Landscape value corresponds to an attachment or emotional bond that people develop with places. There are strong cultural ties to landscapes and feelings for the visual beauty of mountains, lakes, coasts, forests, etc., which are a common bond among people or social groups of a given region. Arguments related to landscape values are commonly heard in Europe from opponents to the construction of wind farms for example. Landscape values may also be important for the tourism industry and landscapes can therefore be managed as a key component of tourism infrastructure.
Landscape value often has an association with environmental and natural resource values. The values that people appreciate in a landscape may often also be important ecologically. Landscape values can be divided into use and non-value, the former of which provides tangible benefits (such as economic value through, for instance, tourism, or recreation value) and the latter of which provides spiritual, identity or ecological value.
For further reading
Penning-Rowsell, E. C. (1981) Fluctuating fortunes in gauging landscape value. Progress in human geography, 5(1), 25-41.
Zografos, C., & Mart, J. (2009). The politics of landscape value: a case study of wind farm conflict in rural Catalonia. Environment and Planning A, 41(7), 1726-1744.
This glossary entry is based on contributions by Julien Francois Gerber
EJOLT glossary editors: Hali Healy, Sylvia Lorek and Beatriz Rodríguez-Labajos
