The aim of this study is to examine the public preferences for urban riparian corridors in arid regions, by testing to what extent people are willing to trade-off unmaintained ecological landscape for aesthetics offered by specific micro and macro environmental factors. Landscape design reflects ecological and aesthetic values, and trade-offs are often made between the two in practice. In arid regions, water scarcity means riparian corridors are the richest landscape typology and the only blue-green links for hundreds of miles. Pressure from urbanization and lack of eco-literacy contribute to negative feedback loops which present dire challenges for migrating avifauna and regional wildlife. Regarding natural resources and biodiversity, where multiple deliverable ecosystem services rely on the quality and health of that ecosystem, riparian systems with high biomass are more desirable. Although this can be achieved with low or no maintenance riparian buffers, these unmaintained ecological landscapes play an intrinsic role in sustaining the global ecosystem services and are important for the survival of the inhabitants (avifauna). Ecological landscapes are often subjected to trade-offs with aesthetic landscapes that include micro and macro environmental factors such as manicured landscapes. It is accepted that there is a preference for aesthetics in landscape design; however, it is unclear how laypeople prioritize aesthetics over different ecological factors in landscape scenes. This study uses a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) to elicit the preferences of current or pretendant residents of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia for multiple landscape scenes. The method combines ecological landscape characteristics adopted from the QBR index that are found in the study area in Jeddah and aesthetic characteristics, such as micro and macro environmental factors that are commonly suggested in landscape design projects adapted from relevant visual preference studies (Alsaiari, 2018; Kenwick et al., 2009; Kuper ,2017; Zhao et al., 2017). DCE is a widely used method to reveal preferences by analyzing the trade-offs people make between alternatives. Participants in this study were exposed to a set of designs, which included various configurations of aesthetic and ecological elements. Participants' choices revealed the influence of their ecological and aesthetic values. Results show that minimal design interventions would prevent trading off the ecological unmaintained landscape and that there are four subgroups with distinct homogeneous preferences for the attributes affecting the appeal for the urban riparian corridor in Jeddah City. Finally, results show that even though there are significant differences between subgroups based on preferences, the demographic information is proportionally distributed in a way the means differences diminish between the subgroups. Findings in this study will equip decision-makers with operational definitions relating to riparian landscape design and a method that they can use to minimize losses in ecological value over aesthetic value. This study will help researchers and landscape architects advance visual preference research further into the domain of empirical studies. / Doctor of Philosophy / Landscape architecture is a profession that entails planning and design outdoor spaces, landmarks, and structures to improve the built environment and increasing the quality of people's lives by achieving environmental, social, economic, and aesthetic outcomes. The profession often reflects ecological and aesthetic values, and trade-offs are often made between the two in practice. These ecological values represent environmental characteristics that are important for the survival of wildlife (protected path and safe habitat) and the overall ecosystem (every being has a role that sustain the health of the environment). Culturally, human is accustomed to a slick-and-clean (tamped) looking plant within urban developments (i.e., neighborhoods). An example of the trade-off that often happen in practice between the ecological and aesthetic values is replacing an ecologically unmaintained plants that play important ecological role (i.e., wildlife habitat) with clean tamped plants to increase the value of a real estate. Due to the uncertainty surrounding people's acceptance of the features of these ecological unmaintained plants, especially when it entails introducing ecological riparian landscape attributes within neighborhoods for the first time, this dissertation focuses on both assessing ecological elements preferences within an urban arid region in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and assessing the extent to which advanced analytical methods are capable of providing a better understanding of ecological riparian landscape attributes preference differences among a seemingly homogenous sample of participants. The increasing usage of manipulated images in choice tasks inspired this dissertation. The results of the study demonstrate that among the relatively homogenous sample of participants that was recruited, four significant preference patterns have emerged, which could be used to describe and predict preference for ecological riparian landscape attributes and choice with great accuracy. The dissertation also investigates policy implications that might be beneficial in creating a physical environment that match public preferences. It also offers research implications and recommendations for landscape architects and urban designers on how to employ visual choice experiments, which have been well-developed in other research field
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/114586 |
| Date | 26 October 2021 |
| Creators | Bogis, Abdulmueen Mohammed |
| Contributors | Architecture, Kim, Mintai, Bork, Dean R., Alsaiari, Hamad Nasser, Miller, Patrick A., Hassouna, Khaled M., Schubert, Robert P. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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