Many studies of natural landscape preference have demonstrated that qualities such as 'complexity' and 'naturalness' are associated with preference, but have struggled to define the key characteristics of these qualities. Recently, the development of software programs and digital techniques has offered researchers new ways of quantifying the landscape qualities associated with preference. Among them fractal geometry offers the most promising approach. Fractals have been defined as mathematical models of organic objects and patterns as opposed to the straight lines and perfect circles of Euclidean geometry found in man-made environments. Fractal patterns are mainly characterized by their dimension, which could be described as a statistical quantification of complexity. By applying this mathematical concept to digital images, several studies claim to have found a correlation between the fractal dimensions of a set of images and the images' preference ratings. Such studies have particularly focussed on demonstrating support for the hypothesis that patterns with a fractal dimension of around 1.3 induce better responses than others. However, much of this research so far has been carried out on abstract or computer-generated images. Furthermore, the most commonly used method of fractal analysis, the box-counting method, has many limitations in its application to digital images which are rarely addressed. The aim of this thesis is to explore empirically the suggestion that landscape preference could be influenced by the fractal characteristics of landscape photographs. The first part of this study was dedicated to establishing the robustness and validity of the box-counting method, and apply it to landscape images. One of the main limitations of the box-counting method is its need for image pre-processing as it can only be applied to binary (black and white) images. Therefore, to develop a more reliable method for fractal analysis of landscapes, it was necessary to compare different methods of image segmentation, i.e the reduction of greyscale photographs into binary images. Each method extracted a different structure from the original photograph: the silhouette outline, the extracted edges, and three different thresholds of greyscale. The results revealed that each structure characterized a different aspect of the landscape: the fractal dimension of the silhouette outline could quantify the height of the vegetation, while the fractal dimension of the extracted edges characterized complexity. The second part of the study focused on collecting preference ratings for the landscape images previously analysed, using an online survey disseminated in France and the UK. It was found that different groups of participants reacted differently to the fractal dimensions, and that some of those groups were significantly influenced by those characteristics while others were not. Unexpectedly, the variable most correlated with preference was the fractal dimension of the image's extracted edges, although this variable's predictive power was relatively low. The study concludes by summarising the issues involved in estimating the fractal dimensions of landscapes in relation to human response. The research offers a set of reliable and tested methods for extracting fractal dimensions for any given image. Using such methods, it produces results which challenge previous hypotheses and findings in relation to fractal dimensions that predict human preference, identifying gaps in understanding and promising future areas of research.

The industrialized agricultural system has resulted in ecological, economic, and social imbalances in several ways. Community gardens have become a trending interest to minimize the negative consequences of the modern agriculture system, especially in food insecure disadvantaged neighborhoods. Although community gardens have numerous economic, environmental, and social benefits, they have faced considerable degradation in some of the neighborhoods. Also, many of them have been lost to other land uses due to the lack of powerful public support. To achieve greater public support, knowledge about people’s perceptions and attitudes towards the community garden environment is important. This knowledge can help to develop more successful community gardens that can foster an increased involvement and support of community gardens. Community gardeners and non-community gardeners in five different low-income and low-access neighborhoods were chosen as study participants in the City of Roanoke, Virginia. Quantitative and qualitative data were used together for this study. Factor analysis, descriptive statistics, ANOVA, and T-Test procedures were used for the quantitative phase. Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. Findings showed that people’s preferences are based on several factors including content and spatial organization of the environment, maintenance level of the community garden site, and the opportunities that community gardens offer to its users and residents. Particularly, participants preferred well-maintained community garden landscapes equipped with well-constructed raised beds, pavilions, pathways, and sitting structures offering opportunities for gathering and social events. Participants negatively responded to untidy community garden scenes with features such as unorganized garden spaces, uncontrolled weeds, overgrown vegetation, and poorly constructed structures. Results also showed that mental health and stress relief, outdoor exercise and physical health, community pride, and food access were the main motivation themes to participate in community gardening. On the other hand, theft and damage, difficult access, too much effort, and no personal interest were the main motivations not to participate in community gardening. Findings from this study may help gardeners, community garden program managers, planners, and designers to develop more successful community garden projects that can expand involvement and support for community gardens and increase the permanence of these landscapes in urban neighborhoods. / Ph.D. / The modern agricultural system has resulted in several negative ecological, economic, and social impacts. Community gardens have become a trending interest to minimize these negative impacts, especially in low-income and low-access neighborhoods. Although community gardens provide economic, environmental, and social benefits, they have been lost to other land uses due to the lack of powerful public support. To achieve greater public support, knowledge about people’s landscape preferences and their attitudes towards the community garden environment is important. This knowledge can help to increase public involvement and support and to develop more successful community gardens. Community gardeners and non-community gardeners in five different low-income and low-access neighborhoods were chosen as study participants in the City of Roanoke, Virginia. Participants were asked to rate a series of community garden scenes. They were also asked about their opinions on community garden design and their motivations to participate or not to participate in community gardening. Findings showed that people’s landscape preferences are based on several factors including organization of landscape elements, maintenance level of the community garden site, and the activities that community gardens offer to its users and residents. Particularly, participants preferred well-maintained community garden landscapes equipped with well-constructed raised beds, pavilions, pathways, and sitting structures offering opportunities for gathering and social events. Participants negatively responded to untidy community garden scenes with features such as unorganized garden spaces, uncontrolled weeds, overgrown vegetation, and poorly constructed structures. Results also showed that mental health and stress relief, outdoor exercise and physical health, community pride, and food access were the main motivation themes to participate in community gardening. On the other hand, theft and damage, difficult access, too much effort, and no personal interest were the main motivations not to participate in community gardening. Findings from this study may help gardeners, community garden program managers, planners, and designers to develop more successful community garden projects that can expand involvement and support for community gardens and increase the permanence of these landscapes in urban neighborhoods.

This thesis explores variation of ecological design preference due to the population demographics: urban, city, small town and rural areas in public gardens under four major paradigms of landscape preference: mystery, legibility, complexity and coherence. The findings of this study reveals that high ecological design preference has a significant relationship with mystery category. Ecological design preference in complexity and mystery has a statistically important relationship with rural areas and cities respectively. The outcome of this study shows that the preference of ecological design has considerable possibility to differ according to the paradigms of visual landscape preference and respondents’ population demographics.

Having a sight impairment should not limit one’s opportunity to be socially included and obtain the many benefits of being in a green space. It is a challenge for landscape architects to ensure that every green space is sensibly planned and designed to provide benefits to all users, including the visually impaired. However, to date, little research has explored the extent to which this group of people use their local green space and how the attributes of green space help to maintain or increase their sense of emotional well-being, especially when their vision loss occurs later in life. This study has drawn on a sample of visually impaired people with central vision loss caused by late onset Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) from across Scotland to address this research gap. Subjects ranged from being partially sighted to severely sight impaired or blind. It employed a mixed method research strategy with a quantitative method as the main approach, supplemented by qualitative methods and triangulation. The study began with focus group discussions aimed at identifying those green space attributes that this group of people deemed important, as a basis for developing a choice-based conjoint (CBC) questionnaire survey. The survey data were analysed using conjoint analysis software (Sawtooth Software version 8.3) with a Hierarchical Bayesian (HB) method to evaluate the relative importance of green space attributes to the study participants. The purpose of this method was to demonstrate the different priorities placed by people with visual impairment on the physical, social, sensory and accessibility attributes of the green space. This work was followed by a series of walk-along and home interviews to gain an in-depth understanding of how the attributes that emerged as most important from the conjoint survey helped the participants to obtain a restoration of their emotional well-being through being in green spaces. The conjoint analysis results demonstrated that the relative importance of green space attributes differs by gender, visual condition and the emotional state caused by sight loss. The qualitative findings suggest that green space can act as a medium to promote emotional restoration by offering a compatible environment that motivates individuals to undertake the kind of outdoor physical and social activities that reduce social isolation. Taken together, the two most influential factors in relative importance and emotional restoration were individual affordance and social company. The value of this research lies in identifying the landscape design attributes that are of the greatest importance to people with AMD. Such findings could help policymakers and landscape architects to provide better design solutions to include this group of people. They may also prove valuable as part of a new approach to enable people to deal with the emotional issues surrounding their late-onset visual impairment.

abstract: For the last 10 years, the American Southwest has been experiencing the most persistent drought conditions on record. Based on future climactic predictions, there is a dire need to reduce water usage within Phoenix. An environmentally responsible behavior such as low water use landscaping (xeriscaping), has been shown to reduce household water consumption by 40%-70%. While much is known regarding the relationship between socio-demographics and xeriscaping choices, the influence of other variables remains to be explored. Using data from the 2017 Phoenix Area Social Survey, this study investigates the influence of two additional variables - ecological worldview and place identity on xeriscaping choice. Data was analyzed using two models - Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Linear Probability Model (LPM). Ecological worldview and place identity, along with income, ethnicity, and gender, were all found to be positively related to xeriscape preference. Additionally, when compared to the LPM, the traditional OLS was found to still be the most robust and appropriate model when measuring landscape preference. Finally, results suggested that programs to foster identity with the local desert mountain parks may help to increase xeriscaping in the Valley and thus lower residential water use. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Community Resources and Development 2018

Low-density residential development patterns in New England have resulted in the excessive loss of farms, forests and other open spaces and increased automobile dependence. Coupled with increasingly high land costs, sprawl has contributed towards an affordable housing crisis in Massachusetts. The need for sustainable development (such as new urbanism and smart growth) has been increasingly recognized, yet efforts have been hampered, in part, due to apathy and local residents’ resistance towards increasing residential densities, resulting in limited choices for willing homebuyers. This study examines perceptions of residential neighborhoods and sustainable development among residents in Hopkinton and Southborough, Massachusetts; two communities with rural and suburban character located in the rapidly growing metropolitan Boston region. A photo-based survey sent through the mail asked respondents to rate scenes of innovative residential settings and to answer questions about their attitudes towards environmental issues, planning approaches and neighborhood preferences, their current residential setting and demographic characteristics. The results from 253 survey respondents showed three important themes: (1) that residents expressed strong environmental values yet many lacked awareness of the environmental impacts of low density housing, (2) strong preference for views of nature and open spaces was prevalent and (3) visual design variables can dramatically influence perceived density. Key findings indicate two sub-groups. Approximately one-third of the respondents strongly support denser, sustainable development alternatives and value neighborhood planning that reduces auto dependency, meets the needs of households with various incomes and protects open space. While, the other two-thirds of the sample favor calm, scenic, low density neighborhoods and would like to see their community preserve its open spaces and maintain its historic and rural aesthetic. The study concludes with recommendations for regionally appropriate approaches to sustainable development that take into account the multiple scales and stakeholder involvement.

Sailivik is a story about the evolutionary process of planning a mental healing retreat for the Inuit of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. The story is created through community consultation related to site selection, development of program and facility lists, initial site planning, and the building of a qammaq. It offers insights to methods of community work, Inuit landscape preferences, contemporary Inuit culture, and the land-based nature of sociological and psychological healing in an Inuit context. Further, any ideas of a finite outcome are challenged as the project continues to evolve and grow with further community efforts.

Sailivik is a story about the evolutionary process of planning a mental healing retreat for the Inuit of Pangnirtung, Nunavut. The story is created through community consultation related to site selection, development of program and facility lists, initial site planning, and the building of a qammaq. It offers insights to methods of community work, Inuit landscape preferences, contemporary Inuit culture, and the land-based nature of sociological and psychological healing in an Inuit context. Further, any ideas of a finite outcome are challenged as the project continues to evolve and grow with further community efforts.

This research examines the perceptions and attitudes of residents in five rural communities located in the Hilltowns of Western Massachusetts: Ashfield, Chesterfield, Conway, Goshen, and Williamsburg. The research aims to explore the divide between local residents’ strongly held support for private property rights and a concomitant desire to maintain the qualities that contribute to the social, ecological, and aesthetic experience of a rural town, including a viable farm and forest economy. Previous research in the same project utilized mailed, written surveys. In this case, in-depth, in-person interviews were conducted with ten residents of the study area in order to complement the breadth of information gleaned from these earlier studies. The research goal was to inform planning efforts that strive to balance the preservation of rural character with growth and change. Questions were asked to ascertain the individual’s connection to the rural community, including length of residency, occupation, and other demographic variables. Further questions were posed to learn how participants felt that landowner rights to develop property and government intervention to preserve land could be effectively balanced. Results showed that landowners’ desire to retain their property rights remains in conflict with their wish to see their communities remain rural in the face of new development. Medium-term residents may be the most motivated group to get involved in ways to balance landscape change and development with a need to preserve town character. According to study participants, local governments should focus their efforts on voluntary, cooperative measures. Such measures should ideally minimize bureaucracy and maximize a multi-jurisdictional approach in considering a variety of techniques to resolve tough land-use conflicts. Local land trusts emerged as the best-positioned entity to forge cooperative ventures with farmers, landowners, and others in protecting the places of greatest value to those who live and work in the rural landscape. The need for education and communication was vitally expressed. This study sheds new light on the different nuanced and sometimes conflicting attitudes about preserving the rural landscape, but also offers hope for solutions based on collaborations between local governments, land trusts, and local residents.

The current study is an empirical study of preference for campus open space around the drill field on Mississippi State University (MSU) campus. 83 students at Mississippi State University were selected as research objects. Based on the literature review, a research process was designed to employ VEP, content analysis and multivariate analysis---Biplot to explore the interested research problems. The study identified two most preferred landscape scene types - "Legibility" and "Coherence" using Kaplan?s "information processing model". A statistical analysis tool for multivariate analysis-Biplot was used to reveal the landscape preference patterns for campus open space as well as how certain landscape features can contribute these patterns. The study found factors such as gender, educational and cultural background can heavily affect these patterns. The result indicated that "vegetations" including tree, seasonal flowers and open grassland, were the most preferred landscape feature on campus open space. Finally, the limitations of this study were discussed and some recommendations for future landscape preference study were provided.