Landscape Character Assessment: Tool for Sustainable Landscape Planning

Landscape as a sphere within which a range of processes actively occur. Phenomena of natural entities including landforms, soils, vegetation and attributes influenced by humans are constantly evolved in the landscape. Landscape also is a mirror of man’s actions upon the physical surface of land, a constantly changing reflection of actions and non-actions (Abrahamson, 1999). There is a new determination to protect and enhance landscapes by developing fundamental information at the regional scale. In order to make decision involving the development, management or planning of a certain area, a physical inventory proved to be essential as a basis indicator for reference tool to facilitate the process especially to prevent bad decision making that can alter environment of the landscape. The Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) is a tools used and practically applied to evaluate for landscape character in countries such as England and Scotland. This approach influences the process of managing and planning the landscape in these countries which also been used as guidance in various study areas in identifying, mapping, classifying and describing the landscape character.