Terry C. Daniel

Contributions of cultural services to the ecosystem services agenda

Cultural ecosystem services (ES) are consistently recognized but not yet adequately defined or integrated within the ES framework. A substantial body of models, methods, and data relevant to cultural services has been developed within the social and behavioral sciences before and outside of the ES approach. A selective review of work in landscape aesthetics, cultural heritage, outdoor recreation, and spiritual significance demonstrates opportunities for operationally defining cultural services in terms of socioecological models, consistent with the larger set of ES. Such models explicitly link ecological structures and functions with cultural values and benefits, facilitating communication between scientists and stakeholders and enabling economic, multicriterion, deliberative evaluation and other methods that can clarify tradeoffs and synergies involving cultural ES. Based on this approach, a common representation is offered that frames cultural services, along with all ES, by the relative contribution of relevant ecological structures and functions and by applicable social evaluation approaches. This perspective provides a foundation for merging ecological and social science epistemologies to define and integrate cultural services better within the broader ES framework.

Whither scenic beauty? Visual landscape quality assessment in the 21st century

Abstract The history of landscape quality assessment has featured a contest between expert and perception-based approaches, paralleling a long-standing debate in the philosophy of aesthetics. The expert approach has dominated in environmental management practice and the perception-based approach has dominated in research. Both approaches generally accept that landscape quality derives from an interaction between biophysical features of the landscape and perceptual/judgmental processes of the human viewer. The approaches differ in the conceptualizations of and the relative importance of the landscape and human viewer components. At the close of the 20th century landscape quality assessment practice evolved toward a shaky marriage whereby both expert and perceptual approaches are applied in parallel and then, in some as yet unspecified way, merged in the final environmental management decision making process. The 21st century will feature continued momentum toward ecosystem management where the effects of changing spatial and temporal patterns of landscape features, at multiple scales and resolutions, will be more important than any given set of features at any one place at any one time. Valid representation of the visual implications of complex geo-temporal dynamics central to ecosystem management will present major challenges to landscape quality assessment. Technological developments in geographic information systems, simulation modeling and environmental data visualization will continue to help meet those challenges. At a more fundamental level traditional landscape assessment approaches will be challenged by the deep ecology and green philosophy movements which advocate a strongly bio-centric approach to landscape quality assessment where neither expert design principles nor human perceptions and preferences are deemed relevant. On the opposite side of the landscape–human interaction, social/cultural construction models that construe the landscape as the product of socially instructed human interpretation leave little or no role for biophysical landscape features and processes. A psychophysical approach is advocated to provide a more appropriate balance between biophysical and human perception/judgement components of an operationally delimited landscape quality assessment system.

The shared landscape: what does aesthetics have to do with ecology?

This collaborative essay grows out of a debate about the relationship between aesthetics and ecology and the possibility of an “ecological aesthetic” that affects landscape planning, design, and management. We describe our common understandings and unresolved questions about this relationship, including the importance of aesthetics in understanding and affecting landscape change and the ways in which aesthetics and ecology may have either complementary or contradictory implications for a landscape. To help understand these issues, we first outline a conceptual model of the aesthetics–ecology relationship. We posit that:1. While human and environmental phenomena occur at widely varying scales, humans engage with environmental phenomena at a particular scale: that of human experience of our landscape surroundings. That is the human “perceptible realm.”2. Interactions within this realm give rise to aesthetic experiences, which can lead to changes affecting humans and the landscape, and thus ecosystems.3. Context affects aesthetic experience of landscapes. Context includes both effects of different landscape types (wild, agricultural, cultural, and metropolitan landscapes) and effects of different personal–social situational activities or concerns. We argue that some contexts elicit aesthetic experiences that have traditionally been called “scenic beauty,” while other contexts elicit different aesthetic experiences, such as perceived care, attachment, and identity.Last, we discuss how interventions through landscape planning, design, and management; or through enhanced knowledge might establish desirable relationships between aesthetics and ecology, and we examine the controversial characteristics of such ecological aesthetics. While these interventions may help sustain beneficial landscape patterns and practices, they are inherently normative, and we consider their ethical implications.

Methodological Issues in the Assessment of Landscape Quality

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of contemporary landscape-quality assessment methods. Several reviews of the pertinent literature are available (Arthur, Daniel, & Boster, 1977; Brush, 1976; Fabos, 1971; Feimer, 1983; Palmer, 1981; Redding, 1973; Wohlwill, 1976). However, research and application in landscape assessment is a very active field and new issues and methods appear frequently. Furthermore, the field has matured to a point where several different underlying conceptual models can be identified as a means for organizing and evaluating the growing number of specific methods and techniques.

Good looking: in defense of scenic landscape aesthetics

Abstract Among US writers on environmental aesthetics, it has become de rigueur to leverage Aldo Leopold’s legacy against the proliferation of “popular” landscape tastes, which are typically seen to have their origins in 17th–19th century European traditions of landscape painting and aesthetics. These writers regard victims of popular or “scenic” landscape tastes (exemplified by Olmsted’s Central Park) as intellectually shallow, motivated by momentary “sensory pleasures”, and passively and anthropocentrically drawn to “naturalistic” environments rather than actively and biocentrically engaged with natural environments. This implicit refusal to grant sensory information and affective processing the power to catalyze and inform serious reflection is not new; neither is the attribution of popular landscape aesthetics to the elite society of a limited culture and historical period surprising, given the current preponderance of post-modernist sensibilities. However, in the often highly-charged atmosphere of local environmental planning and management arenas, both positions are needlessly polemical. More importantly, there is good evidence to suggest that both positions are founded on misconceptions about how the human mind works. In this paper, we will review work that establishes the intellectual bona fides of visual imagery, the important contributions that emotions make to cognition, and the likelihood that explanations of environmental aesthetics rooted in European enlightenment-era landscape painting are inadequate. This review suggests that frequent calls for new normative environmental aesthetics based on a cognitive understanding of ecological sustainability are likely premature. As social scientists, we suggest that attempts to impose prescribed environmental aesthetics (albeit ecologically pure environmental aesthetics) are inappropriate and may well be self-defeating. Instead, we suggest that a thorough understanding of visual and non-visual environmental aesthetics is needed, including examinations of the possibility that affect elicited by scenic encounters with preferred landscapes can lead people to form emotional attachments to the land and thereby develop a greater appreciation for sustainability goals.

Scenic assessment: An overview

Arthur, L.M., Daniel, T.C. and Boster, R.S., 1977. Scenic assessment: An overview. Landscape Plann., 4: 109–129. The authors present a synthesis and overview of techniques developed for evaluating the scenic beauty of natural resources. Literature is grouped into three categories: descriptive inventories, public evaluations, and economic analyses. Both quantitative and non-quantitative methods within each category are discussed, strengths and weaknesses of the general approaches noted, and, occasionally, alternatives suggested. Discussions are focused on methodological soundness and on utility of the evaluative systems for management of scenic resources.

Scenic landscape assessment: the effects of land management jurisdiction on public perception of scenic beauty

Abstract The research presented here evaluated viewer preferences for a road corridor in southern Utah that is managed in part by the USDA Forest Service, and in part by the National Park Service. Because philosophical differences per agency can lead to visible differences in landscape characteristics, a traveler can be presented with a mixed and potentially confusing experience en-route. This potential for ambiguity could impact a visitor’s experience, which in turn might influence a region’s tourist potential. A preliminary field study was first conducted to document the motivations and concerns of visitors to the study area. A systematic photographic inventory was then generated along the 12-mile corridor that links Cedar Breaks National Monument with segments of the Dixie National Forest. The acquired photographs were employed in a perceptual assessment effort that studied observers perceptions of landscape scenic beauty as the road traversed from one jurisdiction to the other. The goal was to investigate the effects of jurisdictional differences on public perceptions of the scenic quality of the corridor. Preference scores were later related to expert-based assessments of the visible characteristics of the same test scenes, using the landscape/scene variables indicated by the preliminary field study; depth of view, proportion of road in view, and proportion of open meadow in view. Results indicated highest preferences for park managed scenes with a central open meadow framed by forest. Similar scenes in the forest-administered sections of the corridor were less preferred, apparently due to the effects of seasonal livestock grazing on visual features within the meadows.

Human values and perceptions of water in arid landscapes

Human perceptions and values regarding water in arid landscapes are multi-faceted. Water is valued for life sustaining and practical aspects such as drinking, bathing, and cooking. Water is also one of the most important and most attractive visual elements of the landscape. Water has important effects on landforms through sedimentation and erosion, and on the types, quantities and distributions of vegetation, aquatic organisms, and wildlife. In arid landscapes especially, there are a wide range of cultural, spiritual, and religious values related to water. Changes in water regimes and the associated changes in landforms, vegetation and wildlife can have significant effects on many different types of human perceptions and values. Current policies for water management emphasize technical standards and legal regulations that address only a few of the relevant human values, primarily those involving consumptive uses. More comprehensive water policies addressing the broader array of human perceptions, meanings and values related to water are needed, especially in arid areas.

Human perception of visual air quality (uniform haze)

Abstract The National Park Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are cooperatively conducting ongoing studies of human perception of visual air quality. Major objectives of this program include: (1) determination of the relationship between judgments of visual air quality of actual three dimensional scenes and a surrogate slide representation of that scene, (2) examination of the effect of sun angle and meteorological conditions on perceived visual air quality, (3) examination of the effect of demographic background on observers judgments of visual air quality, (4) establishment of a functional relationship between human perception of visual air quality and various electro-optical parameters for several different scenic vistas and (5) development of a model capable of predicting the sensitivity of a park to visual air pollution impact. Preliminary results of a previous study involving one vista revealed a linear relationship between human perception and apparent vista contrast for constant vista illumination and ground cover. A more general formalism for averaging vista color contrast appeared to account for effects that snow cover and varying illumination have on the sensitivity of perceived visual air quality to air pollution. These functional relationships are re-examined using a number of southwestern vistas. A first order model capable of predicting perceived visual air quality as a function of change in air pollution is developed. In addition, the relationship between perceived visual air quality of actual three dimensional scenes and pictoral surrogates is examined.

Recreation participation and the validity of photo-based preference judgments.

Campers interviewed onsite consistently preferred the forest around the campground they were visiting to the same forest area represented by color photos. This preference for directly observed over...