Walking on Visual Landscapes

This research project is aimed to draw a network of pedestrian paths for the connection and the crossing of the Sardinian regional territory allowing to know the regional environmental, cultural and historic heritage. All the... [ view full abstract ]

This research project is aimed to draw a network of pedestrian paths for the connection and the crossing of the Sardinian regional territory allowing to know the regional environmental, cultural and historic heritage. All the territories, if properly designed, can be traveled on foot, through different routes that allow to draw new tourist flows interested to the knowledge of new places and to a different perception of the landscape. Therefore, "Walking on Visual Landscapes" signifies crossing a network of pedestrian paths, trails, and ways drawn to foster the perception and the enjoyment of Sardinian landscape.

The aim of this paper is to present the Visual Landscape Maps, or "map of accessibility to regional landscape resources". The Visual Landscape research can give a contribution to the identification and to the communication of the landscape resources, fostering their accessibility, physical but also visual. Accessibility and visibility are effective knowledge instruments; and knowledge is the most effective strategy for the preservation. What it is accessible, visible and known to the wider public can be more easily preserved. In this way, the representation and communication of resources and knowledge are being increasingly configured important tools for the preservation of the heritage and for socio-economic development of territories. Indeed, landscapes are considered the main resource on which basing the social and economic development policies of the rural and marginal territories in crisis, so it is necessary to focus the research activities on the exploration of sustainable uses and of strategies of preservation.

Visual Landscape investigates perception, representation, and communication of landscape in relation to the new demands emerging from the territories and their local populations. Visual Landscapes is a research project aimed to the identification of new paradigm of landscape fruition, through the integration of different tools and methods as GIS, maps, modelling, spatial analysis, geomatics and digital visualization in order to investigate and to represent the Sardinian landscapes and their scenic beauty as tourist resources and to applied the method of the map of Visual Landscape to a part of the Sardinian region.