Assessing the landscape visual quality of Shar Planina, North Macedonia
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Assessing the landscape visual quality of Shar Planina, North Macedonia Daniela Jovanovska Ljupcho Melovski
. Ruth D. Swetnam
. Fiona S. Tweed
.
Received: 27 February 2020 / Accepted: 15 September 2020 Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Context Landscape quality assessment provides a contextual basis for integrating cultural ecosystem services within landscape management and policy. However, measuring landscape visual quality remains a challenge; especially in the Balkans with its complex environmental and socio-cultural history. Objectives In response, we present a first assessment of landscape visual quality across Shar Planina, North Macedonia and test the transferability of a visual quality assessment method (VQI) originally developed to evaluate Northwest European landscapes. Methods This study includes remote (GIS) and field assessment. The latter produced quality measures which were summarized, scaled and weighted into an index (0–1.0) and served as a ground-truth dataset for subsequent GIS assessment. To assess how spatial
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01122-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. D. Jovanovska (&) R. D. Swetnam F. S. Tweed Department of Geography, Staffordshire University, College Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST4 2DE, UK e-mail: [email protected] D. Jovanovska L. Melovski Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Arhimedova No. 3, 1000 Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia
scale affects the VQI and what scale is most appropriate to capture perceived landscape quality, the remote assessment was applied at scales ranging from 1 to 5 km2 and results were then correlated to field assessment results. Results Values for the field VQI range from 0.2 to 0.82 whilst the values from the remote assessment applied at 1 km2 range from 0.1 to 0.74 and increase to 0.77, 0.84 and 0.86 at 2 km2, 3 km2 and 5 km2 respectively. Strongest correlation between the GIS and the field assessment was observed at 2 km2, which captured detail whilst remaining appropriate to the perceived landscape. Conclusions Our research allows consideration of this cultural ecosystem service within the wider conservation efforts on Shar Planina and provides methodological guidelines for assessments of visual quality of mountainous landscapes elsewhere in the region. Keywords Landscape appeal Landscape aesthetics Landscape assessment GIS Landscape management
Introduction The long-term interaction between humans and nature has nurtured the scenery of our surroundings. Over
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time the intensity and magnitude of human-induced change has increased dramatically (Lambin et al. 2001; Turner et al. 2007; Jepsen et al. 2015). This affects the functionality and appearance of our valued landscapes (Meeus et al. 1990; Falcucci et al. 2006; Hunziker et
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