Abstract
The United States’ (U.S.) land management planning and evaluation focuses on the scenic, esthetic, and visual qualities of biophysical properties of lands, and is more analytic and is often led by experts/planners. This approach lacks consideration of everyday or degraded landscapes and public preference in general. A systematic approach is sought to meet the growing land use demands, recovery from the past industrial exploitation and activities, and to achieve a sustainable goal of meeting present and future needs. For sustainable development, understanding characteristics of the land resource is imperative. This study discusses methods of landscape assessment in the U.S. and Europe, especially the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA). The LCA’s focus of the “character” of landscape will offer insights and opportunities for understanding the characteristics of landscapes in the proposed Appalachian Geopark in West Virginia. We employed a Geographic Information System tool with raster and vector datasets to analyze and assess typology and spatial information of the study region. The results revealed that distinct landscape characteristics in the study region are due to the geography of the area with sandstone and limestone-rich rocks, river systems, and the historical/cultural land use practices. Gorges, rock features, valleys, rivers, waterfalls, railways, coalfields, coal towns, karsts, pastures, etc. are the representative landscape features in the study region. These attributes are the potential nature merchandizing assets of this region that support a Geopark concept and would help develop the region sustainably.
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Source: 2016 Geologic History of WV John J. Renton & Thomas Repine. The red circles represent the physiographic provinces of the study region
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Notes
Geodiversity refers to the existence of a wide variety of different geological forms and processes within a specific geographic region (NPS, 2015).
A physiographic province is a region of which all parts are similar in geologic structure and climate and which had a unified geomorphic history; a region whose pattern of landforms differ significantly from that of adjacent regions.
Pennsylvanian Period began about 315 million years ago and lasted approximately 45 million years.
Precambrian began about 4.5 billion years ago and lasted approximately to the beginning of the Cambrian period, 541 million years ago.
Mississippian Period began about 345 million years ago and lasted approximately 30 million years.
Ordovician Period began about 488 million years ago and lasted approximately 444 million years.
Paleozoic era—the earliest geological era dating back from 541 to 251 million years ago.
Geomythology was introduced by Vitaliano in 1968. It is understood as mystical explanation of the geological and geomorphological features using the supernatural forces and beings, and is studied by the partial sub-science (as cited in Kirchner 2015).
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to the School of Design and Community Development, West Virginia University for this opportunity. This material is based upon work that is partially supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Hatch under ascension number 7004979 and scientific article No: 3457 of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, Morgantown. I am grateful to all respondents who have participated in the surveys. My sincere gratitude to Llew Williams and Anthony Billing for their indefatigable support.
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Nakarmi, G., Strager, M.P., Yuill, C. et al. Landscape Characterization and Assessment of a Proposed Appalachian Geopark Project in West Virginia, United States. Geoheritage 15, 72 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-023-00844-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12371-023-00844-7