title: Determination of waterscape beauties through visual quality assessment method.
abstract: Besides being an indispensable life element, water is also in the first rows among the most important landscape elements that have the visual reserve value in both natural and cultural environments. In this study, the aim was to present suggestions about the use of waterscapes in landscape design and planning attempts by determining the water types bearing high visual reserve values among different types of waterscapes bearing high visual reserve values. The visual quality assessment method was used in this study. One hundred and twenty eight university students ranked the six waterscapes in a visual quality survey. The results showed that urban waterscape scenery [visual quality point (VQP) = 6.0391], was the most preferred category, whereas, river scenery (VQP = 3.5547) was the least preferred. The second preferred waterscape was waterfall (in rural landscape) scenery (VQP = 5.8594) and the third was standing water scenery (SWS; VQP = 5.3672). The relationships between landscape parameters and visual quality of landscape indicated that vividness and fascinaty parameters had a significant relation with preference. Some suggestions were made regarding the use of wa terscapes visual value in planning and designing of the landscape.
authors.affiliation: Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture, Atatürk University, 25240 Erzurum, Turkey. zbulut@atauni.edu.tr
authors.forename: Zohre
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Bulut
authors.forename: Hasan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yilmaz
mesh_terms: D001504:Beauty; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D004779:Environment Design; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D014867:Water
chemical_list: D014867:Water