Estimating visual quality, a component of culturally-associated ecosystem services in palaeo-lake environments
- Chhetri, Prem, Kattel, Giri, Dong, Xuhui, Yang, Xiangdong, Min, Xu
- Authors: Chhetri, Prem , Kattel, Giri , Dong, Xuhui , Yang, Xiangdong , Min, Xu
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Symposium on Australia-China Wetland Network Research Partnership; Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGLAS) Nanjing, China; 23rd-28th December 2014 p. 23-26
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Evaluation of visual quality is essentially a multi-dimensional and multi-sensory experience of landscape assessment. Visual quality refers to the character, condition and quality of lakes/wetlands. It involves perceiving, preferring and valuing the visual quality by the public. Visual quality is an outcome of the perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes in response to visual stimuli of a lake environment. Visual quality therefore is dependent upon the perceptual and structural aspects of perceived scenes of wetlands. Visual assessment, an evaluating process of gaining non-material or intangible benefits by people from ecosystems, through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, self-reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences, has now become one of significant research areas under cultural components of ecosystem services. Public perception in such studies is composed from both the objective and subjective elements of human–landscape interactions. However, it is still a matter of debate whether subjective–objective realities are dichotomous or supplementary to enhancing the quality of human experiences in natural settings. In fact, much research considers them as inseparable and integral parts of landscape perception, despite the tendency for disintegrating landscapes into their constituent components. There is a fundamental theoretical divergence of opinions over the question whether a landscape has an intrinsic or ‘objective’ beauty, which may be in some ways measurable or comparable, or whether beauty is a value that can be only attributed subjectively to an area or a specific landscape.
- Authors: Chhetri, Prem , Kattel, Giri , Dong, Xuhui , Yang, Xiangdong , Min, Xu
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Symposium on Australia-China Wetland Network Research Partnership; Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGLAS) Nanjing, China; 23rd-28th December 2014 p. 23-26
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Evaluation of visual quality is essentially a multi-dimensional and multi-sensory experience of landscape assessment. Visual quality refers to the character, condition and quality of lakes/wetlands. It involves perceiving, preferring and valuing the visual quality by the public. Visual quality is an outcome of the perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes in response to visual stimuli of a lake environment. Visual quality therefore is dependent upon the perceptual and structural aspects of perceived scenes of wetlands. Visual assessment, an evaluating process of gaining non-material or intangible benefits by people from ecosystems, through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, self-reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experiences, has now become one of significant research areas under cultural components of ecosystem services. Public perception in such studies is composed from both the objective and subjective elements of human–landscape interactions. However, it is still a matter of debate whether subjective–objective realities are dichotomous or supplementary to enhancing the quality of human experiences in natural settings. In fact, much research considers them as inseparable and integral parts of landscape perception, despite the tendency for disintegrating landscapes into their constituent components. There is a fundamental theoretical divergence of opinions over the question whether a landscape has an intrinsic or ‘objective’ beauty, which may be in some ways measurable or comparable, or whether beauty is a value that can be only attributed subjectively to an area or a specific landscape.
A century-scale, human-induced ecohydrological evolution of wetlands of two large river basins in Australia (Murray) and China (Yangtze)
- Kattel, Giri, Dong, Xuhui, Yang, Xiangdong
- Authors: Kattel, Giri , Dong, Xuhui , Yang, Xiangdong
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article , Review
- Relation: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Vol. 20, no. 6 (2016), p. 2151-2168
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's largest river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back for some centuries from wetlands of these river basins, reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced the resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. Large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread modification of aquatic biological communities. Changes to cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the historical hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze river wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45, and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu, and Liangzi lakes (Yangtze), showed strong responses to hydrological changes in the river after the mid-20th century. In particular, river regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs together with river channel modifications, has led to significant hydrological alterations. These hydrological disturbances were either (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands or (2) reduced river flow, both of which caused variability in wetland depth. Inevitably, these phenomena have subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages to species preferring poor water quality, and in some cases to eutrophication. The quantitative and qualitative decline of wetland water conditions is indicative of reduced ecosystem services, and requires effective restoration measures for both river basins which have been impacted by recent socioeconomic development and climate change. © 2016 Author(s).
- Authors: Kattel, Giri , Dong, Xuhui , Yang, Xiangdong
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Journal article , Review
- Relation: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Vol. 20, no. 6 (2016), p. 2151-2168
- Full Text:
- Reviewed:
- Description: Recently, the provision of food and water resources of two of the world's largest river basins, the Murray and the Yangtze, has been significantly altered through widespread landscape modification. Long-term sedimentary archives, dating back for some centuries from wetlands of these river basins, reveal that rapid, basin-wide development has reduced the resilience of biological communities, resulting in considerable decline in ecosystem services, including water quality. Large-scale human disturbance to river systems, due to river regulation during the mid-20th century, has transformed the hydrology of rivers and wetlands, causing widespread modification of aquatic biological communities. Changes to cladoceran zooplankton (water fleas) were used to assess the historical hydrology and ecology of three Murray and Yangtze river wetlands over the past century. Subfossil assemblages of cladocerans retrieved from sediment cores (94, 45, and 65 cm) of three wetlands: Kings Billabong (Murray), Zhangdu, and Liangzi lakes (Yangtze), showed strong responses to hydrological changes in the river after the mid-20th century. In particular, river regulation caused by construction of dams and weirs together with river channel modifications, has led to significant hydrological alterations. These hydrological disturbances were either (1) a prolonged inundation of wetlands or (2) reduced river flow, both of which caused variability in wetland depth. Inevitably, these phenomena have subsequently transformed the natural wetland habitats, leading to a switch in cladoceran assemblages to species preferring poor water quality, and in some cases to eutrophication. The quantitative and qualitative decline of wetland water conditions is indicative of reduced ecosystem services, and requires effective restoration measures for both river basins which have been impacted by recent socioeconomic development and climate change. © 2016 Author(s).
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