AN ASSESSMENT OF PREFERENCE FOR LANDSCAPES IN THE DEVELOPING-WORLD - CASE-STUDY OF WARRI, NIGERIA, AND ENVIRONS

One of the major problems confronting the Third World today in the process of development is the management of rapid environmental deterioration and change. In spite of this deterioration, however, simple landscape quality evaluation and preference studies which provide supportive information to environmental planners and managers for meaningful environmental management decisions are yet to gain ground in the developing world. Furthermore, the absence of such studies has hampered cross-cultural comparisons with burgeoning studies carried out to date in the West. The present research, therefore, represents an original contribution to the landscape research field because it examines landscape preferences and values of people in a developing country—Nigeria—which also forms a basis for some comparative evaluation with studies from other milieux. To determine preferences for landscapes in Nigeria, surrogate photographs of urban, rural and natural sceneries drawn from the city of Warri and its environs were employed to elicit a range of descriptive and evaluative responses from subjects sampled from different socio-economic and environmental backgrounds. The results of the research demonstrate some consensual group attachment to natural and highly planned physical urban landscapes, which hold some implications for programmes of environmental creation, change and development. © 1992, Academic Press Limited. All rights reserved.