https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8430-6909
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ABSTRACT
The perception of landscapes involves the process of categorising and differentiating surrounds according to sensory information and the experiences of individuals. Increasingly, due to the ubiquitous nature of virtual globe platforms, individuals are accessing visual information about their surrounding environment through satellite imagery. This investigation aims to examine how people’s perceptions of landscapes are changing when our experiences increasingly occur in digital space, altering the perception paradigm from one where individuals analyse direct objects to one where indirect objects are key in the formation of their perceptions. A case study in Chile, South America, is used to explore the influence of satellite imagery with 52 survey participants responding to questions about land use and land cover (LULC) patterns of the area, before and after, unstructured exploration of the region using Google Earth. The results indicate that satellite imagery is influencing how individuals perceive LULC patterns within their direct surroundings.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Ms. Liliana Guzman Aguayo who helped to administer the surveys and Dr Bryan Hally for guidance on the use of nlmpy.
Compliance and Ethical Standards
The study is being undertaken in accordance with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. It is approved and overseen by the RMIT University Human Ethics Advisory Network (project number SEHAPP 64-18).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Daisy San Martin Saldias
Daisy San Martin Saldias is a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Department of Geospatial Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria. Previously she had completed her studies in Bachelor of Arts at University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania and Master of Teaching in Primary and Secondary Education at Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria. She is interested in Landscape perception, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Geography and Social science data analysis.
Karin Reinke
Dr Karin Reinke is an Associate Professor at RMIT University, completing studies in a B. App. Sci in Environmental Science (Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), a M. App. Sci in GIS for animal telemetry studies (University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) and a PhD in Spatial Data Uncertainty (University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia). Karin has held a number of roles in state and federal Australian environmental agencies before entering academia. She has been the co-chief investigator on a number of grants, with recent research dedicated to the remote sensing of wildfire attributes in the landscape. Her research interests lie in the areas of the use of geospatial technologies for natural resource management, and issues of spatial data uncertainty and scale in environmental information.
Blythe Mclennan
Dr Blythe Mclennan is a qualitative human geographer with a keen interest in government-citizen relationships in disaster risk reduction, governance and management. Her research has an applied policy focus. For the last eight years, she has undertaken projects for the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre and the former Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre. Currently, she is co-leading a three-year project on sustainable emergency volunteering in collaboration with researchers at the University of Western Australia.
Luke Wallace
Dr Luke Wallace was awarded a PhD by the University of Tasmania in 2014 and is currently a lecturer at the same institution. He specialises in developing novel methods for the collection and analysis of remote sensing data, and in particular the use of this data to information land management decisions.