Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
16
Landscape evaluation
Rosemary Burton
Such studies aim to be objective and non-
evaluative; they provide a database that can inform
the implementation of spatial landscape policies
but do not contribute directly to the policy
debate. However, it is applied research in that it
provides tools and techniques of immediate
practical use in policy implementation.
Landscape evaluation research, on the other
hand, is by implication policy-related because it is
concerned with the values that different people
attach to landscapes. Landscapes can be valued for
different things, such as their ecological
characteristics, their visual qualities, and their
cultural and historical meanings. Evaluation of the
ecological aspects of landscape is generally left to
expert ecologists, because such judgements are
made on criteria such as biodiversity, rarity and
complexity rather than on criteria related to visual
characteristics, and ecologically based landscape
planning on other characteristics of natural systems
(Selman 1993). While the separation of the 'natural'
and 'cultural' is to be regretted (Phillips 1998), in
practice landscape evaluation research has been
concerned more with investigating the visual,
aesthetic, cultural and heritage values of landscape.
INTRODUCTION
The physical landscape consists of two elements,
the landform landscape and the land-use
landscape. The former is made up of land and
drainage systems and is a product of the
interaction between geology, climate and tectonics
expressed through geomorphological processes.
The land-use landscape consists of the land surface,
which in most climatic zones is dominated by the
flora and fauna, and is the product of ecological
processes. In a truly 'natural' landscape, these
processes are unmodified by man. However,
throughout the world man is an agent of rather
more rapid environmental and landscape change,
either directly as a consequence of past and present
exploitation of natural resources, or indirectly
through man-induced climate change.
Therefore it could be argued that there are few
if any areas in the world where landscapes are
totally free of man's influence. Indeed, landscape
ecologists include man as an integral part of the
landscape (Neveh and Leiberman 1989).
Landscapes that result from the interaction
between people and land are termed 'cultural'
landscapes.
Early geographical interest in landscapes
concerned their analysis rather than their
evaluation, and one strand of geographical research
has continued to describe, analyse, classify and map
landscape character, most recently with the use of
geographical information systems (GIS) (Jeurry
Blankson and Green 1991; Brabyn 1996).
THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM
The designation of the world's first national parks
in the nineteenth century (e.g. Yellowstone, USA,
in 1872, the Royal in Australia, 1879) indicates that
the protection of valued landscapes is not a recent
