Comparing users preferences with landscape planning and management proposals at regional level – tourism sector

Abstract

Landscape European Convention considers landscape an important part of quality of life for people everywhere and its protection, management and planning entail rights and responsibilities for everyone. In this sense, landscape planning should go beyond technician approaches or legal frameworks to also involve people in the processes. This raises the question of using the results from scientific knowledge developed by different methods to the design of proposals for territorial and sectorial institutional planning – moving into action to transdisciplinarity. This paper addresses this issue as it bridges across the results of a landscape preference survey for tourists in the Alentejo region (included in the ROSA project) and the landscape planning and management proposals for tourism in the Regional Strategic Plan for Alentejo-PROTAL. The results obtained can lead to the adjustment of PROTAL strategies and/or proposed land uses, improving the planning process to include people preferences.