Special quality of the landscape
People create identity by assigning meaning to landscapes – in perceiving its uniqueness and references to the past. For example, people express the uniqueness of a landscape when they agree that the countryside around where they live is 'something special' or 'unique'. Landscapes that reveal how things used to be and which evoke past experiences establish a strong connection to the past. The indicator on the special quality of the landscape combines people's responses on the uniqueness of the landscape and references to the past.
good
positive
The Swiss public as a whole assesses both the uniqueness of the landscape and references to the past quite highly, with values of 3.63 and 3.45 respectively.
Uniqueness: Rural areas were rated highest in terms of their uniqueness in both the 2011 and 2020 surveys, while urban areas were rated lowest, with dense peri-urban areas and rural centres somewhere in between. There was no significant difference between the surveys in the assessment of perceived uniqueness in rural areas. In urban areas, the assessment of landscape uniqueness improved slightly. In the peri-urban area, the differences between 2011 and 2020 increased significantly.
Reference to the past. In the 2011 survey, the reference to the past evoked by the landscape was rated with an average of 3.25 on a scale of 1 to 5. In 2020, the average for Switzerland as a whole was 3.45. In other words, there was a clear increase in the assessment between the 2011 and 2020 surveys.
The indicator 'Special quality of the landscape' is based on two sub-indicators, 'Uniqueness' and 'Reference to the past'. Data for the indicator was collected by recording responses to four statements – two for each sub-indicator (see below). The scale for 'Special quality of the landscape' was newly developed for the Swiss Landscape Monitoring (LABES) programme and was partly based on the questionnaire items used by Gehring (2006). There were originally six items on the scale in the 2011 survey(BAFU und WSL, 2013, 2017; Kienast, Frick, van Strien, & Hunziker, 2015). For the 2020 survey, the scale was reduced to four items. The response scale ranged from 1 ('disagree completely') to 5 ('agree completely'). The respondents were asked to evaluate the landscape in their commune:
- The landscape in the commune where I live is unique
- The landscape in the community where I live makes the area special
- I can see the past in the landscape
- The landscape where I live reminds me of past events and experiences.
The survey is representative of the Swiss population.
| Targeted trend | Initial value | Final value | Variation in % | Observed trend | Assessment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stabilisation or Growth | 2011 | 2020 | (1) 1.97%, (2) 6.15% | (1) Stabilisation, (2) Growth | positive |
| (1) 2011, (2) 2020 | |||||
Further information
