Descriptive Strategies in Landscape Research

Description as an objective and inductive strategy is one of the fundamental research methods in landscape architecture studies. Descriptive research strategies produce new knowledge by systematically collecting and recording information that is readily available to the investigator and does not require complex analysis in order to be understood. Many historical precedents demonstrate how the foundation knowledge of the discipline has been built upon the work of careful and acute observers who prepared firsthand accounts and inventories of the rich diversity of landscape phenomena in the world. Despite its basic roll, it has less been employed in Iranian research designs in a clear way. The main aim of this paper is to point out the importance and critical rolls of descriptive strategies in landscape studies. Therefore, the descriptive strategy in Deming and Swaffield (2011) esseys are studied. In there opinoin, there are several types of research design based upon observational strategies that are particularly relevant to landscape architecture. This paper widely explains four types of descriptive research strategy applied within landscape architecture- observation, secondary description, descriptive social surveys, and complex description (including case studies). Besides, some examples have been mentioned for better understanding. In general, many sources have also been used in descriptive research, including written documents, questioners, observation, interviews, photos and sketches. Multiple sources may also provide greater certainty and precision about particular phenomena through triangulation. As a descriptive strategy becomes more sophisticated, it becomes more dependent upon the combination, classification, and interpretation of different sources of data. The validity of these kinds of research depends on the rate of supporting various sources with each other, process of extraction data from sources and way of researchers’ induction based on classification, ranking and at the end interpretation.