Based on past researches on landscape preference, landscape aesthetics assessment, landscape quality evaluation, and tourist perception evaluation, this paper proposes the concept of landscape perception sensitivity, and describes eco-tourists' perception degree about landscapes through the perspective of quantitative calculation of the ecological landscapes, which is unlike the angle from the tourists. Although public preferences on landscapes are shaped by many different factors, such as age, sex, social and economic status etc., there are also some common preferences on landscape types, especially for the people with similar education background and environmental viewpoints. Considering the common preferences on landscape types, we design a calculation method for landscape perception sensitivity on sight-seeing route in ecotourism destinations. The method includes 2 types of impact factors: visible perception factors and ecological perception factors. The visible perception is used to describe the perception stimulated by visual sense, which includes 3 factors, namely landscape visibility, the best viewing distance and the best viewing orientation. The ecological perception is mainly to emphasize the perception difference influenced by the ecological landscape, which also includes three factors, i.e., landscape type, resource grade and some landscapes for experiencing in them. By the method, we can obtain the eco-tourist's landscape perception sensitivity and its spatial variation at any locations. The method is applied in the case study of Qixiagu scenic region, Wu'an National Geopark in Handan, Hebei Province. Based on Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and high-resolution satellite images, the authors build the virtual 3D landscape in the ecotourism destination and design a guideline for calculation of landscape perception sensitivity on sightseeing route using the tools of view-shed analysis, spatial overlay analysis, buffer and others on ArcGIS9.3 platform. The result shows that the calculation method for landscape perception sensitivity is a good way to quantitatively describe the eco-tourists' perception for ecological landscapes at any locations on the sightseeing routes, and identify its spatial variation on linear units. Locations with high values of landscape perception sensitivity are mostly the gathering sites of eco-tourists. Thus, during the process of planning for ecotourism destinations, the spatial differences of landscape perception sensitivity should be taken into consideration, the relationship between landscape perception and ecological capacity should be well coordinated, and the infrastructures should be allocated rationally. This calculation method lays a methodological basis for introducing perceptual factors to eco-tourism planning.
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