Visual landscape assessment is a key element in landscape planning, management and monitoring, and serves as an important basis for landscape policy. The identifying character of rural and urban environments is, to a large extent, built upon visual perception. Visual landscape attributes like spaciousness and related indicators, such as degree of openness, building density and the nature of spatial boundaries, are important elements in landscape perception and preference.

This book is about the combination of landscape research and planning, visual perception and Geographic Information Science. It showcases possible ways of getting a grip on themes like: landscape openness, cluttering of the rural landscape, high-rise buildings in relation to cityscape, historical landscapes and motorway panoramas. It offers clues for visual landscape assessment of spaces in cities, parks and rural areas. In that respect, it extends the long tradition in the Netherlands on physiognomic landscape research and shows the state of the art at this moment.

The book offers important clues for theory, methodology and application in research and development of landscapes all over the world, from a specifi cally Dutch academic context. It provides a wide range of insights into the psychological background of landscape perception, the technical considerations of geomatics and methodology in landscape architecture, urban planning and design. There are also some experiences worthwhile considering, which demonstrate how this research can be applied in the practice of landscape policy making.

An effort like this is only possible with the help and cooperation of many people. Firstly, we would like to acknowledge the esteemed members of the scientifi c committee: Marc Antrop, Michael Batty, Christina von Haaren, James Palmer and Mari Sundli Tveit for their critical, constructive comments on the manuscripts and the structure of the book.

Furthermore, we would like to acknowledge the Department of Urbanism, the Chair of Landscape Architecture and the Library of Delft University of Technology, and the Environmental Sciences Group of Wageningen University for their generous fi nancial support. We would especially like to thank Amber Leeuwenburg, Anke Versteeg, Stephen Sheppard and Inge Bobbink for making this possible. We would also like to thank Mark Eligh of IOS Press for his patience and cooperation. And fi nally, Joost van Grinsven and Sara King for their efforts making it a well-designed and accessible book.

The editors