José Tomás Pastor Puig Arquitecto Urbanista http://ea-slp.com
LANDSCAPE Well, I’m going to talk about landscape, its meaning, and the changes introduced in recent years, becoming extremely important element in decision-making about the territory. PICTURES Traditionally, the landscape has been considered as an idyllic scene, which is represented in frames, as the English pictorial stream in the late 18 th century, or through the reproduction of landscapes for royalty and European aristocracy, beautifying the environment of their residences, like Versalles, Windsor, or temples, This trend is widespread in the construction of gardens become a speciality: gardening or landscaping. However, the European Council, in its 2000 Convention in Florence (Italy), approved the European Landscape Convention (ELC), which was ratified by Spain. In Valencian Community, has been compulsory since 2004, with the Spatial Planning and Landscape Protection Act, and Landscape Regulations in 2006. This regulation incorporates the procedures for public participation in decision-making on landscape. But, what does the European Landscape Convention means? It establishes a definition and implementation principles and criteria, so we analyze the ELC, starting with the landscape definition: “Article 1 – Definitions For the purposes of the Convention: a. "Landscape" means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors; b. "Landscape policy" means an expression by the competent public authorities of general principles, strategies and guidelines that permit the taking of specific measures aimed at the protection, management and planning of landscapes; c. "Landscape quality objective" means, for a specific landscape, the formulation by the competent public authorities of the aspirations of the public with regard to the landscape features of their surroundings; d. "Landscape protection" means actions to conserve and maintain the significant or characteristic features of a landscape, justified by its heritage value derived from its natural configuration and/or from human activity; e. "Landscape management" means action, from a perspective of sustainable development, to ensure the regular upkeep of a landscape, so as to guide and harmonise changes which are brought about by social, economic and environmental processes; f. "Landscape planning" means strong forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes.
Article 2 – Scope Subject to the provisions contained in Article 15, this Convention applies to the entire territory of the Parties and covers natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It includes land, inland water and marine areas. It concerns landscapes that might be considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes.” Article 3 – Aims The aims of this Convention are to promote landscape protection, management and planning, and to organise European co-operation on landscape issues.” It should first be considered that the landscape is any area or territory, and divides it into: "natural, rural urban and peri-urban areas."
LANDSCAPE CLASSIFICATION Landscape classification diagram
As far as landscapes are concerned, not only they are not just the idyllic landscapes, but also are the everyday and deteriorated landscapes, as these. The landscapes are changing throughout the day, or the year, for human actions such as changing cultivation, or building a new roads or residential buildings. The landscape is firstly a social and cultural construction, always located in a material and physical place. The landscape is both a physical reality and the representation that culturally we make of it, the outward and visible appearance of a certain portion of the earth’s surface and individual and social perception it generates.
But there is one very important aspect, all these areas or territories, are landscape, as they are perceived by citizens as they reflect the history, tradition and social identity relationship between citizens and the territory it inhabits, then this aspect is VERY RELEVANT . Valencian Community has since 2006, a regulated procedure for citizens public participation in decision-making on landscape, as determinant or urban and regional planning. The perception of citizens materializes through all the senses: sight (e.g. watch a landscape), ear (hear a bird singing), smell (smell the perfume’s flowers), touch (touch something, feel cold, heat, humidity), taste (like gastronomy tourism). But according to the several researches on the subject, the view makes up between 75 and 80% of perception, so to obtain an assessment of the perception of citizens is through the Visual Preference Evaluation.
Are usually made two types of surveys or assessments, first, you select the most representative views of different landscapes in the territory under study, and citizens are asked their territory’s value, that reflects the feelings of identity, singularity, representation etc. , on a scale which is divided into 5 levels: very high, high, medium, low and very low. VERY HIGH: visual reference, high value identity, unique landscape. HIGH: Landscape with certain uniqueness and representativeness. MEDIUM: Landscape pattern distinguished but has no representation. LOW: No significant structure is abundant and not significant. VERY LOW: damaged landscapes, in which there is no interest of conserving space and they are generally areas with conflicts.
Secondly, in places where there are no legal impediments to implementation of infrastructure interventions, or residential commercial or industrial developments, are made simulations of how the landscape can change, and citizens are asked that if the change improves or get worse the landscape, setting a range of value between +3, +2, +1, 0 (not affected) -1, -2, -3.
VALUE
NEGATIVE
NEUTRAL
POSITIVE
INTENSITY
MEANING
-3
THIS ACTIONS SHOULD NEVER DONE
-2
REDUCE VISUAL QUALITY, BUT COULD INTEGRATE IT
-1
REDUCE VISUAL QUALITY, BUT IT COULD BE ACCEPTABLE
0
THE PROPOSAL DOES NOT CHANGE THE INITIAL VALUE
+1
IMPROVE VISUAL QUALITY, BUT COULD BE OVERLOOKED
+2
IMPROVE VISUAL QUALITY AND THIS ACTIONS ARE INTERESTING
+3
I CONSIDER THAT ACTIONS OF THIS TYPE ARE PRIORITY
Stone quarry disappears
The Social Value of citizens as a result of Public Participation Plan is contrasted with the technical value of Landscape Quality, conducted by technicians based on 6 criteria: 1. Interest of conservation. Spaces that have some kind of protection: Nature Network, Archaeological sites, etc 2. Representative. Site identity 3. Integrity. Good condition and no impacts 4. Singularity. Unique in its setting 5. Role of a holistic landscape. Ecological corridors or systemic function 6. Quality of the scene. Scenario widely recognized
The aim is to check that agents interested in some type of action such as selling land for a housing development, or provide jobs in a new commercial, do not change the majority opinion in their interests. The result of the assessment, corresponds to the average value, if there are two steps maximum of difference or the higher of the two values, affected only by a step, if there is a greater difference. Once valued landscapes, using GIS, it’s estimated the visibility of all landscapes: Landscape Units or Landscape Resources. The result is a map, which is distributed according to the visibility areas, from w are very visible from all routes: highways, roads, inhabited places, observation points to hidden areas, or not visible.
MAXIMUM HIGH MEDIUM
VISIBILITY LEVEL
SLOW MINIMUM HIDDEN
The combination of landscape value and visibility, determined Landscape Quality Objectives, which set implementation policies on the landscape:
LANDSCAPE QUALITY OBJECTIVE LANDSCAPE VALUE
VISIBILITY VERY HIGH
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
VERY LOW
MAXIMUM
PROTECTION
PROTECTION
MANAGEMEN T
PLANNING
PLANNING
MEDIUM
PROTECTION
MANAGEMEN T
MANAGEMEN T
PLANNING
PLANNING
MINIMUM
MANAGEMEN T
MANAGEMEN T
SEVERAL
SEVERAL
SEVERAL
HIDDEN
MANAGEMEN T
MANAGEMEN T
SEVERAL
SEVERAL
SEVERAL
Remember the definition of the ELC of the different policies to implementation in landscape: a.
"Landscape policy" means an expression by the competent public authorities of general principles, strategies and guidelines that permit the taking of specific measures aimed at the protection, management and planning of landscapes; b. "Landscape quality objective" means, for a specific landscape, the formulation by the competent public authorities of the aspirations of the public with regard to the landscape features of heir surroundings; c. "Landscape protection" means actions to conserve and maintain the significant or characteristic features of a landscape, justified by its heritage value derived from its natural configuration and/or from human activity; d. "Landscape management" means action, from a perspective of sustainable development, to ensure the regular upkeep of a landscape, so as to guide and harmonise changes which are brought about by social, economic and environmental processes; e. "Landscape planning" means strong forward-looking action to enhance, restore or create landscapes. These landscape policies are applied by the Landscape’s Catalogue, the Implementing Regulations, and the Actions’ Program. In summary, we can see that the landscape quality objectives come from the value assigned to the
different
landscapes,
which
basically
comes
from
the
perception
of
citizens.
This aspect is being developed by the European Council in the ELC Implementation Workshops, especially the last, which focuses on democratic governance aspects of the territory:
In conclusion, I must conclude with the importance of the landscape value, and the relevance of citizens in this value, so it requires the awareness of citizens and encourage their participation, because they have in his hands the ability to influence the actions on the territory in which they live and left it in inheritance for future generations. And that’s all. Thank you very much for your attention.
José Tomás Pastor Puig http://ea-slp.com
Passeig Germanies, 98, entlo. 46702 Gandia Valencia 962 864 061 (Fax: 962 870 116) info@ea-slp.com