Tourism in its modern garb is very new to China. Not until 1978 when the bamboo curtain was parted and the ‘Open Door’ policies introduced was international tourism welcomed. It is only 21 years ago, in 1984, that was tourism approved by the Chinese Government as an appropriate form of economic development that could contribute to the modernization of the country. The form that tourism takes in contemporary China, especially the development and presentation of natural sights and sites, demonstrates qualities that immediately set it apart from western forms of tourism development. While there are similar aspects – all part of the ubiquitous spread of ‘globalization’ – there is much that retains a unique Chineseness that is immediately distinctive. In analyzing the specific qualities of contemporary Chinese tourism it is argued that 4000 years of continuous culture, which has produced a body of understanding known as ‘Chinese common knowledge’, has been fundamental in directing and determining the way in which natural landscapes are utilized for contemporary tourism. The values inherent in this enduring cultural heritage are an amalgamation of Confucian thought, Doaist and Buddhist theology, folklore and an extraordinarily rich literary heritage in which the poem and calligraphy are regarded as the highest art forms. They imbue every natural landscape with a cultural overlay, drawing upon the immense strength of Chinese common knowledge in ways which make many such sights and sites incomprehensible to non-Chinese visitors because no interpretation is provided - since none is needed for their Chinese viewers. One outcome of this research is the identification of a Chinese tourist gaze that has many elements which distinguish it from the western tourist gaze. It is highly structured through sociolinguistic parameters which feature correlative and relational thinking (in which no individual entity exists in isolation but is connected to all things around it in dynamic relationships), and this has produced what I have termed ‘the relational tourist gaze’. The Chinese value system also includes a degree of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism that stands in opposition to the western biocentric approach to conservation and maintenance of ‘naturalness’ and ‘wilderness.’ There is a pervasive view that nature is imperfect and ‘man’ has a responsibility to improve on nature to forge a symbiotic relationship, these sentiments summed up in the phrase known to all Chinese: ‘man and nature in harmony’. A significant component of a Chinese tourist gaze is thus what I have termed ‘the harmony gaze’ that contrast strongly with current western notions about wilderness and pristine nature. This thesis defines Chineseness and Chinese common knowledge, examines the particularities of the sociolinguistics of Chinese to illustrate the way in which this cultural heritage has been transmitted down through the centuries to the present day, and then analyses the manifestation of this knowledge and its attendant values in incorporating natural landscapes - mountains, caves, rivers – in contemporary tourism in China. The result is - ‘Bie you tian di’ – an altogether different world.

Can you imagine a world where no-one goes outside? Our world is under threat from human activities, from what we do, and the way we do it. This will have a huge impact on our future lives, and we need to think about how we protect places and the people, animals and plants found there. Whilst, there is a widely-recognised need to address this threat, there is a specific focus on how we can involve young people in this process. Within this, there is additional concern about how little time children and young people spend outside. My qualitative study responds to these concerns by exploring young people’s relationship with nature, and how this may be developed through the projects we offer them. The participating projects have been spread across England, from south-east to north-west, including rural, coastal and urban environments. The young people, aged between 11 and 25, were from diverse backgrounds, with a wide range of individual needs. This transdisciplinary research has used an innovative blended methodology, combining hermeneutics, (auto)ethnography and action research (HEAR) to explore the topic. I have been creative in my approach, preferring everyday language and making use of stories. I have listened to and observed people’s stories, and created new stories based on these experiences. My work emphasises the importance of communication, how we talk to and with people, and how we talk about the natural environment. Contributions to practice include the development of a new toolkit providing guidance for practitioners on how to work effectively outdoors, with young people identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities. Contributions to knowledge include a new conceptualisation of the different forms of story, and a new methodological approach (HEAR) to explore outdoor learning experiences. These outcomes are founded in young peoples’ perspectives and grounded in practice.

El proyecto del Complejo Enoturístico, ubicado en el distrito de Lunahuaná; en la provincia de Cañete, al sur de Lima, es una intervención arquitectónica – paisajística. Cuyo objetivo se basa en consolidar la ruta de pisco local además de potenciar las actividades de la zona. De manera que el distrito logre un mejor desarrollo y las bodegas empiecen a cambiar su esquema de intervenciones, considerando que están ubicadas en paisajes naturales, los cuales lamentablemente no son considerados en la etapa de diseño. Este proyecto interviene un paisaje natural; que es el valle de Lunahuaná, y lo estudia para entender las relaciones e interacciones de este ecosistema para así poder adatarse sin afectar su composición general. Por eso es que la propuesta busca generar un vínculo entre lo natural y lo artificial. La propuesta se desarrolla en base a la mímesis con el valle, respetando las características de este y en algunos casos incluso llega a imitarlas. Se desarrollan cuatro volúmenes dispersos en el terreno, permitiéndoles estar rodeados por la naturaleza y priorizando las vistas del valle en todo momento. El primer volumen desarrolla la recepción, bodega de producción, las zonas de difusión, la guardería y las zonas de servicio. El segundo volumen está enfocado en las áreas complementarias del complejo y finalmente en los dos últimos volúmenes se ubican las habitaciones. Finalmente, se concluye que la propuesta ayudará a impulsar y consolidar las actividades de la zona; permitiendo un mejor desarrollo de nuestro producto bandera, el pisco. / The project of the pisco tourism complex, located in the district of Lunahuana; in the province of Cañete, south of Lima, it is an architectural – landscape intervention. Whose objective is based on consolidating the local pisco route in addition to promoting activities in the area. So that the district achieves better development and the wineries begin to change their intervention scheme, considering that they are located in natural landscapes, which unfortunately are not considered in the design stage. This project involves a natural landscape; which is the Lunahuana valley, and it is studied to understand the relationships and interactions of this ecosystem in order to adapt without affecting its general composition. That is why the proposal seeks to create a link between the natural and the artificial. The propose is developed based on mimesis with the valley, respecting its characteristics and in the same cases even imitating them. Four volumes scattered on the land are developed, allowing them to be surrounded by nature and prioritizing the views on the valley at all times. The first volume develops, the reception, the production warehouse, the diffusion areas, the nursery and the service areas. The second volume is focused on the complementary areas of the complex and finally the rooms are located in the last two volumes. Finally, it is concluded that the proposal will help to promote and consolidate the activities in the area; allowing a better development of our flagship product, pisco. / Tesis

This research delves into the application of semantic segmentation in precision agriculture, specifically targeting the automated identification and classification of various irrigation system types within agricultural landscapes using high-resolution aerial imagery. With irrigated agriculture occupying a substantial portion of US land and constituting a major freshwater user, the study's background highlights the critical need for precise water-use estimates in the face of evolving environmental challenges, the study utilizes advanced computer vision for optimal system identification. The outcomes contribute to effective water management, sustainable resource utilization, and informed decision-making for farmers and policymakers, with broader implications for environmental monitoring and land-use planning. In this geospatial evaluation research, we tackle the challenge of intraclass variability and a limited dataset. The research problem centers around optimizing the accuracy in geospatial analyses, particularly when confronted with intricate intraclass variations and constraints posed by a limited dataset. Introducing a novel approach termed "dynamic contrastive learning," this research refines the existing contrastive learning framework. Tailored modifications aim to improve the model's accuracy in classifying and segmenting geographic features accurately. Various deep learning models, including EfficientNetV2L, EfficientNetB7, ConvNeXtXLarge, ResNet-50, and ResNet-101, serve as backbones to assess their performance in the geospatial context. The data used for evaluation consists of high-resolution aerial imagery from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) captured in 2015. It includes four bands (red, green, blue, and near-infrared) with a 1-meter ground sampling distance. The dataset covers diverse landscapes in Lonoke County, USA, and is annotated for various irrigation system types. The dataset encompasses diverse geographic features, including urban, agricultural, and natural landscapes, providing a representative and challenging scenario for model assessment. The experimental results underscore the efficacy of the modified contrastive learning approach in mitigating intraclass variability and improving performance metrics. The proposed method achieves an average accuracy of 96.7%, a BER of 0.05, and an mIoU of 88.4%, surpassing the capabilities of existing contrastive learning methods. This research contributes a valuable solution to the specific challenges posed by intraclass variability and limited datasets in the realm of geospatial feature classification. Furthermore, the investigation extends to prominent deep learning architectures such as Segformer, Swin Transformer, Convexnext, and Convolution Vision Transformer, shedding light on their impact on geospatial image analysis. ConvNeXtXLarge emerges as a robust backbone, demonstrating remarkable accuracy (96.02%), minimal BER (0.06), and a high MIOU (85.99%).