Some scenic evaluation techniques

The quest for an objective analysis of coastal scenery ranging from top class to very poor, which includes the physical environment and incites an aesthetic response from the viewer, has existed for many years and a variety of approaches have been employed. These range from utilizing photographs as surrogates for locations, to compiling lists of what are deemed to be the important physical and anthropogenic landscape parameters, either from field studies, Ordnance Survey map squares, or via questionnaires of public attitudes and perception, etc. The bulk of these studies have been aimed at producing numbers that can be attributed to relevant assessment parameters in an attempt to quantify landscapes. These include physical items, such as, relief and slope, which relate to mountains, hills, lowlands, as well as human induced elements, such as, towns, industrialized areas, and farmed landscapes. The spectrum covered by these techniques tends to be based on subjective assessments of landscape quality by individuals/groups, or by techniques using landscape physical attributes as surrogates for personal perception.