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Ecological Indicators 96 (2019) 202–212

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Original Articles

Using conjoint analysis to gain deeper insights into aesthetic landscape T


preferences

Uta Schirpkea,b,1, , Gottfried Tappeinerc,1, Erich Tasserb, Ulrike Tappeinera,b
a
Department of Ecology, University of Innsbruck, Sternwartestraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
b
Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, Viale Druso 1, 39100 Bozen/Bolzano, Italy
c
Department of Economics, University of Innsbruck, Universitätsstraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Enjoyable landscapes are important resources for recreational activities and the socio-economic development of
Spatial indicators tourism destinations. A profound understanding of landscape preferences can support landscape management
Perception survey and planning. Despite the increasing integration of the socio-cultural perspective in landscape preferences re-
Landscape metrics search, little is known about the links between landscape characteristics and individual landscape preferences. In
Scenic beauty
this study, we aimed to estimate landscape preferences at the individual level based on a set of landscape
Aesthetic value
indicators, allowing us to measure the preferences of each person. We thereby evaluated the suitability of
conjoint analysis to identify the relative importance of selected landscape indicators and the corresponding part-
worth utilities of their characteristics. We further examined whether the preferences are homogeneous or if we
can identify groups with largely different preferences. We related the picture ratings from a photo-based survey
of landscapes in the Central Alps to a set of 11 landscape indicators, measuring the landscape pattern and
features of each picture. Each indicator was divided into two or three levels and used to calculate importance
scores and part-worth utilities by hierarchical Bayes analysis for individuals. In our study area, 11 indicators
were sufficient to predict the individual choice between two landscapes for ∼90% of the respondents. Our
results indicate non-linear relationships between some landscape indicators and landscape preferences and re-
vealed considerable heterogeneity for the vectors of part-worth utilities, suggesting some methodological pro-
blems when applying aggregated linear prediction models. Our findings may therefore enhance predictive
models and support landscape planning and management, but further research is necessary to understand the
driving forces behind the observed differences.

1. Introduction et al., 2007). Despite lower rates of land-use changes, forest regrowth
will remain an issue due to slow succession (Tasser et al., 2017) but is
Mountain environments provide many opportunities for enjoying expected to transform patchy landscape mosaics into more homo-
nature and practising outdoor recreational activities (Schirpke et al., geneous patterns through the closing of open pasture patches
2016, 2018). In addition to the positive effects on human physical and (Garbarino et al., 2014). The result is fewer viewpoints and reduced
mental health (Romagosa et al., 2015; Triguero-Mas et al., 2015), an landscape diversity, which leads to lower aesthetic landscape values
appealing landscape contributes to socio-economic development by (Schirpke et al., 2013b; Weinstoerffer and Girardin, 2000). In the light
attracting tourists (Bonzanigo et al., 2016; Chhetri et al., 2004). How- of these current and expected landscape changes in mountain regions, it
ever, the landscape in the European Alps is changing due to past and is important to understand human preferences for landscape char-
current land-use changes, which include intensification of agricultural acteristics to be able to evaluate influencing factors and adapt land-
use and increasing urbanisation in favourable areas in the valley bot- scape management and planning.
toms, as well as the abandonment of steep meadows and subalpine and Landscape preferences involve both the biophysical characteristics
alpine pastures (Egarter Vigl et al., 2016; Price et al., 2015). Subsequent of the natural environment and human perceptions and have been as-
reforestation processes on abandoned grassland have already increased sessed through a variety of approaches based on different underlying
forest cover in many parts of the Alps (Schneeberger et al., 2007; Tasser concepts. An important conceptual distinction can be made between


Corresponding author at: Sternwartestraße 15, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
E-mail address: uta.schirpke@uibk.ac.at (U. Schirpke).
1
Joint first authors.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.09.001
Received 10 January 2018; Received in revised form 20 August 2018; Accepted 1 September 2018
1470-160X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
U. Schirpke et al. Ecological Indicators 96 (2019) 202–212

perception-based and expert-based methods (Daniel, 2001). Expert- (Rao, 2014).


based approaches consider visual landscape quality as an intrinsic at- Usually, surveys for conjoint analysis are designed to confront re-
tribute of the landscape and examine visual landscape properties by spondents with different levels of selected attributes. This study instead
quantitative methods (Tveit, 2009). In contrast, perception-based ap- used conjoint analysis a posteriori on data from overall picture ratings
proaches regard landscape quality as a subjective value (Lothian, 1999) to evaluate whether this method provides deeper insights into stated
and rely on on-site interviews or use visual representations, such as landscape preferences. Our specific objectives were as follows:
photo-based questionnaires (Hunziker et al., 2008; Junge et al., 2015).
Furthermore, approaches describing the landscape through cognitive • To examine whether the landscape preferences stated by a person
and physical landscape attributes can also be distinguished. Cognitive can be predicted by only 11 landscape indicators. A high prediction
attributes describe the landscape by coherence, complexity, visual scale accuracy corroborates the hypothesis that the important landscape
and naturalness, among others, arising from evolutionary theories in indicators have been chosen and that the individual is consistent in
environmental psychology (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Tveit et al., her/his judgment.
2006). Studies using physical attributes relate to directly measurable • To control whether the relationship between landscape indicators
landscape features, for example, land cover types or single elements and landscape preferences is mostly linear or not. This is important
(Arriaza et al., 2004; Hunziker et al., 2008). Generally, perception- because many estimation methods assume linear relations.
based assessments reach a high level of reliability (Daniel, 2001) and • To analyze whether the implicit weights used to combine the
have been used to examine human landscape preferences for different landscape indicators into an overall index for aesthetic landscape
landscapes, such as agricultural landscapes in lowland regions (Arriaza preferences are very similar between individuals (homogeneity) or if
et al., 2004; Gao et al., 2014) or in mountain areas (Hunziker et al., they are very different. In the first case, an expert-based approach
2008; Junge et al., 2015; Lindemann-Matthies et al., 2010; Schirpke could also be used or a very small sample could be sufficient for
et al., 2013a; Soliva and Hunziker, 2009). estimating the aesthetic preferences of a landscape. In the latter
For these perception-based approaches, the methods used to assess case, a landscape is perceived differently by different groups and
landscape preferences range from picture ratings or rankings (Hunziker may be appreciated by one but not by another group. In this case,
et al., 2008; Lindemann-Matthies et al., 2010; Schirpke et al., 2013a) to the mean preference may be a poor approximation of the preference
monetary valuation methods, such as willingness-to-pay (Grêt-Regamey structure. Consequently, the preferences for the same landscape
et al., 2008; van Berkel and Verburg, 2014). To explain landscape again cannot be estimated in a simple way.
preferences, some of these studies have linked the perceptions to GIS- • To analyze whether differences between landscape preferences can
based landscape indicators. These indicators are used to describe the be explained by a few socio-demographic variables if preferences
visual character of the landscape in a quantitative way by measuring are heterogeneous.
the physical attributes and features of landscapes as well as their spatial
arrangement (Ode et al., 2008). However, these studies usually analyze To achieve these objectives, we used a photo-based survey of the
the preferences of all respondents or defined subgroups rather than for landscape in the Central Alps, including 24 panoramic pictures, and
individual persons and may not reveal complex relationships between examined the stated preferences based on a set of landscape indicators,
preferences and indicators. Hence, the indicators used may be limited in measuring the landscape pattern and selected landscape features (set-
their usefulness for predictive models and landscape planning. Here, we tlements, roads, forest and water) of each picture.
hypothesise that it is possible to connect the attributes and features of a
landscape not only to general preferences but to the individual per- 2. Materials and methods
ception of the landscape, supposing that a person’s preference for one
landscape over another can be explained by a limited number of 2.1. Study area
landscape indicators. Thereby, the landscape indicators are implicitly
weighted in an overall index, i.e., the same weight is assigned to in- To capture the variety of landscapes in the greater region of the
dicators without the interviewee having to make specific statements, Central Alps, we selected four study sites (Fig. 1): 1) Lech Valley
and the higher the index, the more the landscape is preferred. The (Austria), 2) Stubai Valley (Austria), 3) Puster Valley (Italy) and 4)
weighting vector is constant for one person for any comparison of two Vinschgau (Italy). In all study sites, land cover includes mainly forest,
landscapes but different between individuals. Hence, it may be possible grassland with different management intensities (intensively used
to identify groups of individuals with similar preferences. grassland in lower regions, lightly used meadows and pastures mostly
One method to uncover the influence of landscape patterns or in regions above the tree line), abandoned grassland and rocky areas,
landscape elements on human preferences is conjoint analysis, which although the land cover distribution differs among the sites (Fig. 1).
has been applied in landscape studies. For example, it has been used to Lech Valley, Stubai Valley and Pustertal belong to the Northern Central
evaluate the importance of selected landscape attributes to landscape European climate zone, whereas Vinschgau is part of the Central Alpine
enjoyment (Sayadi et al., 2005, 2009) and to identify landscape quality arid climate zone (Fliri, 1984). In all sites, tourism is an important
parameters, including different land use types, for selected recreational factor for the socio-economic well-being and development of the local
activities (Goossen and Langers, 2000). More specific applications in- communities.
clude the assessment of preferences for and impacts of wind power
plants (Álvarez-Farizo and Hanley, 2002; Zaunbrecher et al., 2017) and 2.2. Conceptual approach
the influence of the landscape on perceived wine quality (Tempesta
et al., 2010). Conjoint analysis originates from socio-economic re- To analyze landscape preferences through conjoint analysis, we
search, where it has mainly been used for marketing strategies. It aims applied four conceptual steps (Fig. 2):
to quantify the overall preference of a person based on underlying at-
tributes, providing a quantitative measurement of the relative im- 1) Landscape preferences of 967 observers were assessed by a photo-
portance of certain attributes with respect to others (Rao, 2014). Most based survey with 24 photographs (Section 2.3).
applications of conjoint analyses in landscape perception studies rely on 2) For each picture, a set of landscape indicators was calculated to
aggregated or group preferences (latent class method). Only recently measure the landscape pattern and features of each picture and
have hierarchical Bayesian methods been implemented, allowing for coded with two or three levels (Section 2.4).
the estimation of the weighting vector at the individual level, which 3) Conjoint analysis, using hierarchical Bayes analyses, was applied to
offers the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the underlying model assess relative importance scores and part-worth utilities (Section

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Fig. 1. Location of the study sites, land cover distribution (year 2000) and surface area of the four study sites. Lech Valley (1) includes the municipalities of Gramais,
Hinterhornbach, Pfafflar and Stanzach. Stubai Valley (2) contains the municipalities of Neustift im Stubai and Fulpmes. Puster Valley (3) comprises the municipalities
of Gsies, Rasen-Antholz, Sand in Taufers and Prettau. Vinschgau (4) includes the municipalities of Glurns, Graun im Vinschgau, Mals and Schluderns.

2.5). November and December in the city centre of Bozen/Bolzano (Italy).


4) Cluster analysis was used to group the respondents according to The respondents were asked to evaluate the pictures according to their
their preferences. Discriminant analysis was applied to test whether own appraisal from 1 (I do not like it at all) to 10 (I like it very much).
differences between landscape preferences can be explained by a Questions capturing the respondent’s personal information, such as
few socio-demographic variables (Section 2.6). gender, age and nationality, were included at the end of the ques-
tionnaire. The questionnaire was prepared in German and Italian and
took about 5–10 min to complete.
2.3. Perception survey
Overall, 967 people completed the questionnaire (Schirpke et al.,
2016). All study sites were represented by a similar proportion, except
A photo-based questionnaire based on 24 panoramic pictures was
for Bozen/Bolzano (13% of the respondents). The survey included more
used to assess people’s perceptions of the different landscapes
tourists (55%) than locals, and the respondents were mainly of German
(Supplementary material Fig. S1). All pictures were taken at the study
or Italian nationality (Table S1 in the Supplementary material). Most
sites in July and represent typical landscapes, such as alpine grassland,
respondents were between 25 and 60 years of age (57%), and 53% of all
forest, agricultural landscapes and landscapes with anthropogenic ele-
participants were female. The majority of the respondents lived in small
ments. Details on the preparation of the questionnaire can be found in
towns or villages (57%); only 19% came from cities with more than
Schirpke et al. (2016).
100,000 inhabitants.
The survey was carried out in all study sites during August and
September, randomly selecting respondents, local people and tourists,
at frequented places, such as mountain huts, parking areas, along hiking
routes and in the villages. Winter tourists were also interviewed during

Fig. 2. Conceptual steps to analyze landscape pre-


ferences through conjoint analysis: (1) photo-based
survey, (2) calculation of landscape indicators, (3)
conjoint analysis and (4) cluster analysis. Blo re-
presents the average of the landscape indicators
expressed by ml which is weighted with wo. The
vector wo is estimated to maximise the probability
for Bio > Bjo if picture i is preferred over picture j;
for technical details see Lenk et al. (1996) or
Sawtooth Software (2009). The vector wo char-
acterises the preferences of observer o for the spe-
cific landscape characteristics of landscape l and is
used to group different observers.

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2.4. Landscape indicators estimates of individual values by combining the individual’s informa-
tion with the complete sample. Thereby, initial estimates of the prob-
Spatial landscape indicators can be used to measure the visual abilities can be revised using information provided by the data to obtain
properties of landscapes (Ode et al., 2009). To describe the landscape a posterior probability estimation that utilizes both the initial in-
pattern and features of the 24 pictures from the survey, we used a set of formation and information from the data (Andrews et al., 2002); for
indicators (Table S2 in the Supplementary material) which were iden- technical details see Lenk et al. (1996) or Sawtooth Software (2009).
tified in previous studies by Schirpke et al. (2013b, 2016) to best ex- Individual part-worth utilities and importance scores were estimated in
plain landscape preferences. Pictures 9, 23 and 24 were excluded as Light House Studio 9.0. First, 10,000 preliminary iterations were run,
they represented inner forest patches which could not be described followed by another 10,000 random draws per respondent. Relative
through landscape indicators. As most of the indicators could not be importance scores reflect the relative effect each indicator has on the
derived directly from the pictures, we applied the GIS-based approach landscape perceptions in per cent, but it does not provide information
developed by Schirpke et al. (2013b) to represent the visible landscape on the effect of each level of the indicator on the overall index. In
in the pictures by maps. First, a visibility analysis was performed in contrast, the part-worth utility of an indicator level represents the
ArcGIS 9.3TM (ESRI, Redlands, CA, USA) to identify the visible area preference for that level, with a higher value indicating a greater pre-
from the position where each picture was taken using a digital surface ference. For ease of interpretation, part-worth utilities were zero-
model. To account for the effect of distance on the perceived size and centred and the sum of the differences between the minimum and
colour of landscape elements in mountain regions (Germino et al., maximum part-worth utilities of each indicator equals 100.
2001), we distinguished three distance zones (near zone 0–1.5 km, The fit of the conjoint model was interpreted using the root like-
middle zone 1.5–10 km, far zone 10–50 km). Long vistas from mountain lihood (RLH) values. RLH values range from 0 to 1 for each person.
peaks were limited to 50 km, which corresponds to the range of visi- Considering only two landscapes in each choice, a RLH value of 0.5
bility outside population centres in Europe (Horvath, 1995). The visible means the choice is only by chance, whereas a value of 1 means that the
areas for each zone were overlaid with land cover datasets that differed choice is completely determined by the landscape indicators of the two
in number of land cover classes and spatial resolution (Table S2 in the landscapes. The RLH is therefore a measure of the consistency of the
Supplementary material). The three resulting maps were recomposed choice process at the individual level.
into a single map with a maximum number of 49 land cover classes and
a spatial resolution of 20 × 20 m. This map was used to calculate all 2.6. Testing the homogeneity of preferences
indicators using FRAGSTATS version 3.3. (McGarigal et al., 2002). The
indicators included landscape metrics, which measure spatial char- Several studies (Beza, 2010; Dramstad et al., 2006; Hunziker et al.,
acteristics related to landscape composition and configuration 2008; Schirpke et al., 2013a; Tveit, 2009) found differences between
(McGarigal et al., 2002) as well as indicators describing the presence or social groups using socio-demographic variables such as gender, age,
absence of specific features such as water, forest, settlements and road cultural background (language group), and level of education among
infrastructure. Further details can be found in Schirpke et al. (2013b, others. We therefore tested both the importance scores and the part-
2016). worth utilities for significant differences based on available information
For the conjoint analysis, the values of each indicator were first related to gender, type of visitor, nationality, age and size of town. As
divided into two (present or absent) or three levels (high, medium or this resulted in a number of significant differences, which, however,
low level) to guarantee robustness related to uncertainties in the cal- were difficult to interpret due to the high number of tests performed,
culation or perception thresholds of respondents (Sayadi et al., 2009; we combined a cluster analysis with a discriminant analysis.
Van Cauwenberg et al., 2016; Veitch et al., 2017). To obtain three levels In a first step, to analyze the homogeneity of the preferences, part-
of the continuous landscape metrics, three groups of equal size (terciles) worth utilities were used to group the respondents according to their
were identified based on the value ranges of each indicator based on all preferences by hierarchical cluster analysis with the SPSS Statistics
photos, whereas the landscape features already had two classes (present software. We used the squared Euclidean distance to measure the dis-
or absent). All photos were then assigned the corresponding levels of similarity of the preferences of two persons and applying Ward’s
the indicators. linkage method to aggregate the clusters. The agglomeration coeffi-
To select only indicators that contain enough independent in- cient, measuring heterogeneity as the distance at which clusters are
formation, we based our selection on the coefficient of determination formed, was examined to identify the number of clusters that are too
R2, which measures the common linear information content. An different to form a homogeneous group (Hair et al., 2010). We decided
R2 < 0.5 means that two indicators have less than 50% of the in- to use the four-cluster solution, as the highest leap of heterogeneity
formation in common and corresponds approximately to an R < 0.7. change occurred between four and five clusters.
Therefore, from each pair of indicators with a Pearson’s R < 0.7 In a second step, we calculated average importance scores and part-
(Virgili et al., 2017), one was excluded from further analysis. In this worth utilities as well as 95% confidence intervals for each group. We
way, the problem of multicollinearity was avoided and the information applied a discriminant analysis based on the available socio-demo-
content of the set of indicators was preserved to a large extent. We graphic variables to examine whether membership in one of the four
finally obtained a set of 11 indicators out of 20 (Table 1), which were groups can be explained by socio-demographic differences (gender,
used for further analysis. type of visitor, nationality, age and size of town).

2.5. Conjoint analysis 3. Results

We first converted the ratings of the 967 respondents into rankings 3.1. Influence of landscape pattern and features on landscape preferences
for pairwise comparison of landscapes to assess preferences between
two distinct alternatives, resulting in 210 pairwise comparisons per The mean values of the pictures varied between 4.29 and 8.26
respondent. All pairs with identical ratings (about 37,000 ties), and (Schirpke et al., 2016; Table S4 in the Supplementary material). Re-
therefore no clear preference, were excluded, resulting in 163,773 spondents attributed very high values to pictures representing sub-
pairwise comparisons. alpine and alpine landscapes with a diversity of landscape elements
Based on this dataset, a conjoint analysis, using hierarchical Bayes (pictures 6 and 14), whereas pictures including settlements, infra-
analyses, was performed to assess the relative importance scores and structure or intensive agricultural use were rated lower (pictures 7, 13
part-worth utilities (Rao, 2014). This method can be used to derive and 22).

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Table 1
Spatial landscape indicators and corresponding levels used for the conjoint analysis.
Type Indicators Description Levels

Landscape metrics Number of patches (NP) NP measures the total number of patches in the landscape. Larger values indicate that the Low, medium or
landscape is more fragmented. high
Patch richness (PR) PR indicates the number of different patch types across the landscape. Larger values mean
higher landscape diversity.
Area-weighted mean shape index SHAPE_AM measures the complexity of patch shape compared to a standard shape (square)
distribution (SHAPE_AM) of the same size. A larger value of SHAPE_AM indicates that the patches in the landscape are
more complex and irregular in shape.
Median shape index distribution SHAPE_MD represents the midpoint of the rank order distribution of patch metric values
(SHAPE_MD) based on all patches in the landscape. A larger value of SHAPE_MD means a higher level of
complexity.
Coefficient of variation shape index SHAPE_CV describes the variation of shape complexity across the landscape. Larger values
distribution (SHAPE_CV) mean a higher level of variation of shape complexity.
Total area (TA) TA represents the total visible area. Larger values indicate a greater view depth.
Near zone (TA_N) TA_N measures the visible landscape area within a distance of 1.5 km from the observer.
Larger values indicate that more area is visible in proximity to the observer.

Landscape features Urban Presence of urban settlements in the picture. Absent or present
Road Presence of road infrastructure in the picture.
Forest Presence of forest in the picture.
Water Presence of water in the picture.

Fig. 4. Relative importance of landscape indicators with 95% confidence in-


tervals. Importance scores with non-overlapping confidence intervals are sig-
nificantly different from each other. Same colours of the bars signal groups of
indicators for which the importance scores not differ significantly from each
other.

Fig. 3. Distribution of RLH values. shaped (Shape_CV and TA) and inverted u-shaped (Shape_AM and
Shape_MD). In monotonic relationships, there is no change of direction,
The mean RLH of the model is 0.93 with a standard deviation of i.e. the function is always increasing or decreasing, whereas the re-
0.065 and a minimum of 0.61. For 80% of the sample, the RLH is lationship is non-monotonic if the direction switches from increasing to
greater than 0.90, and 60% show a RLH > 0.95. Only 12% of the re- decreasing (Rao, 2014). In addition to the visual interpretation of the
spondents have a RLH < 0.85 (Fig. 3). This demonstrates that for part-worth utilities, this can be tested by calculating the differences
∼10% of the sample, the fit of the model is modest, but for 90%, the between the different levels and applying a T-test for significance
choices are very well predicted for a model based on the 11 indicators. (Netzer and Srinivasan, 2011). In case the difference between low and
With the exception of Water and Forest, the distribution of the medium levels has a different sign than the difference between the
importance scores is nearly balanced between the landscape indicators. medium and high levels and both differences are significant, the re-
Forest had the greatest influence on landscape preferences, followed by lationship is significantly non-monotonic. For TA, Shape_AM, Sha-
SHAPE_MD, TA, PR and SHAPE_AM, for which the importance scores pe_MD, Shape_CV and TA1, the results show highly significant non-
did not significantly differ from each other (Fig. 4). The importance of monotonic relationships for TA, Shape_AM, Shape_MD, Shape_CV and
SHAPE_CV was significantly lower than SHAPE_AM, but not much TA1 (Table S5 in the Supplementary material). As linear variables in-
lower than NP. Importance scores decreased further significantly for crease (or decrease) in the same direction at the same rate, this im-
Road and TA_N, but not for Urban from TA_N. Water had the lowest plicitly implies nonlinearity (Yitzhaki and Schechtman, 2012).
importance of all indicators. Because of the large sample size, small A less fragmented landscape (low NP) had significantly higher part-
differences were statistically significant, but it is questionable whether worth utilities than a medium or highly fragmented landscape. In
a difference of two per cent points in important scores should be in- comparison, a low landscape diversity (PR) had significantly lower
terpreted as substantial. part-worth utility than high landscape diversity. Medium complexity of
Fig. 5 illustrates the mean part-worth utilities for each landscape patch shape (SHAPE_AM) was preferred over simple or very complex
indicator. The levels of the landscape indicators were related in dif- shapes. Accordingly, a medium level of SHAPE_MD had the highest
ferent ways to landscape preferences, as the relationships include part-worth utility compared to a low or high level of patch shape
monotonic increasing (PR), monotonic decreasing (NP and TA_N), u- complexity. Higher variations of patch shape complexity (SHAPE_CV)
were more positively perceived than low variations. Medium patch

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Fig. 5. Box-plots of part-worth utilities of the different levels of landscape indicators. The line in the middle of the boxes indicates the median. The bottom of the box
represents the 25th percentile, the top of the box indicates the 75th percentile. Whiskers extent to minimum and maximum values. Part-worth utilities should be
compared within one indicator (not across indicators).

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Water
Urban
TA_N
Road
SHAPE_CV
NP
SHAPE_AM
PR
TA
SHAPE_MD
Forest

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Importance (%)

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4


Fig. 6. Importance scores for the four groups. Indicators are sorted as in Fig. 4.

shape complexity was negatively related to landscape preferences. Low are not able to explain the differences in the landscape preferences of
and high TA had significantly higher part-worth utilities than medium different social groups.
TA, whereas low and medium TA_N were preferred with respect to high
TA_N. The presence of urban structures, roads and forest had a negative 4. Discussion
influence, whereas water in the landscape increased part-worth utility.
4.1. Insights into landscape preferences provided by conjoint analysis
3.2. Differences between groups
This study confirms that conjoint analysis is suitable to predict
The respondents were grouped based on their preferences (part- landscape preferences of individuals with a limited number of land-
worth utilities) by hierarchical cluster analysis into four groups (Group scape indicators. Our results demonstrate that the choice of one land-
1: n = 384, Group 2: n = 270, Group 3: n = 213 and Group 4: scape over another is rather consistent among individuals (RLH > 0.9)
n = 100). The differences between the importance scores of the four and the estimation of the choice is limited for only 10% of the re-
groups ranged from small (Water: 1.4%) to medium (Ta_1, NP: ∼3%) to spondents. These choices can be reproduced with only 11 indicators,
important (PR, Road, Forest: > 5%), indicating that the preferences which were not derived from the pictures (e.g., Arriaza et al., 2004;
were not homogeneous between the four groups (Fig. 6). Junge et al., 2015) but calculated using a digital surface model and land
The importance scores capture only a part of the information re- cover maps, allowing us to calculate the aesthetic value of a landscape
garding preferences. Thus, part-worth utilities offer a deeper insight based only on secondary available data.
into the preferences and their homogeneity between the four clusters. By applying conjoint analysis a posteriori, several limitations of
The part-worth utilities of the four groups followed similar trends for conjoint analysis could be reduced (Alriksson and Öberg, 2008). We
SHAPE_MD, SHAPE_AM, TA (except for Group 1) and NP (except for relied on real instead of hypothetical landscapes created by researchers.
Group 4) (Fig. 7). The greatest differences occurred for Road, PR and We used a sound study design thanks to a clear and easy to understand
SHAPE_CV, demonstrating partially opposed preferences. For example, photo-based questionnaire and obtained a large sample. Further, we
the presence of roads was perceived positively by Groups 2 and 3, included landscape indicators that might be difficult to explain to re-
whereas Groups 1 and 4 preferred pictures without roads. Group 1 spondents. Studies applying conjoint analysis usually include only a few
differed from the other groups mainly in the perception of SHAPE_MD, different attributes to not burden the respondents with too many
TA and Urban, whereas the differences between the different levels of choices. This study examined 11 different indicators and therefore
SHAPE_AM and PR were more strongly pronounced in Group 2. Group 3 comprised more landscape indicators compared to other studies
was the only group that attributed high positive values to the presence (Álvarez-Farizo and Hanley, 2002; Sayadi et al., 2009; Tempesta et al.,
of Forest, whereas Group 4 demonstrated the greatest variations mainly 2010).
for PR, NP and TA_N. In the following, we compare our results with those of other studies
For Shape_AM, Shape_MD and TA, the relationship between land- to discuss the reliability of the approach. Forest was an important in-
scape indicators and preferences differed only a little among the four dicator and most people demonstrated a preference for open land-
groups, whereas important differences in the relationship occurred for scapes. This result is in line with other studies (Tveit et al., 2006) which
PR, NP, TA_N, Road and Forest (Fig. 7). The relationship monotonically related a higher degree of openness to higher landscape preferences,
decreased for some groups, but monotonically increased for other although forest is an appreciated landscape feature (Pastorella et al.,
groups, revealing strong heterogeneity of landscape preferences. 2017). Substantial landscape changes due to natural reforestation
We tested, by linear discriminant analysis, whether the membership processes may therefore result in reduced aesthetic appreciation of the
of the four groups can be explained by socio-demographic variables. landscape (Hunziker and Kienast, 1999), particularly at higher eleva-
Although the F-values were significant for gender and Italy, the results tions (Soliva et al., 2010). In comparison to forest, the other landscape
did not show a satisfactory degree of discrimination power. The dis- features had a minor influence on landscape preferences. Although
criminant analysis could not correctly classify more cases as could be differences between the two levels are low, most people preferred
expected with random assignment, indicating that the variables used pictures without urban settlements and road infrastructures, which

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NP PR

high high

medium medium

low low

-10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

SHAPE_AM SHAPE_MD

high high

medium medium

low low

-10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

SHAPE_CV TA

high high

medium medium

low low

-10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

TA_N Urban

high
present

medium

absent
low

-10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

Road Forest

present present

absent absent

-10 -5 0 5 10 -10 -5 0 5 10

Water

present

absent

-10 -5 0 5 10

Fig. 7. Part-worth utilities for the four groups.

confirms previous findings (Grêt-Regamey et al., 2007; Jessel, 2006; a general preference for medium complexity of patch shape compared
Ode et al., 2009; Schirpke et al., 2013a). Hence, unrestrained con- to simple or very complex shapes. Similar results were reported by Ode
struction of settlements and roads may have rather negative impacts on et al. (2009) who found higher preference scores for landscapes with a
landscape preferences (Grêt-Regamey et al., 2007). low to medium level of shape complexity than for those showing a high
Landscape pattern had a medium influence on landscape pre- level of shape complexity. The degree of landscape diversity was di-
ferences, and the importance scores of the various indicators did not rectly linked to higher preferences, which is consistent with other stu-
differ significantly from each other in most cases. Our analysis revealed dies (Dramstad et al., 2006; Fry et al., 2009; Palmer, 2004; Sang et al.,

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U. Schirpke et al. Ecological Indicators 96 (2019) 202–212

2008), although a limited number of land cover types is preferred (de la analyses, could not reliably reproduce group differences based on the
Fuente de Val et al., 2006). Landscape diversity is also influenced by variables used. This result does not mean that the variables are not
coherence, i.e., the arrangement of landscape elements, and inter- significant, but it indicates that important characteristics influencing
mediate levels of coherence are liked best (Kuper, 2017; Van der Jagt landscape preferences of individuals were not included. In addition to
et al., 2014). Finally, long vistas are considered to increase the aesthetic the socio-demographic variables that were available from the used
landscape appreciation (Germino et al., 2001; Schirpke et al., 2013a). questionnaire and which were also included in several studies (e.g.
Accordingly, we found higher preferences for a high level of visible area Bauer et al., 2009; Hunziker et al., 2008; Schirpke et al., 2013a; Tveit,
than for the intermediate level. A narrower viewing field, but still a 2009), further variables may influence individual landscape preferences
great view depth, may explain the high scores for the low level. such as the educational level (Dramstad et al., 2006), the environmental
Moreover, pictures with a large viewshed but less liked features in the value orientation (Howley, 2011; Kaltenborn and Bjerke, 2002) as well
foreground, which has the greatest influence on landscape preferences as the type of interaction or connection with the landscape (e.g. farmer,
(Schirpke et al., 2013b), may have decreased the part-worth utilities for tourist) (Sayadi et al., 2009; Van den Berg et al., 1998). This implies
the medium and high levels. In summary, our results indicate that the that future research on the variables impacting the individual weighting
method proposed is reliable with respect to quantitative measures function of landscape indicators is needed and that these variables have
(RLH) and stylized facts compared to other studies. to be included in future assessments to evaluate group differences. In
general, the cluster analysis revealed differences in landscape pre-
4.2. Relationships between of landscape indicators and landscape ferences, but the information from the survey did not allow us to suf-
preferences ficiently explain these differences and their causes.

The theoretical understanding of functional relationships between 4.4. Limitations


landscape indicators and landscape preferences is still limited and many
studies assumed a linear relationship (e.g., Grêt-Regamey et al., 2007; The study generally highlighted the suitability of conjoint analysis,
Hunziker and Kienast, 1999; Schirpke et al., 2013b). Only few studies but there are several limitations that need to be considered in future
have examined the character of these relationships (Ode et al., 2008), studies. Our results may be constrained by the selection of the pictures.
suggesting that they are not necessarily linear (Kaplan and Kaplan, Whereas many studies use scenarios for assessing different levels of
1989). This hypothesis may be tested by transforming continuous landscape attributes, manipulating photographs or using computer si-
variables into categorical variables to obtain relationships based on the mulations (Hunziker and Kienast, 1999; Kuper, 2017; Sayadi et al.,
part-worth utilities. Fig. 5 demonstrates that there are both linear (PR 2005), the pictures used in our questionnaire all represented real
and NP), and non-linear relationships occurring (e.g. u-shaped (Sha- landscapes, and hence, indicator values might not reflect extreme
pe_CV and TA); inverted u-shaped (Shape_AM and Shape_MD)). How- conditions but instead capture smaller variations of the landscape.
ever, the reduction of landscape indicators to three levels to account for Moreover, the pictures were not selected specifically by considering
the perception thresholds of respondents in relation to precisely cal- different levels of defined aspects of landscape pattern and features, but
culated landscape indicators can reveal only a few non-linear re- they do represent the whole range of aesthetic landscape values in the
lationships. Whether a finer resolution is possible may be an interesting study areas as predicted by a spatial model (Schirpke et al., 2013a).
research question, which may provide a better understanding of com- This leads to a slightly less efficient study design compared to a ba-
plex relationships. For the indicators with only two levels, conclusions lanced orthogonal design (Rao, 2014). This methodological weakness
on the character of the relationships cannot be drawn. In these cases, can be avoided in further studies by calculating the landscape in-
indicators need to be replaced by those that can quantify the amount of dicators for many locations and subsequently selecting a set of pictures
the landscape features on a continuous scale, i.e. ranging from absence that closely matches an orthogonal design and that can be used for a
of a specific feature to a landscape entirely covered by the feature. survey.
Nevertheless, we can conclude that the results of predictive models that Another limitation of this study is related to the selection of the
assume linear relationships between landscape indicators and pre- landscape indicators. We concentrated on indicators which resulted
ferences should be critically evaluated. from statistical analyses (Schirpke et al., 2013a; 2016). Although these
indicators are based on evolutionary theories and concepts such as
4.3. Heterogeneity of preferences legibility, complexity or mystery (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Tveit et al.,
2006), other indicators may also be relevant, for example, to evaluate
Whereas most studies suggest general agreement regarding land- the importance of coherence (Kuper, 2017) or additional aspects of
scape preferences reported in the literature (Cañas et al., 2009; Daniel, naturalness (Ode et al., 2009). These concepts and associated indicators
2001), some differences between social groups were found. For ex- are sometimes linked and overlapping or even contradictory (Ode et al.,
ample, perceptions varied between people of different language groups 2008). In this study, we did not examine such dependencies among
(Bauer et al., 2009), between lay people and experts (Dramstad et al., different indicators, and further research is needed (Kuper, 2017; Van
2006; Hunziker et al., 2008; Tveit, 2009) or between locals and tourists der Jagt et al., 2014). Furthermore, the pictures used in this study differ
(Beza, 2010; Hunziker et al., 2008; Schirpke et al., 2013a). This study mostly in landscape pattern and were collected at four different study
revealed a strong heterogeneity of landscape preferences, which ap- sites in the Central Alps, but they do not represent all possible different
pears less in the quantitative differences in the relative importance of characteristics for all types of landscapes. To obtain results that are
the landscape indictors than in the qualitative different perceptions of representative, for example, of the whole European Alps, it might be
the levels of each indicator. For example, Group 1 prefers low PR over necessary to include further landscape indicators to model landscape
high PR, whereas Group 2 has the opposite preference. The contrary preferences. This may be performed by examining the statistical re-
case occurs for TA_N, for which Group 1 prefers high values over low lationships between a large set of indicators and specific landscapes as
values and Group 2 has again the inverse preference (Fig. 7). Hence, proposed by Schirpke et al. (2013a,b).
mean preference values provide only limited information and analysis Finally, the relative importance scores that we obtained may be
based on overall mean preferences is at least questionable. distorted because of two reasons. Firstly, we derived information on
Using the same test statistics as previous studies, such as chi square landscape features from maps, which may not always exactly corre-
tests, our results suggest that gender, cultural background and place of spond to the visible picture content. For example, a small lake at greater
residence may have an influence on landscape preferences. However, a distance may be identified as present on the map, but on the picture it is
stronger method to test for group differences, namely, the discriminant actually hidden by the surrounding vegetation. This misrepresentation

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U. Schirpke et al. Ecological Indicators 96 (2019) 202–212

may explain the unexpected low importance of water in our study Environment’ at the University of Innsbruck.
compared to the literature. Many studies indicated that water is one of
the most preferred landscape features (Jessel, 2006; Kaplan and Kaplan, Appendix A. Supplementary data
1989; Pastorella et al., 2017). Indeed, the highest rated picture of the
used questionnaire depicts a lake as a central feature. This methodo- Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in the
logical weakness should be overcome in future studies by visually online version, at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.09.001.
analyzing the pictures or improving the GIS-based model. Secondly, we
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