What people see and desire: integrating social landscape perceptions and preferences into planning and landscape management: a case study in peri-urban Victoria

This research builds on the social landscape perception and preferences as a way to understand the social construction of landscape from the views of the residents of seven Local Government Areas in a peri-urban region in Victoria, Australia. Communities residing in Ballarat, Central Goldfields, Greater Bendigo, Hepburn, Macedon Ranges, Moorabool and Mount Alexander constitute a case study to better understand the social perceptions and preferences towards the landscape and its implications to provide recommendations in terms of planning and natural resource management attending to the communities' desires. The results are based on an online survey conducted by 138 participants, and on face-to-face semi-structured interviews to a total of 24 residents that were selected having as a basis their answers for the completed online survey. In addition, GIS tools were used to better understand the geographical distribution of the landscape perceptions and preferences among the seven municipalities. The study clearly identifies and classifies landscape perceptions in six categories, three of them addressing the positive perception regarding more inherent characteristics that could be present in the landscape. Similarly, seven landscape preference categories were recognised that also provided insights about the possible attitudes of the communities towards the landscape. The evidence collected indicated the understanding of the landscape through the perceptions and preferences of the participants of the study area. It was established that participants' views regarding the landscape are diverse and highly dependent on the context in which the person is living and experiencing the scene. Consequently, differences and similarities between the municipalities emerged that allowed to describe challenges and opportunities in terms of objectives for landscape planning and NRM