Aridity and Landscape Evaluation of the Landscape Indices in Drylands

Document Type : Original Research Article

Authors

1 M.A. in Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Arts & Architecture, Shiraz, Iran.

2 Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

3 Faculty member, Shiraz University, Iran.

Abstract

Today, drylands account for one third of the earth grounds. The international nature conservation union defines the drylands as the regions with water shortage that might have limited precipitation or rainfalls for a short period of time. According to the climatic conditions and the daily increasing interventions of human beings in the ecosystems; and, considering the unbridled expansion of the cities, aridity and desertification and the grounds of its emergence, i.e. dry and arid lands, and the way the human beings treat it has become a hot topic of the day and a major concern of the landscape architects and theoreticians and environment supporters. However, the thing that has been so far carried out is the interpretation and evaluation of these grounds within the framework of a solely climatic and occasionally ecologic subject wherein the role of the human beings as the addressee influencing and influenced by it has been ignored or underestimated. The present study uses a qualitative method based on logical reasoning through library research to review the related literature on the subject within the area of the landscape perception process and seeks to offer a landscape-based mindset and showcase the objective-subjective potentials of the dry grounds within the format of arid landscapes. To do so, use has been made herein of an objective theory within the format of “visual lands” and a subjective theory within the framework of the ideations by Jacobs (2006) in order to reach answers for the study questions due to the fact that there are specified and codified indices available for evaluating landscape. The evaluation and analysis of the visual and mental indices of the drylands in these two formats is reflective of the idea that there is compatibility with the intended indices in the evaluation of the physical and biological indicators of the dry grounds, including morphology, vegetative cover, texture and color, and that these natural grounds can be realized as transcending beyond the solely climatic and environmental framework and grant them a landscape identity.

Keywords

References

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