Values and attitudes of the urban public towards peri urban agricultural land

Peri-urban agricultural landscapes around the world are undergoing rapid transformation due to urban expansion.While some landscape values are being protected by currentland-use planning frameworks, weknowlittleaboutthebroadervaluesandattitudesoftheurbanpublicshapingthistransformation.The structureofthevaluesassignedtoperi-urbanagriculturallandscapesbyresidentsofMelbourne,Australia was explored and related to stated landscape preferences and people’s underlying values. Exploratory factor analysis was used to categorise assigned values in multifunctional, food and native biota groups, and stated preferences for photographs into four landscape categories: intensive landscapes, extensive landscapes,hightreecoverandplantations.Thestructureofunderlyingpersonalvaluescloselyresembled other studies of environmental value orientations. Multiple regression analysis revealed that preferences for all landscape categories were predicted strongly by multifunctional assigned values. Significant relationships were also evident between all assigned value groups and the biospheric underlying value orientation. Attitudes towards residential development approaches were also related significantly to assigned but not underlying values. Assigned values appear therefore to mediate between underlying values and attitudes towards peri-urban landscapes. This research demonstrates that peri-urban agricultural landscapes are perceived as multifunctional systems by the urban public and are valued for a range offunctions nottypically included in land use policies. This study also suggests thatin the context of rapid land use change, a variety of landscape types should be retained on the urban fringe for their benefitto the urban public, and synergies promoted between landscape functions.