Quantitative comparison of some aesthetic factors among rivers
Open Access
- 1 January 1969
- report
- Published by US Geological Survey
Abstract
It is difficult to evaluate the factors contributing to aesthetic or nonmonetary aspects of a landscape. In contrast, aspects which lend themselves to cost-benefit comparisons are now treated in a routine way. As a result, nonmonetary values are described either in emotion-loaded words or else are mentioned and thence forgotten.The present report is a preliminary attempt to quantify some elements of aesthetic appeal while eliminating, insofar as possible, value judgments or personal preferences. If methods of recording such factors can be developed, the results promise to be a useful, new kind of basic data needed in many planning and decision-making circumstances. Such data would be especially useful when choices must be made among alternative courses of action. Such data would tend to provide a more prominent consideration of the nonmonetary aspects of a landscape.Assignment of quantitative estimates to aesthetic factors leads not so much to ratios of value as to...Keywords
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