Two-Scaled Identification of Landscape Character Types and Areas: A Case Study of the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway (Yunnan Section), China

Abstract

In recent decades, the role of heritage railways has gradually shifted from transportation, economy, and trade to tourism, culture, and ecology. The heritage railway landscape is experiencing multiple changes along with a value ambiguity problem. There is a need to comprehensively recognize this landscape in order to promote the transformations and monitor the changes. Inspired by Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), this paper adopts a two-scaled identification framework of landscape character types and areas of the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway (Yunnan section) by integrating holistic and parametric methods. At the regional scale, the landscape character was divided by five natural variables: landform, vegetation, hydrology, soil, and geology. At the corridor scale, the landscape character was classified by five natural and cultural variables: altitude, slope, aspect, land use, and heritage density. At these two scales, k-prototype cluster analysis and multiresolution segmentation (MRS) tool were used to identify landscape character types and areas. The results showed that there were 11 different landscape character types and 80 landscape character areas at the regional scale, and 12 different landscape character types and 58 landscape character areas at the corridor scale. Furthermore, the composition, area, and distribution of these landscape character types and areas were described. The results of this study can form a database for planning, management, and evaluation of the railway.