Exploring Aesthetic Preference for Agricultural Landscapes in Hangzhou Plain: A Visual Choice Experiment from Two Perspectives

The aesthetic value of agricultural landscapes is gaining importance as rural tourism burgeons during urbanization. To ascertain key elements influencing the visual appeal of agricultural landscapes, this research employed a visual choice experiment in Hangzhou Plain during the spring flowering period to assess public preferences for four landscape attributes in ground and aerial perspectives. The mixed logit model was utilized to evaluate the respondents’ average preference, while the latent class logit model helped in identifying distinct preference groups. The research revealed that participants exhibited different preferences between the two perspectives. The diversity within public preferences was highlighted, with respondents favoring oilseed rape-dominated landscapes with a single agricultural land cover proportion in ground perspective while favoring diverse landscapes in aerial perspective. Gender, education level, landscape familiarity, connection to agriculture, and membership in relevant organizations significantly shape individual preferences. These results can help refine multi-objective policy targeting by incorporating aesthetic value perspective in agricultural landscapes.