Author(s)

R. Rojas-Caldelas, O. Leyva-Camacho, C. Peña-Salmón, E. Corona-Zambrano, A. Arias-Vallejo

Abstract

The assessment of landscape has been approached from different perspectives; one has been from their methods, quantitative and qualitative and the other, by experts responsible to carry out the assessment or by ordinary people. Thus, there have been developed numerous research tools to approach different aspects of landscape to get an integrated view, tools that have helped planners to deal with resource management. The research project, Cultural Landscape of the Mexicali Valley, has considered the use of several tools for the assessment at two stages: the first one consisted of the characterization of physical and visual landscape units and the historical evolution and dynamics of economic activity and population growth. Meanwhile the second one was focused on the characterization of qualitative landscape values by residents and potential visitors. This paper aims to show results of the second stage of the project, presenting three types of assessment applied to different kinds of audience: a qualitative assessment of landscape by residents taking into account textual analysis of three open-ended questions; cultural representations of landscape elements by residents based on the selection of representative photographs of the region and; preferences based on the selection of adjectives that describe landscape features and emotions by non-residents. Two types of analysis were carried out; textual and principal components by Système Portable Analyse de Données (SPAD). At the end, results show the definition of the valley and its values for residents and non-residents, and the differences between the two audiences.

Keywords

landscape values, qualitative assessment, landscape preferences