Oral Abstract Details

Author(s):
Bin Zheng; Yaoqi Zhang

Affiliation:
Bin Zheng

Presentation Type:
Oral

Topic Area:
Urban forestry and urban agriculture

Abstract Text:
This study used visual preference survey (VPS) to explore the public preference to the tree in single home residential landscape. In total, 365 University students and 191 residents participated in the evaluation of 14 residential landscapes, which were designed by computer with various tree characteristics and spatial configuration of trees (the presence of amount of tree canopy, tree size, shape, amount, location, and neatness) for same home. The participants were asked to evaluate the scene on a Likert scale from 1 to 5 (1= least preferred; 5= most preferred). The results revealed that trees are important in residential landscapes, and people usually prefer to live in houses with more trees. Large trees with a wide, round canopy also seem to be favored. Whether the tree is close to the house or far away makes no difference on the preference based on the results. Although most of our respondents claimed that they love nature and more natural look residential landscapes, the result suggests that they prefer to live in a clean and well maintained environment. Different tastes between senior and freshman students are noticed. Findings also suggest that students majoring in wildlife science prefer more trees than students majoring in forestry.