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J. Beldade & T. Panagopoulos 2010. Integrating esthetical and ecological values at the central Asia landscape change
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aesthetics into landscape planning of the Central Asia Silk Road area. From the preliminary
results of the first group of participants (planners and designers) it was found that the public
have limited awareness and a poor understanding about sustainable development in global scale.
Even that it was considered that desertification is a universal problem and is responsibility of
everybody to avoid landscape degradation, preserve and promote the desert landscapes and
ecosystems as of unique value. Also, it was found that ecological aesthetics pleasure could be
derived from knowing on how part of the landscape relate to the whole.
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Human presence
Water presence
No attraction Indifferent Attracts High attraction
Colour contrast
Texture variability
Natural lines
Geometric lines
Cultural elements
Wildlife
Movement
Panoramic view
Light
Shadows
Contained space
large space
Natural sounds
Silence
Disperse vegetation
Dense vegetation
Accessibilities
Planes
High slopes
Heat
Cold
Figure 2. Landscape aesthetic elements that may attract to a decertified landscape.
Opinion of the authors is that in the wake of global climate change, society has to address the
dynamic interactions between an increasingly changing environment and its politically and
culturally contested spatial development in decertified landscapes.
Acknowledgements
This work was financed from the European Union for the “Long Term Ecological Research
Program for Monitoring Aeolian Soil Erosion in Central Asia” (CALTER), FP6-2003-INCO-
Russia+NIS (project Nº 516721). The authors also want to gratefully acknowledge the Centro
de Investigação sobre Espaço e Organizações (CIEO) for having provided the conditions to
publish this work.
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