Landscape and associated environmental values in the roadside corridor: a selected literature review

Abstract

This selected review has been undertaken as part of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) research project Improving the benefit to cost ratio for highways through multi-use management. It specifically contributes to the objective Understanding the perceptions and values of road users, designers and managers. The purpose of the review is to provide a summary overview of current literature concerned with the environmental and landscape values of roadside corridors and their design and management, with reference to the NZ State Highway corridor. In order to do this, the review has been broken down into three sections: • Multiple values and perceptions of roadside corridors • Identifying and applying roadside corridor values • Current applications of landscape and roadside values to highway management in NZ

The primary focus has been upon values associated with the vegetated reserve alongside the road carriageway, and its relationship with the wider landscape context. Information was gathered through reference to websites of known relevance, internet searching, searching of relevant science databases, scanning of library catalogues, and reading hard copy reports, books, and journal entries where these were not available digitally. Whilst some contextual reference is made to historical influences, the focus is upon modern understandings as expressed in English language sources drawn primarily from the landscape architectural and environmental management disciplines.

Consideration of tangata whenua values is clearly a critical factor in the NZ State Highway system, and is the subject of a separate investigation and report within the wider Landcare Research Ltd programme, and is therefore not explicitly considered in this review.