Visual landscape assessment in güzelcehisar village-bartin (western black sea region of Turkey)

Abstract

Coastal areas are sensitive landscapes due to their cultural values and unique ecological characteristics. Güzelcehisar, a rural settlement along the Black Sea coast, which is part of the central district of the Bartin province has 80-million-year-old unique geomorphological formations known as "Lava Columns" along its coastline due to its volcanic structure. The diameters of these Lava Columns vary between 50-100 cm and their heights exceed 30 meters. The Lava Columns at Giant's Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland and Fingal's Cave in Scotland and Devils Postpile National Monument in California, USA, are international centers of tourism in the world. The Lava Columns at Güzelcehisar in Turkey are among the rare natural formations with national and international tourism potential. A total of six different visual landscape areas were defined as coastal, archaeologic, forest, agricultural, rural and lava columns. A total of nine parameters were selected as visual quality parameters, which are naturalness, coherence, upkeep, clarity, vista characteristic, diversity, complexity, landform and safety. Visual landscape assessment was carried out with 35 experts. A total of 48 photos from Güzelcehisar Village were used in the survey with 8 for each of the six visual landscape areas. The experts carried out assessments according to the visual quality parameters for each visual landscape area. SPSS 16.0 software was used for survey assessment. The relationships between the parameters used for evaluating the visual landscape area were put forth via Spearman correlation analysis. As a result, suggestions were developed for contributing to the sustainable development of rural landscapes in coastal settlementareas. © 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.