Exploring the Heterogeneity of Rural Landscape Preferences: An Image-Based Latent Class Approach

Effects of depopulation, farm family income and changes in agricultural practices, etc. have resulted in the abandonment or destruction of traditional mountainous landscapes. An image-based stated choice survey was applied to explore the effects of various landscape change processes on the preferences of a mostly urban sample (N = 410). The 128 digitally generated landscape scenarios represented various kinds and intensities of agricultural and tourism use of a historic terraced area in Austria. Latent class segmentations identified four segments, with different preferences for natural, managerial and social landscape features. While a preference for a more complex, mysterious and natural landscape was found for three segments, one segment preferred more open landscapes. The results indicate that landscape change can affect humans in different ways, and that evolutionary and cultural preference theories are useful in explaining landscape preferences.