Landscape Character Identification Of The Wulong Palace Scenic Area In Wudang Mountain Scenic Site

Landscape character assessment is a new instrument to manage landscape changes, and its concept, which is value-free, has been gradually recognized in recent years. The first step of landscape character assessment is landscape character identifying and mapping landscape character; the following step is evaluating results based on the satisfaction of various needs and interpretation of landscape character map. Arguably, Landscape character identification is the crucial part of the whole progress, as the landscape character map being its visualized achievement.Contributing to the protecting and inheriting the landscape character of scenic sites, the research on landscape character identification provides basis with for further planning, design, construction and management to comply with. At present, the study of landscape character is researched from the prospective of natural geography, which ignores the interrelationships among its innate factors, nor suitable for expressing the landscape character of scenic sites in a comprehensive and objective manner. As both the natural and cultural systems are inseparable and interdependent, it is believed that the study should be performed systematically and comprehensively under such unitary context, especially in China, which will help avoid and divert excessive focus on high-quality resources to the overall protection of scenic resources.The well-known “First Mountain of Taosim”—Wudang Mountain, is a Chinese mountain scenic spot, and its ancient architecture complex was on the list of the World Cultural Heritages in 1994. Wudang Mountain was initially constructed during the Sui and the Tang Dynasties, developed through the Song and the Yuan dynasties, and prospered in the Ming dynasty; the Wulong Temple, built in the first two dynasties, through years of enlargement, eventually expanded into Wulong Palace in the Ming dynasty, becoming the birthplace of Taoism. The blending results of natural and cultural systems is very typical and representative among most scenic areas in China; relevant essays and methodologies regarding valid recognition and protection on such topic is yet underdeveloped.In the view of natural system and cultural system, this thesis tries to discuss and discover a suitable methodology for identifying landscape character for Chinese scenic sites, in the meantime, identifies that of the Wulong Palace Scenic Area by grid, unit and landscape pattern. Then, three landscape character and its forming maps are compared by the criterion of identifiability, the amount of information the map carries, and accuracy, leading to the result that the landscape pattern is prior to the former two in the amount of information and accuracy. Thus the achievement verifies that the landscape character map on the basis of natural system and cultural system can well- explained the character of scenic sites and provides references for further research.