Landscape aesthetics in different areas of Lijiang city

Abstract

During a stage of rapid urbanization, lots of ancient cities or old towns are facing the double pressures of urbanization and tourism industry. For economic development, the local government built a series of reception facilities and artificial landscapes to attract tourists. The ancient style and landscape aesthetics are affected by the uncoordinated urban architecture and too many tourists. In this paper, a landscape aesthetic evaluation is carried out, taking Lijiang basin as a research object, where World Heritage of the Old Town of Lijiang located in. In accordance with the gradient of Dayan Ancient Town-suburb-exurban of Lijiang City, the evaluation samples point are set to assess landscape aesthetics. Scenic beauty estimation (SBE) procedure is used to assess the landscape aesthetics. The results show that there is a small difference between men and women who participate in this research. The two curves of landscape aesthetics evaluation value are basically the same trend, the maximum and minimum values are assessed by male evaluators. The Old Town of Lijiang is constituted of three towns (Dayan Town, Suhe Town, and Basha Town). The landscape aesthetics value of Suhe Town is higher than others, which is 6.79. The value of Baisha town is 5.82; the value of Dayan Town is 5.68. The value of transition area between Dayan Town and Lijiang City is 4.9, the mean Value of Lijiang City is 4.03. The mean Value of Yulong County is the lowest, which is 3.88. In accordance with the gradient of Dayan Town-suburb-exurban of Lijiang City, the evaluation values curve a V-type trend, showing low in the middle, high in the both sides. The value of the transition area between Dayan Town and Lijiang City is lower. The landscape elements of higher aesthetic value include several aspects, such as natural landscapes (mountains, water, and snow mountain), farmland, village, old town, historical cultural landscape and local ethnic landscape, etc. Landscape aesthetics value of the modern urban landscape is lower than the old town. These findings have significant implications for urban landscape planning, optimization of urban spatial pattern, and promoting the protection of the Old Town of Lijiang. With urban development, the rural style of Lijiang ancient city should be protected in order to maintain the value of landscape aesthetics. Only in the way, ethnic diversity and landscape of the old city could be protected with the rapid development of urbanization and tourism industry.