Effect of Thinning on Forest Scenic Beauty in a Black Pine Forest in Central Italy

Abstract

Forest management practices determine changes in stand characteristics and consequently influence public perception of forest scenic beauty visually appreciated by visitors. To understand the relationship between forest management practices and public perception, the present study evaluated the effects of thinning on the forest scenic beauty analyzing visitors’ preferences towards images of forest managed in different ways. The investigation was implemented in a black pine (Pinus nigra spp.) forest located in Central Italy, where a designed thinning experiment was conducted during the winter of 2016. Silvicultural interventions were based on three options: traditional thinning (medium-intensity thinning from below), selective thinning, and absence of intervention (control). Then, through the face-to-face administration of a questionnaire to a sample of 200 visitors, visitors’ aesthetic preferences for stands’ characteristics affected by management interventions were assessed. The survey also investigated the perception of the effect of silvicultural treatments on the scenic beauty using pairwise comparison method. Results evidence a strong relation between scenic beauty and forest attributes. In particular, the results show that visitors prefer mixed forest with varying tree heights and layers, and consequently a high and variable quantity of light reaching the soil. Results also show that visitors prefer managed forests, and both kinds of thinning have a positive effect on the scenic beauty.

Insights into Public Visual Behaviors through Eye-Tracking Tests: A Study Based on National Park System Pilot Area Landscapes

“…The subjective psychophysical approach [19], including scenic beauty estimation, the law of comparative judgment, and semantic differentiation (SD), is the most widely used. Most recent studies have examined the factors affecting visual quality [20], the relationship between landscape pattern indexes and visual quality [21], and the visual quality of forest landscapes [22,23]. Most studies have conducted visual quality evaluations on the landscape scale and community scale; by contrast, few studies have evaluated the most important sensory dimensions.…”

Effects of stand types on recreational preferences of society in the Sub-Alpine Zone, northern Turkey

“…They further concluded that a key factor in the participants' preferences was "natural" versus "human-made". Moreover, tree sizes in forested lands can also influence people's preferences (De Meo et al 2020). A common characteristic was that as tree size increased, people's preferences for a forest stand did as well (Gundersen and Frivold 2008;Wang et al 2022).…”

“…Thus, species composition likely influenced people's preferences for recreation. Moreover, deciduous-coniferous mixtures, which were present in UMS and MMS and OGD stands, are even highly preferred by people (Ebenberger and Arnberger 2019;De Meo et al 2020).…”

Application of Innovative Silvicultural Treatments in Pine Forests

“…With a focus on the effect of forest interventions on cultural services, De Meo et al [8] consider the impact of thinning on forest scenic beauty, namely the aesthetic characteristics of forest which can be visually appreciated by visitors in a research in a Pinus nigra stand in central Italy.…”