Assessing Public Preferences of Landscape and Landscape Attributes: a Case Study of the Proposed Appalachian Geopark Project in West Virginia, USA

Photographs have been utilized as substitutes for on-site scenes in the assessment and evaluation of landscape’s visual quality, perspective, and preference. Visual quality, perception, and preference are assessed through human eyes and their judgment. However, the human judgement is often generally categorized as expert vs. citizen. Literature searches show that the expert-based assessment dominates over the citizen level judgement. There is a lack of information on methodologies to assess public preference of landscape and landscape attributes. This paper discussed two different approaches of assessing landscape preferences of the public (local and visitors) in the proposed Appalachian Geopark Project (hereafter referred as pAGP) covering Fayette, Greenbrier, and Raleigh Counties in West Virginia (WV). A set of two questionnaire surveys were administered. There were questions for answering as a cognitive preference exercise and a set of photographs for rating as a visual stimulation exercise. Both instruments were delivered to respondents as anonymous links using Survey123 and Qualtrics software respectively. The results from both surveys revealed the highest preference was found for forested landscapes followed by water features and the associated landscapes. This study’s findings revealed how multiple methods of assessing public preferences can strengthen and justify the results from different methods. Surveys were completed by 47 respondents.