Application of landscape preference indexes to Atlantic mountain landscapes | Aplicación de índices de preferencia paisajística a paisajes atlánticos de montaña

Spanish; Castilian. El artículo presenta los resultados de un experimento para conocer la percepción de la población urbana sobre diferentes aspectos de la gestión de áreas de montaña del noroeste español. El objetivo era identificar los aspectos de la gestión más claramente percibidos por la población potencialmente demandante de los servicios recreativos y paisajísticos y conocer sus preferencias sobre las diferentes alternativas de gestión factibles en cada caso. Se utilizaron entrevistas personales para obtener puntuaciones individuales de atributos del paisaje, representados mediante fotografías, a partir de las cuales se construyeron Índices de Preferencia Paisajística. Los resultados muestran una clara preferencia por el incremento de la superficie arbolada, aproximadamente hasta la mitad de la superficie total actual, preferiblemente con especies tradicionales, en espacios arbolados de baja densidad, con árboles de diferentes edades y en parcelas de forma irregular. La metodología y los resultados son útiles para orientar decisiones de gestión, y la información obtenida sobre las preferencias sociales puede utilizarse como premisa para estimar el valor social de medidas agroambientales utilizando métodos de preferencias declaradas multiatributo.

English. This article presents the results from an experiment into attribute perception of the urban population for management of woodland and mountain areas typical of the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The aim of the research was to identify those aspects of forest management most clearly perceived by the potential demand of recreation and landscape, and to elicit preferences for the different management alternatives available in each case. Social perception analysis based on psychophysical methods was used. Potential landscape dimensions were represented by photographs and to elicit social preferences for those landscapes, a survey was developed and applied through personal interviews of a representative sample of landscape users. From the interviews, individual ratings of various characteristics of the landscape were obtained in a two-stage process: first, the total set of images was rated and, second, the sample rated subgroups of the total set, each one representing the variation of levels within each attribute. The responses were used to construct a Landscape Preference Index and a regression analysis was also carried out, providing similar and consistent information. Results show clear preference for an increase in woodland cover to over half the current surface area, with replanting of traditional trees, in woodlands of low density and trees of different age and, preferably, in irregular shaped plots. The results are useful as a guide to policymakers in the management of protected mountain areas that have been proposed to be included in the European Natura 2000 Network. The information obtained about preferences is also useful as a premise to obtain the social values of EU agro-environmental measures relative to these spaces using multi-attribute stated preference methods.