess nor-
mative proclivities in what it creates' (Ribe, 1982, p. 63).
Appleton (1975b) underlined the lack of a convincing
body of theoretical knowledge in landscape evaluation:
'we are perfectly entitled to reject the professional as
an arbiter of excellence, if we have more confidence in
ourselves than in him' (p. 122). As a consequence, Dear-
den (1981) considered some philosophical and pragmatic
arguments supporting the inclusion of public participa-
tion in landscape evaluation techniques. The involvement
of the public may improve the quality of the decision-
making process.
Zube et al. (1982) distinguished two approaches. While
the psychophysical paradigm postulates that individual

evaluations and behaviour depend on the features of
landscapes (considered to be a source of visual informa-
tion to which observers respond), the cognitive paradigm
postulates that human perceptions determine environ-
mental preferences (Table 18.2). Both seek the relation-
ships between value judgments or human meanings on
the one hand, and the environment or landscape dimen-
sion on the other hand. Such measures have enabled the
development of predictive models estimating landscape
preferences, scenic beauty (Shafer and Mietz, 1970; Daniel
and Boster, 1976), and riverscape attractiveness (Mosley,
1989; Gregory and Davis, 1993).
The measured landscape dimensions may be physical
(e.g. topography or forest cover) or cognitive (natural-
ness or mystery). Following a neo-Darwinian conception,
landscape preferences are motivated by the satisfaction of
need. Appleton's theory (1975a) postulates that human
preference for landscapes has its origins in the impulse
to take the opportunities provided by habitats to see
(prospect) without being seen (refuge). The environ-
mental psychologists R. and S. Kaplan developed an
informational approach to environmental preference.
'Like other animals ( ... ), humans tend to evaluate the
terrain and prefer habitats that are likely to offer safety
and the resources they need' (p. 286). After Kaplan's
works (e.g. 1989), Levin (1977), Lee (1978 and 1979)
and Ellsworth (1979) attempted to predict the waterscape
preferences by means of four concepts: (a) legibility,
i.e. 'the perceptual establishment of relationships within
and among elements of the visual display' (Lee, 1979,
p. 574), (b) coherence, i.e. 'the degree of visual organiza-
tion in the scene' (Kaplan, 1985, p. 167), (c) complexity,
i.e. 'the number of independently perceived elements
and their degree of dissimilarity' (Ulrich, 1981, p. 552),
and (d) mystery, i.e. 'the extent to which the environ-
ment suggests that one could obtain new information