ABSTRACT
Many studies have been made on characteristics of landscape from several points of view, but there are few which discuss overall landscape characteristics for a whole city. The purpose of this study is to set up zones and to clarify the landscape characteristics for the whole city using objective methods. We deal with the landscape of Oita City, a typical local city.The base data of this study is the mesh data on topography and land
use. The interval of the meshes is 250m based on "Latitude Longitude Method".
The flow of this study is shown in Fig-1.
e-l.gif)
First, we applied fixed conditions about topography and land use to
each mesh, and classified them into nine categories. Its distribution is
shown in Fig-2. Furthermore, by adopting a smoothing operation, the distribution
was realigned to continuous groups. Each of these groups is an area with
a common viewable physical characteristic. We call these "landscape zones".
As a result, 49 landscape zones presented in Fig-3 were obtained, These
compose the landscape of Oita City.
e-l.gif)
e-l.gif)
Secondly, we judged the visibility of every mesh from each mesh, and
found the visibility rates of landscape zones. To these rates, a factor
analysis was applied, and nine factors were extracted. Furthermore, a cluster
analysis was applied to the factor scores, and 10 clusters were acquired.
Each cluster is a group of meshes with similar visibility rates. We named
them "view-point clusters". Its distribution is shown in Fig-4.
e-l.gif)
Thirdly, the landscape characteristics were grasped by observing the
relationship between landscape zones and view-point clusters through three
visual indicators. Fig-5 is an example of a diagram of these indicators.
As a result, we were able to extract two aspects of the landscape characteristics
of each view-point cluster. One aspect is the extent of the view of the
whole domain. The other is the degree of urbanization of the landscape
zones which strongly influence the landscape view from the view-point cluster.
Furthermore, the view of the landscape zones from typical view points were
simulated by using computer graphics images. An example of an image is
presented in Fig-6.
e-l.gif)
e-l.gif)
Through this series of analyses, it can be said that we have objectively extracted the macro-characteristics of the regional landscape using general city planning information.
