The research aims to compare the richness of landscapes of three urban parks in Jinan (Shandong Province, China) through landscape analysis of the visual resources of these urban parks. The authors also attempted to reveal the relationship between the...
The research aims to compare the richness of landscapes of three urban parks in Jinan (Shandong Province, China) through landscape analysis of the visual resources of these urban parks. The authors also attempted to reveal the relationship between the quality of visual landscape resources and the landscape characteristics. Moreover, the main factors influencing people’s impression of urban landscapes were explored and those affecting the visitors’ satisfaction for management were also studied. In this way, the authors expected to provide basic information and theoretical bases for protecting landscape resources and improving landscape management.
Jinan in Shandong Province is referred to as the spring city in China for its rich and precious underground natural spring water resources. The urban parks constructed with these resources are endowed with valuable appreciation and scientific research significance. In the research, three urban parks (i.e. Baotu Spring Park, Daming Lake Park, and Wulong Pool Park” that form the Baotu Spring Cluster in the downtown of Jinan city were taken as the research objects. On this basis, the characteristics of visitors’ population economics and the utilization form of the parks were investigated, and the visual entropy calculated. The authors also evaluated visitors’ impression of the parks and analyzed the satisfaction for the landscape management. The following results are obtained in the research:
Firstly, visual entropy was adopted to reflect the richness of different landscapes. It was calculated that among the nine landscape control points (LCPs), LCP7 showed the highest landscape richness while LCP1 presented the lowest. As for the whole parks, they were listed in a descending order in terms of the landscape richness as Wulong Pool Park, Daming Lake Park, and Baotu Spring Park.
Secondly, it can be seen from the average values of visitors’ impression of visual landscape resources in the urban parks that: experts and ordinary people reached basically consistent evolution results for their impression of LCP1, LCP2, and LCP4 of Baotu Spring Park and LCP7 and LCP 9 of Wulong Pool Park in the 31 semantic differential scale words (SDSWs) set in the research. However, great difference or opposite cognitive difference existed in visitors’ impressions of the characteristics of the parks in terms of LCP4, LCP5, and LCP6 of Daming Lake Park and LCP8 of Wulong Pool Park. The X20 (vegetation coverage), X13 (vitality), and X1 (beauty) were the most significant indexes for landscape characteristics of Baotu Spring Park. The X9 (scale), X6 (spatial openness), and X3 (light sensation) were primary indexes for landscape characteristic of Daming Lake Park. As for Wulong Pool Park, the most significant indexes for landscape characteristics included X9 (scale), X21 (variation), and X26 (accessibility).
Thirdly, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was carried out for the impression evaluation of the visual resources of the three urban parks. The results manifested that 7 principal components can be extracted from the landscape characteristics comprising the 31 SDSWs and their eigenvalues were 7.851, 1.932, 1.569, 1.445, 1.259, 1.207, and 1.067, respectively. The cumulative contribution of variance of these principal components was 52.796%. The seven factors (Factor 1~Factor 7) were named Friendliness, Spatial Scale, Mystery, Diversity, Refinement, Amenity, and Culture, respectively.
Fourthly, the significance results of the factor scores classified by respondent’s attributes revealed that factor scores of Baotu Spring Park (experts), Daming Lake Park (ordinary people), and Wulong Pool Park (ordinary people) classified by gender showed significant difference. The results of ANOVA test and LSD test revealed that the factor scores were significantly correlated with the age, educational background, profession, and monthly income.
Fifthly, the results of multiple linear regression between the overall score and the impression characteristic of landscapes suggested that Friendliness, Mystery, Refinement, Amenity, and Culture were the most important five factors influencing the overall visual evaluation of the landscapes.
Sixthly, the analysis results of the average satisfaction for landscape management indicated that these parks were listed in a descending order as Baotu Spring Park, Daming Lake Park, and Wulong Pool Park in terms of the satisfaction for the overall management. To be specific, the Baotu Spring Park was assessed to have the highest satisfaction for the vegetation management, followed by Daming Lake Park and Wulong Pool Park, successively. As to the facility management, the Daming Lake Park was evaluated to have the highest satisfaction, followed by Baotu Spring Park and Wulong Pool Park, successively. With regard to the visual management, these parks were ranked in a descending order as Baotu Spring Park, Daming Lake Park, and Wulong Pool Park. In addition, Daming Lake Park showed the highest satisfaction for policy management, which was followed by Wulong Pool Park and Baotu Spring Park in succession.
Seventhly, the factor analysis results of satisfaction for landscape management indicated that four principal components can be extracted. Furthermore, the principal component scores and the multiple linear regression analysis of visitors’ revisiting willingness demonstrated that elements of management that affected the revisiting willingness of visitors can be listed in a descending order as visual management, vegetation management, policy management, and facility management.
Based on the above research results, the author suggested that these urban parks should improve visitors’ perception experience from perspectives of Friendliness, Mystery, Refinement, Amenity, and Culture by combining the demands of different visitors. Especially, the visual management of the urban parks needs to be enhanced.