Prediction models of landscape preferences at the forest stand level

This study estimated quantitative models for Finns’ forest stand level landscape preferences, using a new modelling technique. The highly automated forest management planning systems used in commercial forestry could benefit from the quantification of scenic beauty. A total of 137 judges with different backgrounds made paired comparisons of photographs of 100 stands with known growing stock characteristics. The dependence of a stand’s priority with respect to scenic beauty on the growing stock characteristics was modelled using a regression formulation of the analytic hierarchy process. The results indicated that the priority of a stand increases with mean tree height, skewness of the height distribution, and volume of large pines and birches. The priority decreases with an increasing number of trees per hectare. Men and women, as well as forest owners and non-owners, have slightly different preferences. Therefore, a landscape preference model was estimated that accounts for the effect of both the stand characteristics and judge’s background on the priority of stand with respect to scenic beauty. The model explained 24% of the variation in the priority ratio of two stands as evaluated by an individual judge. The same stand characteristics that were used in the model were able to explain 83% of the variation in the mean priority of a stand, among the population of judges.