In recent years, research on landscape perception has been generally overoptimistic about the use of virtual reality (VR); however, few have questioned the validity of VR. It is necessary to examine whether on-site stimulation can be substituted by VR. The purpose of this study was to assess the degree of agreement between on-site survey and VR for landscape perception. The sample included 11 representative landscapes from Tsuchiura city and Tsukuba city, Japan. On-site survey data was collected for 17 items related to aesthetic preference and landscape cognition. The same scenes were produced by VR and same survey data as on-site was collected. The agreement of both the overall mean of all landscapes and the ratings of all individuals in each landscape confirmed the high level of concordance of most cognitive attributes between the two stimuli. The findings support immersive VR as a reliable tool for assessing landscape cognition.

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This paper examines the ecosystem service values of Jiangxi province, China using the benefit transfer approach. The land cover dynamics results show that cropland and forest are the main land cover types in Jiangxi province. Urban land drastically increased after 2000, expanding from 846.54 km2 in 2000 to 2317.48 km2 in 2015. Forest and water obviously decreased across the study periods. Consequently, the total ecosystem service values decreased from 37.91 × 1010 Yuan in 1995 to 35.27 × 1010 Yuan in 2015. The values showed a declining trend, especially during the 1995–2000 period. The largest declines in ecosystem service values were caused by decreases in forest and water cover. Regulating services experienced the largest declines in ecosystem services value. Moreover, water supply showed the largest decline in ecosystem service value between 1995 and 2015. Not surprisingly, food production increased in the whole period, especially in the 1995–2000 period. Forest and cropland played the most important roles in the total ecosystem service values of Jiangxi province. We then discussed the relationship among ecosystem services based on the ecosystem service trade-off degree. The results show that the dominant relationship among ecosystem services in Jiangxi province was synergy; thus synergy mostly occurred in all ecosystem services except for food production from 1995 to 2015. However, during the 1995–2000 period, trade-offs mainly existed in both food production and waste treatment. The proportion of synergy greatly increased in the 2000–2015 period, and the synergistic relationship between waste treatment and other ecosystem services increased. However, the trade-off relationship between food production and other ecosystem services still has not improved, which should be concerned in the future. Changes in the percentage share of cropland showed a declining trend; thus, the potential risk of cropland loss should be monitored.

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For the cultural heritage gardens in the urban environment, modern high-rise buildings inevitably change their original landscape and form a new landscape experience with visual impact. Whether cultural heritage gardens and modern cities can coexist harmoniously is one of the critical issues to achieve their sustainable development. This research aimed to find an indicator of landscape morphology, which can predict the visitor’s cognition for such cultural landscape forms. This study surveyed tourists’ preferences in six selected cultural heritage gardens in Tokyo. We used hemispheric panoramas to calculate the view factors of certain elements of the landscape at the observation points. The results showed that Sky View Factor was a positive predictor of tourists’ preference, and this predictability did not change significantly with the attributes of tourists. We also found that tourists’ attitudes towards the high-rise buildings outside the gardens have become more tolerant and diverse. These findings could be applied to predict visitors’ perception preference of cultural heritage landscape in the context of urban renewal, contributing to the sustainable development of cultural heritage landscape and urbanization.