Colour harmony of land cover as intangible environmental resource (Vooremaa landscape protection area, Estonia)

Abstract

Formulation of the problem. Colours of land cover, as a component of topological visual phenomena of environment, are accessible for study with modern remote sensing, so the problem of the given research is to quantify the colouristic harmony of land cover within the study area in Estonia, using known methods of its assessment.

The purpose of the article. Quantification of colour harmony of land cover, using remote sensing data and substantiated techniques.

Methods. A criterion of colour harmony after Albert Munsell (1921) [21] was applied. He proposed to keep the balance between the colour strength of particular hue (product of value and chroma in his colour system) and the area of this hue.

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where M is the total number of colours within some zone or floating circle; CS_n – colour strength, calculated as chroma of colour n × value of colour n; A_n is the area of colour n.

Also criterion after Palmer & Schloss (2011) was applied: colour pairs, more similar in hue and with lower saturation, tend to be harmonious [24].

Results. Maps of spatial distribution of colour harmony of land cover within Vooremaa landscape protection area were compiled after Munsell (1921) and Schloss & Palmer (2011) for summer (14.06.2016) and autumn (20.10.2016) seasons. Water bodies, forests and wetlands have the highest scores of both colour harmonies, while some crop fields (mainly with saturated young or depressed vegetation and open soil) have the lowest colour harmony scores. Maps show the tendency to the decreasing of the colour harmony of land cover with an increasing of colour contrasts in the end of the cropping season.

Scientific novelty and practical significance. Besides numerous studies of colours of perceived environment, there are no attempts to examine the land cover with some colour harmony criteria, using remote sensing data. The proposed techniques allow evidence-based and cost-effective way of monitoring of perceived environment in the context of colour harmony dynamics under the influence of natural and land use factors.