Predicting Scenic Beauty of Forest Environments: Some Empirical Tests

Abstract

Abstract This study tests the usefulness of three landscape description techniques—scaling of physical features, inventories of visual (design) features, and timber cruises—for predicting scenic beauty of forested environments. Two criteria are used to test predictive usefulness: the effectiveness of each technique in explaining people's evaluations of the scenic beauty of forested landscapes, and the ease of using the landscape descriptions to manage for scenic beauty. The study involves three stages: (1) quantifying scenic beauty evaluations, (2) regressing the three sets of quantitative landscape descriptors against scenic beauty estimates, and (3) relating the landscape descriptors to mensuration parameters. Three groups of respondents—landscape architects, university students, and a general public sample—provided scenic beauty ratings of Arizona ponderosa pine landscapes, represented in color slides. Multiple regression techniques were used to relate their preferences to three quantitative descriptions of landscapes, obtained from practicing and student landscape architects and foresters. Design inventory and physical feature descriptors were then correlated with mensuration (timber cruise) descriptors. While all prediction models explained substantial portions of perceptual preferences, measures of manageable landscape features tended to show stronger relationships to mensuration parameters than did design features. Forest Sci. 23:151-160.