Landscapes Forest and Global Change - ESA - Escola Superior ...

J. Beldade & T. Panagopoulos 2010. Integrating esthetical and ecological values at the central Asia landscape change
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landscape beauty in Greek and Roman gardens two thousand years ago (Botkin, 2001). The
English garden, a much later development, represents the naturalistic (natural-like) idea of
landscape beauty, and in the early Renaissance the wilderness and the power of nature
symbolized the power of God and sublime beauty.
Landscape preferences studies usually adopt objective quantification or normative judgments
methods (Burley, 2006, Panagopoulos, 2009). Unfortunately, such methodological approaches
fail to account for people’s subjectivity, a core element that informs their spatial preferences and
evaluations of landscapes, and have resulted in simplistic interpretations of human-place
interactions (Ohta, 2001).
According to Burke (1958) aesthetic of landscapes can be distinguished as “Picturesque”
(dominated from asymmetry, scenes, nostalgic); “Beautiful” (feeling that induce in us a sense of
affection and tenderness or “Sublime” (that is a pleasure that arises, from pain or fear). A
violent emotion can be caused from sublime landscapes – especially with heightened spiritual
feelings- and the elements of pathos and empathy exist in sublimity. During the second half of
the 18th century the meaning of the word “sublime” shifted from rhetorical aesthetic to a
psychological sense. The theory of “Peri Hipsous” had established the distinction between the
elevated style beauty and the capacity to raise passion (Kaplan, 1987; Ramos & Panagopoulos,
2007).
Deserts can be valued aesthetically, if they are beautiful, sublime or picturesque. To identify
whether a desert landscape is beautiful or not, a set of variables is to be investigated. These
variables might be physical or not, they can be recognized visually and non-visually using our
senses. The aesthetic value of the desert landscape can be recognized when the specialists and
the community recognize together, the attributes of the aesthetic variables (Lothian, 1999).
Objective of the present study is to find how a person interprets desert landscapes using
phenomenological methodology.
2. Methodology
A questioner was used as research tool to measure landscape preference. The participants were
11 men and five women, three of whom participated in preliminary (test) interviews.
Participants ranged between the ages of 19 and 65, possessed a high school and above education,
originated from Portugal and related to landscape planning and design. Thirty four color
photographs of natural and designed desert landscapes were selected from landscape
photographs. The interview style was semi-structured, beginning with basic open-ended
questions were then made more specific.
The questions were constructed following the principles described by Patton (1980): 1)
Experience/Behavior (what a person does or has done); 2) Opinion/Value questions (aimed at
understanding the subject's cognitive and interpretive processes); 3) Feelings (emotional
responses to experiences and thoughts); 4) Aesthetic knowledge (factual information); and 5)
Sensory Experience (what is seen, heard, touched, tasted, and/or smelled).
The time frame of the questions may vary as necessary at the discretion of the interviewer.
Typical questions for this study include the following: `What do you see on the photo' What
would you feel if you were there' `Have you ever been to a place like this', What element of
the landscape attracted you Other sections of the questionnaire included psychophysical
questions and other with sustainability perceptions and economic preferences.
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.