The role of tourists’ and residents emotions on resilient landscape restoration after extreme events

Forest areas and mountainous territories provide crucial ecosystem services, among which cultural-recreational services are of particular relevance in the Alps. In 2018, the mountain area of Northeast Italy was struck by the VAIA windstorm, resulting in extensive damage to trail networks and substantial landscape transformations in valleys. Restoring the storm-affected area while considering forest resilience and public preferences became a critical need. This research is aimed at assessing the landscape scenic preferences of visitors and residents of the area impacted by the storm with reference to alternative intervention strategies for restoring the VAIA-affected forests. The psychophysical approach was applied to understand residents preferences and a survey was conducted in May 2022, involving 713 residents in the Veneto region. Respondents were requested to evaluate the scenic quality of 8 landscape typologies characterized by panoramic and non-panoramic views, forests with and without fallen trees, and meadows cultivated or abandoned. They were also required to associate eight proposed categories of emotions with the landscapes, providing scores accordingly. To analyze the factors affecting landscape scenic quality we estimated two regression models. The first model highlighted that the scenic quality of the landscape is positively correlated with panoramic views, cultivated meadows, and forests, while abandoned areas or trees felled by VAIA have negative correlations. The second model demonstrated the existence of a strong relationship between landscape quality and the emotions evoked, with certain emotions significantly impacting scenic quality perception. The second model explains a higher proportion of the scenic quality scores than the first one (R2 = 0.788 vs R2 = 0.527) meaning that emotions are a better predictor of scenic quality than the physical characteristics of the territory. Our results suggest that, in order to improve the recreational services of the mountain territories, for restoring the VAIA-affected forests it will be necessary to remove the felled trees and at the same time increase the presence of panoramic views by substituting in some areas the forests with cultivated meadows.