964,627 research outputs found

    Perception of native grasslands in south-eastern Australia: some implications for landscape aesthetics and other landscape values

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    Grasslands are considered to be Australia’s most threatened ecosystems, yet relatively little is known about human preferences and attitudes which contribute to continued degradation of these landscapes. In a study conducted in south-eastern Australia, landholders were asked to assess the agricultural, ecological and aesthetic value of native grassland and other rural landscapes. The results confirm suggestions of low regard for treeless landscapes. Landholders’ preferences for native grass on their own property appear most closely related to the perceived aesthetic value of the landscape. This paper discusses the implication of these findings for programs seeking to protect native grasslands on private properties

    Economic valuation of landscapes: combining landscape ecology and environmental economics methodologies.

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    Aim of the paper is to outline an integrated methodology for deriving economic values of the different landscape components. Our approach integrates landscape ecology principles and non-market valuation methodologies. Firstly, we identify landscape types and quantify their attributes with ‘metrics’ (i.e., objective components) and use discrete choice experiments to elicit the public’s preferences for these landscapes and their attributes (i.e., subjective components). As a case-study we use the Peninsula of Sorrento in Italy, which is a unique Mediterranean landscape, which is increasingly endangered by urban sprawl and decline of traditional farming. Results show the economic value of different types of landscapes and, importantly, provide convincing support for an interdisciplinary approach for landscape valuation

    Landscape Values: Predefined or Extrinsic?

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    The paper addresses the issue of the source of landscape value attributed to protection. Besides the usual exception to the rule, it is believed that intrinsic or predefined values are still firmly entrenched in landscape planning practice, whereas at the pedagogic level of the discipline there is a shift towards extrinsic values. The underlying premise of the paper is that evaluation of natural systems based on predefined values makes consent between developmental and conservational interests impossible. Consent is perceived as the mechanism to fulfil a key principle “as least as reasonably achievable”, ALARA, in both aspects of landscape planning. The research focuses on the stage of planning process that enables spatial data transformation into suitability maps that represent or externalise extrinsic landscape values. The paper will begin by brief outline of two fundamentally different value categories. The results of suitability analyses i.e. value systems detected and a reflections or consequences in land use decisions concerning some past and present policies in Croatia will be discussed next. By extension, the “extrinsic vs. predefined landscape value” dispute will be argued especially concerning those elements that invoke difficulties while generating and/or linking the concepts of evaluation models. The paper will finally acknowledge an optimization planning instrument as a mode to cope with two value systems

    Land Management of the Areas of High Landscape Values: An Economic Model

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    This paper presents selected results of the research entitled Planning the Space of High Landscape Values, Using Digital Land Analysis, with Economic Appraisal, supervised by Dr. Paweł Ozimek, Cracow Technical University, conducted since 2009. Usually, we do not pay attention to surrounding landscapes in our everyday life. However, for the persons who deal with spatial planning, geography, natural environment, or cultural heritage, the validity and value of landscape are the terms which do not have to be defined. The first part of the paper is dedicated to the landscape features that decide about its value. The author discusses whether those features are the same as those we want to protect and how we can appraise landscape values. The next part contains an analysis of the economic bases of development. In reference to space, the analysis and opinion on land use in the context of the development of usable functions are essential. Consequently, the identification of the limitations connected with the protection of landscape and delimitation of the areas on which such limitations exist are required. Another component consists in the determination of the land requirements associated with existential and economic needs of the local population. Such a general balance of needs and requirements is the starting point of the adoption of development policies and action programmes. The programmes should include the location of individual projects and capital investments on land, as well as their proper timing co-ordination. Owing to the complexity of the tasks, the option analysis is the preferred method of search for the best possible solution. The reconciliation of individual land use (title to land), public and business land uses, with the protection of environmental and cultural values, can be difficult or next to impossible to attain. Therefore, we need some mechanisms to compensate the losses occurring in individual interests and in local, regional, or national development. The choice of options for local or regional development is based on balancing the costs and benefits that depend on the sizes of both protected and non-protected areas. In conclusion, the author attempts at answering the questions whether the landscape and landscape values can be saved owing to their economic assets, and what instruments should be implemented to utilize economic mechanisms of protection.Artykuł przedstawia wybrane rezultaty pracy Planowanie przestrzeni o wysokich walorach krajobrazowych przy użyciu cyfrowych analiz terenu wraz z ocena ekonomiczną (kierownik dr Paweł Ozimek, Politechnika Krakowska). W codziennym życiu zwykle na krajobraz nie zwracamy uwagi. Ale dla osób zajmujących się planowaniem przestrzennym, geografią, środowiskiem naturalnym i dobrami kultury ważność i wartość krajobrazu jest tezą nie wymagającą dowodu. Pierwszą część artykułu poświęcono zagadnieniu cech krajobrazu, które decydują o jego wartości. Także - czy są to te cechy krajobrazu, które chcemy chronić oraz jak możemy ocenić wartość krajobrazu. Kolejna część to analiza gospodarczych podstaw rozwoju. W odniesieniu do przestrzeni istotnym elementem jest ocena przydatności poszczególnych terenów dla rozwoju funkcji użytkowych. W konsekwencji określenie ograniczeń wynikających z ochrony krajobrazu oraz wskazanie obszarów, na których ograniczenia te występują. Drugim elementem jest określenie potrzeb terenowych związanych z bytowymi i ekonomicznymi potrzebami ludności. Tak opracowany ogólny bilans potrzeb i możliwości służy za punkt wyjścia do określenia polityki rozwoju i programów działania. Programy winny zawierać lokalizację przedsięwzięć i inwestycji w przestrzeni oraz odpowiednią ich koordynację w czasie. Ze względu na złożoność preferowaną metodą poszukiwania możliwie najlepszego rozwiązania jest analiza wariantów. Pogodzenie indywidualnego (prawo własności), społecznego i ekonomicznego użytkowania przestrzeni z ochroną jej walorów środowiskowych i kulturowych może być trudne lub wręcz niemożliwe. Konieczne są więc mechanizmy rekompensujące straty zarówno w sprawach indywidualnych, jak i w kontekście rozwoju lokalnego, regionalnego czy krajowego. Wybór wariantu rozwoju opiera się na bilansowaniu kosztów i korzyści zależnych od wielkości chronionego i niechronionego obszaru. Podsumowaniem artykułu jest próba odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy krajobraz i walory krajobrazu ocaleją dzięki swojej ekonomicznej wartości oraz jakie instrumenty winno się wdrożyć w celu wykorzystania mechanizmów ekonomicznych do jego ochrony

    Statistical Understanding of Quark and Lepton Masses in Gaussian Landscapes

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    The fundamental theory of nature may allow a large landscape of vacua. Even if the theory contains a unified gauge symmetry, the 22 flavor parameters of the Standard Model, including neutrino masses, may be largely determined by the statistics of this landscape, and not by any symmetry. Then the measured values of the flavor parameters do not lead to any fundamental symmetries, but are statistical accidents; their precise values do not provide any insights into the fundamental theory, rather the overall pattern of flavor reflects the underlying landscape. We investigate whether random selection from the statistics of a simple landscape can explain the broad patterns of quark, charged lepton, and neutrino masses and mixings. We propose Gaussian landscapes as simplified models of landscapes where Yukawa couplings result from overlap integrals of zero-mode wavefunctions in higher-dimensional supersymmetric gauge theories. In terms of just five free parameters, such landscapes can account for all gross features of flavor, including: the hierarchy of quark and charged lepton masses; small quark mixing angles, with 13 mixing less than 12 and 23 mixing; very light Majorana neutrino masses, with the solar to atmospheric neutrino mass ratio consistent with data; distributions for leptonic 12 and 23 mixings that are peaked at large values, while the distribution for 13 mixing is peaked at low values; and order unity CP violating phases in both the quark and lepton sectors. While the statistical distributions for flavor parameters are broad, the distributions are robust to changes in the geometry of the extra dimensions. Constraining the distributions by loose cuts about observed values leads to narrower distributions for neutrino measurements of 13 mixing, CP violation, and neutrinoless double beta decay.Comment: 86 pages, 26 figures, 2 tables, and table of content

    Affordances of Historic Urban Landscapes: an Ecological Understanding of Human Interaction with the Past

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    Heritage has been defined differently in European contexts. Despite differences, a common challenge for historic urban landscape management is the integration of tangible and intangible heritage. Integration demands an active view of perception and human-landscape interaction where intangible values are linked to specific places and meanings are attached to particular cultural practices and socio-spatial organisation. Tangible and intangible values can be examined as part of a system of affordances (potentialities) a place, artefact or cultural practice has to offer. This paper discusses how an ‘affordance analysis’ may serve as a useful tool for the management of historic urban landscapes

    Participatory GIS in Mapping Ecosystem Services: Two Case Studies from High-Biodiversity Regions in Italy and Peru

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    Assessing ecosystem services (ES) and mapping their values are of paramount importance. Here we present two case studies where the participatory mapping of social values of landscape ecosystem services is used in territories with high levels of cultural and biological diversity (Adamello Brenta Natural Park in Italy and the Alto Mayo basin in the Western Amazon, Peru). A mixed-method approach combining social geography fieldwork (participatory mapping) and desk work (GIS analyses) is adopted to improve ES mapping by including multiple actors and to increase awareness. Mapping ecosystem services is not just a technical task; it also highlights social implications of the cartographic process, a key issue in human geography. By taking into account the controversial and multiple roles of maps, and by involving actors in attributing values and mapping their spatial relations to landscape and ES, it is possible to enrich technical knowledge with local knowledge

    From Landscape Atlas to Flemish Heritage Landscapes: using landscape inventories to formulate landscape quality objectives in a participative process

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    The European Landscape Convention recommends the realisation of landscape policy, meaning “an expression by the competent public authorities of general principles, strategies and guidelines that permit the taking of specific measures aimed at the protection, management and planning of landscapes”. Landscape quality objectives should be formulated by the competent public authorities, including the aspirations of the public with regard to the landscape features of their surroundings. The responsible authorities in Flanders faced many questions to achieve these tasks. Landscape entities to be management had to be defined, landscape qualities and values formulated, but according to what time horizon, who are the different stakeholders and who is the public to be involved? Only small adjustments were made to the existing legislation on the protection of monuments, sites and landscapes to meet the recommendations of the ELC. Two of the new approaches used today are analysed in this paper. First, there is the designation of heritage landscapes through a long process of spatial planning. Second, there is a faster thematic approach of protecting particular landscape elements as monuments. Two different legal procedures are used with different aspects of public’s participation. Examples of their application so far were analysed as case studies. The Landscape Atlas in Flanders (2000) forms a basic inventory for the current landscape policy, which aims to be more integrated an cover most policy domains. A process was set up to designate selected anchor places from the Atlas, defining specific landscape quality objectives which should be used in the procedure of spatial planning to become managed as heritage landscapes. About 29 anchor places have been subject to the first phase of this procedure, which engages mainly policy makers and administrations to realise the objectives. In this phase participation consists mainly of external expert judgment and the input by different administrations that take care of sector interests. The analysis shows that the landscape quality objectives are defined by the responsible administration and aim at conservation of the existing landscape values and character. The input of the public remains mainly indirect and has little influence on the final formulation of the landscape quality objectives and the decision of designating. The direct influence of landscape policy ends when procedures of spatial planning take over in a second phase. Thus monitoring of the real developments in these heritage landscapes will be essential to evaluate if the landscape quality objectives are realized. The second case consists in the protection of special vegetation forms which are representative for particular cultural practices such as pollarding. Here objects are proposed as protected monuments which engage landowners to maintain them and the participation procedure is more direct. The analysis shows a large indifference by the authorities concerned and some negative responses by the landowners which are mainly based on misinformation
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