Modeling the experts’ attitudes on natural qualities of the landscape within the river Neretva valley

Abstract

experts and the users, represents the foundation for the implementation of sustainable spatial development, where the protection of landscape quality is considered as the holder of common objectives of all sectors in space. Given the hypothesis that representatives of different expert groups have different values baseline about space it was needed to examine the views of different expert groups and to determine the potential differences between the evaluation criteria of natural landscape qualities. The qualitative method of low-structured interviews was conducted on an appropriate sample of respondents of different education profiles and places of employment representing three sectors (agriculture, hunting and nature protection); the groups which would be the most influenced by the changes in the research area, and which affect the most changes in space. This paper pointed out that the criteria for the evaluation of natural qualities differ between the experts from different sectors. These results were used for further research that consider the transformation into the criteria which can be mapped and afterward modelled with the aim for optimization of spatial decisions which can simultaneously include protection and development as social interests. The findings derived from qualitative research were implemented into the evaluation through making the maps of models of attitude on natural qualities for each group of respondents.

Keywords

• landscape values
• natural qualities
• experts on nature protection
• hunting and agriculture
• nature protection