EDVAET: A Linear Landscape Evaluation Technique—A Case Study on the Xiaoxinganling Scenery Drive
小兴安岭风景道旅游景观评价

In the process of planning and design for China's first scenery drive, from a special perspective of tourists' experience along linear scenery drive, this paper develops a new method for tourism landscape evaluation, which is called Equal Distance Visual Assessment by Expert Team (EDVAET), being considered a simple, low cost, but scientific landscape measurement. To develop the EDVAET, a data base was at first built up by field survey along the scenery drive, which included data of topography, visual quality, visual width, and typical landscape photographs, and all these 139 sets of data were got at equal distance sampling spots along the studied itinerary, the Xiaoxinganling Scenery Drive, Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China. The EDVAET itself consists of three evaluation procedures that include assessments of: (1) landscape cover, (2) visual quality, and (3) visual width at each set of those sampling spots. Results of evaluating could be demonstrated in several curves or charts, showing where could be considered best sites for tourists' experiencing landscapes. An application of this model has been made in the planning and designing for the Xiaoxinganling Scenery Drive, and the outcome displayed that the EDVAET is not only a useful tool helping planners to set site selection along tourist itinerary, but also a suitable method in linear tourism landscape evaluation.