Coastal Scenery

This book describes an easy to apply methodology to determine the scenic value of a coast. As one of the most critical aspects of beach user choice, the determination of coastal area scenic quality is of primordial importance. This book is, therefore, an extremely useful tool for any coastal lovers, being them users, teachers, researchers, or managers.

In particular, this work is the first book to present a semi-quantitative analysis of coastal scenery based on more than 4,000 interviews about people's desired coastal imaginary. Twenty-six parameters can be used to identify any coastal scene, which have then been sub-divided into five attribute categories, weighted and subjected to fuzzy logic mathematics to obtain a decision number (D). This number D represents the coastal scenery at that point, and Five D classes are then presented (from I-excellent, to V-poor). Heritage areas, like National Parks should lie in Class I, which infers top scenic quality.



Overa time span of a decade or so, the authors of this book have assessed more than 900 global locations using the technique given in this book. One of the main aims of this method is to point out how scenic areas may be improved by judicious intervention relating to parameters, mainly anthropogenic, chosen for assessment.

The content of this book opens perspectives for analysis of the potential for coastal tourism development in natural areas and for landscape quality improvement in current coastal tourist developed areas.

"In a very comprehensive way, this book reviews the main concepts about coastal scenery and through the vast global work experience of the authors, presents different methodologies, as well as introducing a novel methodology, using parameter weightings and fuzzy logic mathematics."
Carlos Pereira da Silva, CICS.NOVA, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal