engleski

Public preferences towards landscape identity : a case study of riparian landscapes in Croatia

The identity of a landscape is one of the acknowledged landscape quality among professionals that are striving, due to a planned landscape change, to provide a solution how to keep and/or enhance it. The paper therefore draws on the importance of perceiving the relationship between a landscape identity protection (as the social goal expressed as an ideal) and the deidealisaton of such initial ideal attitude (as the professional task to be solved). This concept sets the framework for the research presented here. In large, the research focuses on the issue of the expert knowledge base insufficiency in the evaluation phase of planning process. In particular, it addresses the issue of possible differences in public perception of landscape identity. The second topic of the paper is the importance of communicative environmental decision-making process. Hence, the purpose of the paper is twofold. First, on cognitive level it aims to disclose the public perception of identity of a specific landscape type in Croatia - inland riparian landscape. The public survey was employed to gain new knowledge in the case of a riparian landscape, the area of the Mura River mouth into the Drava River. The study is intended as an inquiry of possible differences in opinion or perception between three different social groups defined on the basis of their actual relation to the tested landscape: space users, people professionally connected to the area and the potential users of the space. The second aim of the paper is to reveal public attitudes and perception towards the national spatial planning perceived both as a process and a product. The results have shown that landscape identity varies structurally between the respondent groups. The results of examining the preferred type of riparian landscape indicate that local population as opposed to the other two respondent groups considers lowland rivers more attractive than karst rivers. By association the lowland rivers are mostly perceived within ecological-aesthetic category, then recreational and sentimental ones. Finally, the most prominent cognitive element of the mental image of an ideal river in all respondent groups is tall vegetation along riverbanks. The results obtained for participative spatial planning show clearly that present mechanism requires attention. The obtained results on attitudes towards the spatial planning indicate in all three groups a relatively low degree of contentment with the representation of their interests in the existing spatial planning regulative. The inquiry into the necessity of larger participation of public into the planning process offers an interesting insight. On one hand, in all three respondent groups there is the prevalence of idea that spatial planning should be left entirely to experts, and yet - there is a pronounced desire to be actively included into the process (workshop type). The motivation of all three respondent groups for the active participation in the planning process increases proportionally with the lower spatial scales. The suggestion is that for the more effective participatory planning, public should be involved at the initial stage of planning process. The paper advocates the need for further research in the optimisation of land use decisions and development of the methodological support knowledge base when pursuing actual planning tasks.

landscape; values; public perception

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