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Photo-based surveys are widely applied to elicit landscape preferences and to assess cultural ecosystem services. Variations in weather and light conditions can potentially alter people's preferences, as sunny landscapes are more positively perceived than those under inclement weather conditions. To assure comparability across pictures, studies usually include photographs taken at sunny days (i.e., blue sky). However, the influence of clouds in sunny landscapes on people's preferences has been rarely considered, although color contrasts between clouds and the blue sky may attract people's attention. This study therefore aimed to assess the effects of clouds in landscape photographs on people's preferences by (1) examining differences in preference between pairs of landscape photographs (i.e., with clouds and without clouds), and (2) explaining variations through variables from eye-tracking simulation, photo content analysis, and Geographic Information System (GIS)-based analysis. Our results indicate no significant differences in preferences between pictures with and without clouds when the pictures with clouds contained a proportion of sky around 22% and a cloud cover of about 39%. However, a higher proportion of sky positively influenced landscape preferences, while a higher proportion of clouds, especially in combination with a lower proportion of sky, had negative effects. These findings suggest that landscape preference studies should pay attention not only to the appearance of the sky in terms of cloudiness, but they also should control the proportion of sky across different pictures to obtain comparable results. Future research should address limitations regarding the transferability of our findings to other types of landscapes and regarding potential differences in perceptions between respondents with different socio-cultural characteristics. Moreover, landscape preferences under changing weather conditions or different cloud types as well as diurnal and seasonal changes should be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Profound knowledge about landscape preferences is of high importance to support decision-making, in particular, in the context of emerging socio-economic developments to foster a sustainable spatial development and the maintenance of attractive landscapes. Eye-tracking experiments are increasingly used to examine how respondents observe landscapes, but such studies are very time-consuming and costly. For the first time, this study explored the potential of using eye-tracking simulation software in a mountain landscape by (1) identifying the type of information that can be obtained through eye-tracking simulation and (2) examining how this information contributes to the explanation of landscape preferences. Based on 78 panoramic landscape photographs, representing major landscape types of the Central European Alps, this study collected 19 indicators describing the characteristics of the hotspots that were identified by the Visual Attention Software by 3M (3M-VAS). Indicators included quantitative and spatial information (e.g., number of hotspots, probabilities of initially viewing the hotspots) as well variables indicating natural and artificial features within the hotspots (e.g., clouds, lighting conditions, natural and anthropogenic features). In addition, we estimated 18 variables describing the photo content and calculated 12 landscape metrics to quantify spatial patterns. Our results indicate that on average 3.3 hotspots were identified per photograph, mostly containing single trees and tree trunks, buildings and horizon transitions. Using backward stepwise linear regression models, the hotspot indicators increased the model explanatory power by 24%. Thus, our findings indicate that the analysis of eye-tracking hotspots can support the identification of important elements and areas of a landscape, but it is limited in explaining preferences across different landscape types. Future research should therefore focus on specific landscape characteristics such as complexity, structure or visual appearance of specific elements to increase the depth of information obtained from eye-tracking simulation software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Landscape changes across the European Alps were mapped since the mid-19th century. • Socio-economic and natural drivers were ranked according to their importance. • Forests, intensive crops and settlements increased, but traditionally used types declined. • Provisioning Ecosystem Services (ES) have generally increased. • In favourable regions, plant diversity, regulating and cultural ES decreased. Landscape appearance is controlled by a range of different environmental and human-induced factors, although there is still a lack of knowledge about the significance of individual factors. Our goal was to identify the factors that were significant for landscape change in the European Alps and to rank them according to their importance. Therefore, we mapped landscape change with a standardized survey methodology in six typical socio-ecological regions with strongly differing socio-economic and natural conditions. The results clearly showed that significant landscape change has taken place in all regions over the last 150–200 years, affecting biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). In general, the areas used for agriculture have decreased in all regions, particularly the traditionally used forms (−72.7 % to −6.9 %). The greatest decrease took place in the high elevation, agriculturally unfavourable areas (-72.6 % to −41.6 %) and regions with weak economic conditions (−62.9 % to −20.9 %). The forest has spread on a large scale on the abandoned land in economically strong regions but also settlements and monotone and intensively used cultures. As a consequence of the landscape changes, plant species diversity declined, particularly in favourable regions with a good site and economic conditions (−62.7 % to −7.2 %), while it decreased far less in the economically unfavourable regions (−20.1 % to −0.7 %). Regulation & maintenance and cultural ESs have also decreased, whereas provisioning ES generally increased. Our results also showed that the regional framework conditions play a much more important role in landscape development in the European Alps than national frameworks. Higher "green subsidies" reduced the intensification trend in agriculture, but also led to increased abandonment. In addition, the landscape also remained more diverse, biodiversity declined less and many ecosystem services increased. This demonstrates that interpreting historical landscape dynamics and analysing impacts on ecosystem services can be a valuable guide to sustainable decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and climate change are both strong drivers of landscape transformation. Using a representative valley of the Central Alps (Stubai Valley, Tyrol, Austria) we assess (1) the historical and likely future spatial patterns of land use/land cover (LULC), (2) the influence of temperature increase on the LULC distribution, and (3) the speed at which these changes will occur. Based on the historical landscape development and spatially explicit models, the effects of various land use and climate scenarios were modelled. Employing a pan-Alpine model, we were able to detect the temporal trajectory of spatial reforestation. The results show that land-use changes that already occurred during the last decades are responsible for the main future LULC changes (by secondary succession). Only an extreme land abandonment scenario and extreme climate scenarios (5 K temperature increase) would bring about similar changes in LULC distribution and expansion of the forested areas. While alpine grasslands, alpine pioneer formation and glaciers would shrink drastically, especially deciduous forests would spread. To a considerable degree, such changes might take place over the next 300 years. By contrast, the increase in forest areas triggered by temperature changes would be slower and longer termed (up to 700–800 years). The effects and intensity of land-use change in the investigated valley, that is comparable to many regions in the Alps, will be at least equally severe and responsible for transformation of the landscape as those of a projected temperature increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socio-cultural assessment of ecosystem services has been proposed as a promising tool for eliciting people's preferences towards ecosystem services. Despite an increasing integration of the socio-cultural perspective in ecosystem service research, little knowledge exists about linkages between landscape and the socio-cultural values people assign to ecosystem services. This paper combines a socio-cultural valuation approach with the use of landscape pictures to analyse and compare people's perceived importance of the provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem service categories across three landscape types (i.e. larch meadows, spruce forests, and hay meadow). A survey with 470 tourists visiting the region of South Tyrol (Italy) was conducted to link people's perceived importance to their socio-demographic background and to the landscape types explored. The results show that regulating ecosystem services are preferred over provisioning and cultural services, whereby environmental awareness is found to be more influential than formal education levels regarding the perceived importance of regulating services. The results further demonstrate that cultural background is an important driver in determining people's perceived importance of cultural services. The underlying landscape types, however, exert an even stronger influence on people's socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem service categories. This finding suggests that the focus of most ecosystem services assessments on the study area as a whole risks mistakenly attributing differences in people's socio-cultural values to socio-demographic characteristics only. A better knowledge of the spatial integration of socio-cultural values, however, could help with anticipating the consequences of changes in the landscape and provide better guidance for future landscape planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Scenic beauty of mountain landscapes contributes to human well-being. Valuation of natural scenery and specific landscape properties by perception studies is complex and time-consuming. Sophisticated spatial analysis tools can support the assessment of scenic beauty by quantitative methods. We implemented an innovative GIS-based modeling approach for mountain regions which combines objective methods with perception-based methods. Based on viewpoints, spatial patterns of visible landscape were analyzed by means of landscape metrics. A set of 60 landscape metrics were reduced by principal component analysis (PCA) to 11 components explaining 93% of the variance. The components were related to perceived scenic beauty values found through a perception study via stepwise regression analysis. We found that two components, shape complexity and landscape diversity, are positively related to visual quality (R 2 =0.72). In the Central Alps, especially areas above the tree line are characterized by high scenic beauty. Abandonment of agriculturally used areas implies a loss of scenic beauty, mainly in the valley bottom and in the subalpine forest belt, as a result of urban sprawl and natural reforestation. The GIS-based model offers a valid instrument for scenic beauty assessments of mountain regions as a basis for policy making and landscape planning. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The ongoing worldwide biodiversity crisis comes along with a growing demand for feasible environmental indicators to measure, evaluate and communicate anthropogenic influence on biodiversity. Those indicators can be useful tools for national and regional management and support decision making processes. We propose degree of naturalness (N d ), distance to natural habitat (D n ) and the composite index distance to nature (D 2 N) as a highly comprehensible environmental indicator set that can be used as surrogate for land use related anthropogenic influence on biodiversity. A high resolution naturalness map for Austria based on the best nationwide available land use data was produced and used to test and demonstrate the applicability of the indicator set. Spatially inclusive and comprehensive indicator maps were calculated for the entire country (83,872km2). Exemplary indicator values for all 2359 municipalities and six altitudinal zones were calculated and evaluated. Indicator maps of Austria clearly delimitate regions with elevated anthropogenic pressure on biodiversity due to land use characteristics. A sensitivity analysis conducted to evaluate the effect of land use data with different spatial and thematic resolution on the indicators showed that D n reacts sensitive to spatially more detailed information about natural and near natural habitats. By contrast N d and D 2 N were robust regarding the spatial and thematic resolution of input data. The proposed indicators do not measure biodiversity or a part of it directly, but the degree of habitat changes caused by anthropogenic land use, therefore they can be used for analysis over wide geographic ranges including different bio-geographic or climatic zones, and different spatial scales. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Apart from forests, the landscape of the Alps is dominated by grasslands, where they account for up to 40% of the agricultural area. This study focuses on the main man-made grassland plant communities of the Eastern Alps, shows their current spatial distribution and examines how strongly the influence of land use and site factors determines the communities. Discriminant analysis was used to harmonize the phytosociological classification of 1502 vegetation relevés from the literature and 375 own recorded inventories from Western Austria and Northern Italy. Land-use intensity, altitude, slope and pH were also recorded, in order to assess the impact of the factors to plant communities, as calculated in nonmetric multidimensional scaling. We identified 39 plant communities and generated a table with the main ecological and floristic parameters as well as a map showing their present spatial distribution. Contrary to the literature, the pasture communities Crepido-Festucetum commutatae, Deschampsio cespitosae-Poetum alpinae and Rumicetum alpini occur also in fertilized meadows. On the other hand we found meadow communities occurring in pastures, such as the Angelico-Cirsietum oleracei, the Pastinaco-Arrhenatheretum, the Ranunculo repentis-Alopecuretum pratensis and the Trisetetum flavescentis. The most species-rich communities – the Caricetum ferruginei and the Seslerio-Caricetum sempervirentis – occur in unfertilized meadows above calcareous bedrock. Further species-rich communities – the Campanulo scheuchzeri-Festucetum noricae, the Gentianello anisodontae-Festucetum variae, the Pulsatillo alpinae-Festucetum noricae, the Trifolio thallii-Festucetum nigricantis and the Hypochoerido uniflorae-Festucetum paniculatae – are endangered: they are regionally restricted and depend on the absence of fertilizer and on mowing once annually or every second or third year. Therefore agri-environmental measures should focus on unfertilized mountain meadows, in order to conserve these rare grassland communities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Sustainability indicator systems often use administrative entities as a reference, which may cause over- or underestimations of results within topographically different regions. Within the European Alps the highest impacts due to human activities are concentrated below the potential treeline, making these zones comparable to the potentially highly impacted surroundings of the European Alps. An application of the area below the potential treeline as a reference unit for sustainability indicators allows for a more equitable comparison of the European Alps and their surroundings. Therefore, we first developed a method for the identification of the potential treeline in the European Alps. In a second step we tested the zones below the potential treeline as a reference unit for landscape indicators. In order to obtain the position of the potential treeline, initially the highest forest areas within 7 transects throughout the Alps were identified using Corine land cover and a DEM. The correlation among the highest 10% of forest occurring within each transect was then represented by means of a polynomial regression. The resulting 7 polynomial functions were applied to the European Alps within 5×5km raster-cells, thus ascertaining the potential treeline. For testing the zones below the potential treeline as a reference unit for landscape indicators we selected a set of 9 landscape indicators, calculating them for 5936 Alpine municipalities. The potential treeline ascertained is able to represent the real potential treeline at a regional scale. The mean altitudes of the defined potential treeline are 2000m at the Alpine margin, and 2200–2350m in the central regions of the European Alps. While in the inner-Alpine regions the actual treeline is on average situated about 350–400m below the potential treeline, the difference is much smaller in the Alpine fringe. Identifying the difference between the potential and the actual treeline allows for the first time an assessment of the intensity of human impact in formerly forested mountain areas. The statistical analysis of the indicator results revealed strong differences among the results, with the difference increasing from the Alpine margin to inner-Alpine regions. We conclude that indicators referring to municipal areas below the potential treeline allow for a more equitable comparison of topographically different regions. Furthermore, such indicators provide detailed information of those zones within the European Alps that are subject to the highest impact due to human activities, which is of prime importance for local decision-making processes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This study aims at (1) detecting the main agricultural land-use/land-cover (LULC) trends that have occurred across the Alps since the 19th century and (2) assessing how landscape-scale biodiversity is affected by spatiotemporal LULC patterns. In a representative analysis, 35 municipalities covering the principal types of environmental, agro-economic and political conditions in the Alps were investigated. Based on historical maps and aerial photographs the LULC trends were determined using a hierarchical cluster analysis. Data on the plant species richness of the occurring LULC classes were derived from phytosociological literature. Finally, land-cover and floristic data were used to calculate indicators for the three aspects of α-, β- and γ-diversity. Five main LULC trends could be found. Areas with grassland farming either experienced (1) the abandonment of grassland or (2) continuous grassland use. Areas with mixed agriculture either underwent (3) a specialisation in grassland farming, (4) a specialisation in vine and fruit cultures or (5) the continuous use of arable fields. Vine and fruit farming along with land abandonment and urban sprawl had the most negative impact on all aspects of landscape-scale biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our landscape can be regarded as a development process that is affected and subsequently shaped by a series of different environmental and human-induced factors. However, to date, concrete data about the impact of each of these factors are still missing. One key reason for this is that methods of acquisition and evaluation of these factors inherently have differences, thereby preventing meaningful comparative analyses. This study presents an integrative methodical approach that bridges many of these gaps. Our approach also has the advantages of being generally applicable while delivering easily interpretable results that also allow comparisons between diverse geographical regions. The indicators used enable all major features of landscape change, e.g. changes in land use, landscape structuring, habitat settings, and urban sprawl, to be accurately monitored and provide high-quality realistic results that were validated in our study site, South Tyrol (North Italy). Indicators were selected for both their further subdivision, e.g. monocrops and different features of mixed crops, and their easy to ascertain hierarchically structured feature classification, e.g. land cover. Furthermore, our use of ecoregions enables better comparison of aspects of landscape development for geographical regions having diverse socio-economic and ecological conditions. Our methodical approach can be used as a basis not only for creating landscape change scenarios, but also for determining the environmental and human-induced factors involved and being able to list them in order of importance. Further the detected striking difference between the mapped land-use data and the official census data suggests a validation of the methodical approach in context of the national agriculture census. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: As is laid down in the convention on biodiversity, it is essential to install a sustainability monitoring system with integrated biodiversity indicators on both the regional and local levels. The resulting data derived from such a system would be instrumental in supporting the work of policy- and decision-makers as well as stakeholders. However, the integration of biodiversity indicators on the local level is still uncommon. Our aim was therefore to produce a set of biodiversity indicators that: (1) reflects all requirements for regional sustainability monitoring on the municipality level and (2) enables the derived multifaceted information to be simplified and used to improve the applicability and implementation of the system. To this end, we also aimed to assess the validity of the selected indicators in a case study area. Together with a team of 20 local experts composed of officials, stakeholders and scientists, we selected five common biodiversity indicators: landscape diversity, undissected landscape, hemeroby, naturalness of the riparian area and agricultural intensity. In addition, to describe the quality of an area in terms of the richness of species living in it, we developed two further indicators ‘area weighted mean species richness of vascular plants’ and ‘frequency weighted absolute species richness of vascular plants’. In terms of practical and political implementation, we also defined theory-based desired levels, from which we derived performance rates. The study was carried out in 2004 for each of the 116 municipalities of South Tyrol, an alpine region in northern Italy and data were analysed using a maximum likelihood estimation (spatial lag model). The results clearly showed that the large variance of indicator values mainly arises from anthropogenic activities, and that all indicators are robust to spatial extent, and thus appropriate for multiscale assessment. Further, applying a factor analysis allowed three dimensions to be identified that account for more than 76% of the total variance: (1) naturalness, (2) landscape structure and (3) species diversity. Hence, factor analysis is an objective approach to reduce the number of indicators without loosing too much information. However, it should be borne in mind that for specific ecological questions, the use of single indicators is still inevitable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

[Display omitted] • We analyse aesthetic landscape values between 1950 and 2010 for the European Alps. • We model aesthetic values based on people's preferences and landscape characteristics. • Spatio-temporal analysis indicates heterogeneous patterns of aesthetic values. • Changes in agricultural activities mostly led to a decrease in aesthetic values. • Our findings provide an information basis for decision-making and landscape planning. Understanding the consequences of land-use changes on aesthetic values associated with mountain landscapes is important for decision-making and landscape planning. While most research on aesthetic landscape values has been carried out at small scales and disregarding landscape changes, this study aims at analysing changes in aesthetic landscape values for three time steps between 1950 and 2010 across the European Alps. We first map aesthetic values at the landscape scale for selected municipalities using a spatially explicit modelling approach that relates people's landscape preferences with visual landscape characteristics. We then transfer mean values at the municipality level to compare aesthetic values across space and over time. Our results indicate heterogeneous spatial patterns of aesthetic values: Highest aesthetic values were located mainly in the central high-elevated Alps, while lowest aesthetic values occurred at lower elevations with intensive agriculture or dense settlement areas. Between 1950 and 2010, aesthetic values generally decreased due to changes in agricultural activities, with lower elevated areas being more affected than those at higher elevations. While the abandonment of summer pastures led to more homogeneous landscape patterns and hence to reduced aesthetic values due to an increase in forest areas and the closing of open patches, the change from arable land to other land-use/cover types had positive effects in some low-elevated areas. Such knowledge on the relationships between landscape changes and aesthetic values may provide an important basis for developing management strategies of mountain landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In landscape planning, land-use types need to be compared including the ecosystem services they provide. With multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), ecological economics offers a useful tool for environmental questions but mostly case-specific criteria are applied. This, however, makes it difficult to compare findings. Therefore, we present a systematic framework that includes the ecosystem services as criteria into MCDA. The ecological quantification of the provided ecosystem services is combined with the assigned importance of the single ecosystem services. In a case study from the central Alps, we compared three land-use alternatives resulting from land-use change caused by socio-economic pressures: traditional larch (Larix decidua) meadow, spruce forest (abandonment) and intensive meadow (intensification). Criteria for the MCDA model were selected by experts, criteria importance was ranked by stakeholders and criteria values were assessed with qualitative and quantitative indicators. Eventually spruce forest was ranked as the best land-use alternative followed by traditional larch meadow and intensive meadow. The combined approach of MCDA using ecosystem services as criteria showed how criteria weightings and criteria indicator values influence land-use alternatives' performance. The MCDA-model visualizes the consequences of land-use change for ecosystem service provision, facilitating landscape planning by structuring environmental problems and providing data for decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]