VOL.16, NO.4
THE ECOLOGY CHANGE BEFORE AND AFTER THE CONSTRUCTION ON THE YIREN-VILLAGE RIVERSIDE PARK
Pen-Yuan Chen, Hong-Rong Lin
TheYiren-village riverside park in the Chuchi township, Chiayi County had been conducted with the riverside construction from March 2007 to November 2007. This study was aimed to understand the change of ecology such as plants, birds and fish before and after the construction. The total observational period was about sixteen months, from December 2006 to March 2008.
It was found that 70 families and 202 species of plants, most of which are Gramineae and Asteraceae. The number of species is higher before the construction than other periods. The number of plant species is significantly reduced in the middle period of construction, possibly due to the fragmentation of habitat and then the loss of species. After the construction, there is somehow an increase in the number of plant species, however, they are mainly the pioneer grass plants. Therefore, it needs to take a long time to improve the park landscape. Also, the eco-technology method is found to be a much better method than other methods in preserving greenery biodiversity and water, and it is applicable on the future construction.
Regarding the birds, 15 families and 19 species are found for the total period. There are 6 families and 7 species, 8 families and 9 species, 10 families and 13 species of birds for the periods before, during and after the construction, respectively. Most of them are resident birds, among which Passer montanus is the most in numbers. Also, summer migratory species like Hirundo tahitica and winter migratory species like Motacilla cinerea are found. The intensity of bird richness is related to the stability of matrix. The conservation of trees and construction of ecological ponds well maintain the good habitat environment. Regarding the fish, 6 families and 10 species are found. The appearance of Acrossocheilus paradoxus suggests the light pollution level of local water quality.
EDIBLE WILD PLANTATION LANDSCAPE: ALTERNATIVE PARTICIPATORY EMPOWERMENT FOR CULTURAL LANDSCAPE
Jing-Shoung Hou, Su-Hsin Lee, Shuang-Pan Ou, Nai-Yu Wang
Cultural landscape is a viewpoint of observation for explaining and understanding the meaning of space. This study is the result of “the project of on-site community planner in Hualien and an action research for participatory empowerment focused on the villages along a county-level road called Hualien 193. Public experimental vegetable farms were set up cultivating normal edible wild plants in the daily life of Hualien locals. Each community focuses on their elected wild plant and explained its characters and functions such as the stories of the wild plant, the season of growing and plant features, special nutritional values, and cultural meaning in order to prepare for multiple applications as future local industries. Based on the concepts of sustainable management, attempt to transform the aboriginal knowledge of edible wild plants to possible application in multiple local industries, and dig the diversity and interest of cultural consumption through the wild plants. At the same time, the edible wild plants would also become a landscape element which links local daily life, culture, industries, and natural environment; representing cultural landscape of local, original, and attractive tribes.
The results showed: (1) Wild plantation culture launched from the experience of daily community life connected the cultural context via knowledge of traditional aboriginal culture, conjunct into the community-shared cultural landscape, and created meaningful community spaces. (2) Through the finding of wild plantation culture and connecting it to scientific knowledge, the edible wild plants can be raised up to a part of economical industry. It can also simultaneously create benefits to the ecological environment and industrial development with non-toxic and organic growing methods. (3) The mechanism of competing, imitating, and cooperating is established from the competition platform. Also, with the introduction of instructors who provides experiences on wrapping, cooking, and decoration of wild plants it is possible to improve and popularize the traditional aboriginal knowledge into the norm of communities' daily life. In fact, because the residents are the main role, their living experience becomes a part of a meaningful learning process and the beginning of learning communities.
POST OCCUPANCY EVALUATION AND GREEN BUILDING EVALUATION OF NATIONAL PARK VISITOR CENTERS -- CASE STUDY OF SHEI-PA NATIONAL PARK
Shu-Shin Lee, Kuei-Jian Lin, Ya-Ting Hsieh
National Park is the best location to be close to nature for public. National parks' visitor centers provide education, interpretation and eating service, which whether suitable for user's needs and principle of sustainable development is worth exploring. This paper used Post- Occupancy Evaluation and Green Building Evaluation to discuss whether the status of visitor center building is in line with green building indicators, and visitors' satisfaction of facilities with relations between them. Three visitor centers in Shei-Pa National Park did not pass the targets of "energy saving index", "the carbon dioxide decrement index", and "water resources index", which were due to lack of roof insulation layers, and low usage of green building materials and provincial water apparatus utilization rate. However, visitors' awareness and knowledge were found to be different from expert's green building indicators. "Post-Occupancy Evaluation" of green building questionnaire survey showed that most visitors were satisfied with its facilities and agreed with the consideration of green building. National Park visitor center can increase education and explanation on the functions and knowledge of green building. Most visitor centers were not built in accordance with Green Building Evaluation Index, a systemic, comprehensive assessment and improving shortage was suggested. Hence, developing an appropriate Green Building Index for national park or natural scenic areas is needed to regulate national park visitor center become an ecological, energy conservatory, waste reduction, and healthy green building.
DISCUSSING THE CONCEPT AND COMPONENTS OF CULTURAL LANDSCAPE BY IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW
Chung-Heng Hsieh, Sheng-Jung Ou
This research tried to analyze the context of cultural landscape in the viewpoint of landscape field. In order to study the context of cultural landscape in a thorough way, data were collected by interviewing scholars who have already published articles or issues related to cultural landscape in academic journals. After in-depth interview, the content of interview was firstly separated and recoded. Then, the technique of grounded theory was used to conceptualize all the interviewed content. The results showed that the content of cultural landscape can be generalized into three dimensions, which are "Physical ", "Process" and "Meaning". "Physical" means all the visible elements appeared in human environment. "Process" means the sequent order of landscape change. While, "meaning" means human's values or perspectives of human environment. Furthermore, this research found that the scholars who are trained in different academic backgrounds usually have different perceptions about the typical cultural landscape. However, all the scholars have come up with a consensus that "artificial buildings" and "the industrial structure", are the most important elements of cultural landscape. This research preliminary affirms that cultural landscape is composed of specific dimensions and elements. It is hoped that this result might help the preservation, planning and design of cultural landscape in the future.
VOL.16, NO.3
THE EFFECT OF RESTORATION CONSTRUCTION OF THE WEITAN WETLAND ON LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY
Pen-Yuan Chen, Yao-Lu Huang, Si-Huang Su, Liang-Yuan Chen
The Weitan Wetland in Puzi Stream, Chiayi County, had been conducted with the restoration work of landscape ecology from September 1, 2005 to August 31, 2006. The work consists of greening along embankments, reconstruction of the wetland, and construction of the bird-watching path made of oyster shells. This new construction work is aimed to make water flow into more areas by changing internal water course of wetland, to increase underwater creatures and migratory birds by expanding the wetland area, to attract more people to observe wetland ecology by building the oyster shell path.
This study is to investigate the impact of construction on wetland ecology such as the quantity and species change of birds, the area and species change of plants, and interaction within the ecological system of wetland. By twenty-month field study, it is found that thirty families and eighty-nine species of plants. The main plants in the wetland are Cyperus malaccensis, Brachiaria mutica, Phragmites communis, Pennisetum purpureum and Ipomoea aquatica Forsk. Eighteen families and forty-one species of birds such as Anas platyrhynchos, Himantopus himantopus and Threskiornis aethiopicus are found in the wetland. Eight species of fish and eight species of Uca arcuata are found too. It is very often to see the appearance of Periophthalmus cantonensis and Uca arcuata on the mud here. This study suggests that this wetland has pretty rich ecological resources and is a very potential habitat. We also found that in the landscape ecology structure, different plant patches and areas will affect the number of bird species. Moreover, the construction of restoration work has a significant impact on the landscape ecology of this wetland.
LEISURE LIFESTYLE AND WELL-BEING: THE CASE OF PARK USERS
Jing-Shoung Hou, Chung-Hsien Lin, Nai-Yu Wang
Few studies make an attempt to explore the issues of park users' leisure lifestyle and well- being. The purpose of this study is to examine the dimensions of leisure lifestyle and well- being, and the influences of leisure lifestyle on well-being. A total of 968 residents in parks are administered an on-site questionnaire. The results reveal that residents' leisure lifestyles consist of four distinct dimensions labeled with active-learned, adventurous-excited, social- extroversion, and stable, and the residents' well-beings consist of three distinct dimensions labeled with life satisfaction, life identification, and life competence. In addition, three types of leisure lifestyle residents including stimulus-arousal residents, social-popular residents, and conservative residents are identified. Further, the results show that residents' well-beings vary across the types of leisure lifestyle residents. The findings suggest that residents' leisure lifestyles and well-beings indeed exist, and leisure lifestyle can be used to be an efficient segmentation tool. Practically, the multi-dimensional nature of well-being construct directing to have various residents with leisure lifestyle will be a more effective management strategy of park use.
THE INFLUENCE OF RIVERSIDE LAND USE ON WATER QUALITY
Yen-Cheng Chiang, Chun-Yen Chang
Due to the land use development and higher and higher demand of water use in the recent years, watershed was gradually impacted by human use, water resources to be very precious. This study purpose was to explore the relationships between land use types and water quality. The Yangmingshan National Park was used as the survey site. The characteristics of urban-rural interface to be an important boundary effect area. The 1/1000 topography map was used for the analysis of landscape ecological structure indices. The landscape ecology software developed by the USDA, Fragstats was applied for the indices calculation. Following are the selected indices of the landscape ecological structures: area in hectares (AREA), number of patch (NP), mean patch size (MPS), means shape index (MSI), mean patch fragment dimension (MPFD), patch density (PD), and area-weighted mean shape index (AWMSI). All the indices correlated to the indices of water quality (temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, and electrical conductivity). The results that found the difference of land use structures (man-made area, woodland, and farmland) have a significant correlation with water temperature and dissolved oxygen. The farmland (AREA, MPS, and MPFD) that not only positively correlated with temperature, but also negatively correlated with dissolved oxygen. Besides, there was no significant correlation between three land use types and electrical conductivity. There are recommendations based on study findings that suggest to the future land management guides in Yangminshan National Park to reduce water quality of the downstream, particularly in development of farmland and built area.
A STUDY ON ENTREPRENEURIAL PROCESS OF HOME STAY MANAGERS
Ming-Ching Yang, Yi-Chun Tsai, Yu-Shan Hu
Home stay has become an important accommodation choice in Taiwan tourism activities. Besides, home stay business has become more and more popular in Taiwan. In 2007, according to the statistics of Tourism Bureau Ministry of Transportation and Communication, people have been taking advantages of two-day weekend to engage in domestic and nearly 4.3% out of 30% stay overnight in home stay. This is next to those who stay overnight in hotel (12.8%) or in relative and friend's house (11.2%). Based on the qualitative research method, this paper conducted in-depth interviews and literature review with the 15 home stay managers. The purpose of this paper tries to present the entrepreneurial motivation of home stay managers, the frustration they had, and the way how they coped with it and the key factor of being successful in business. There are three major findings from this paper: it showed 5 entrepreneurial types in the first stage; besides, it induced 10 key factors of joys and sorrows in the second stage; and 3 ambitions induced in the future. Nevertheless, the home stay managers are in urgent need of special attention from the government, and professional assistance about operating and marketing of the home stay. Finally, this indicates the critical success factors identified from this thesis can be used by the managers to check their own business.
VOL.16, NO.2
THE INFLUENCE OF RESIDENTS' LOCAL WISDOM AND PLACE ATTACHMENT ON LOCAL IMAGE
Jia-Jy Yen, Kuo-Chao Le, Jin-Yi Chen
The purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship among local wisdom, place attachment and environmental image from the perspective of residents in Badouzi. Also the research investigates whether the duration of residency will influence place attachment on the identification of local image. The previous researches on local wisdom were mostly conducted in a qualitative manner, this research attempts to establish the perspective of local wisdom from a quality in-dept interview and setup a scale for the local wisdom in a quantitative manner.
To collect the data of local image from residents, a convenient questionnaire survey was engaged in six boroughs in Badouzi and a total of 403 valid questionnaires were collected. And the study used principal component analysis to condensed 25 local wisdom items into six dimensions, which were Local Custom, Local Event, Traditional Fishery Feature, Industrial Feature, Cultural Features, and Local Groceries Feature. And the adjectives of local image were extracted into four factors, which were “Hard Working and God respecting," “Novelty and glory," “Desolation and unclean, “and the image of" Reminiscence and tradition". And then the items of place attachment were categorized into place dependence and place identity. The result found place attachment and local wisdom can significantly explain local image through three set of canonical correlation factors, and explain 15 % of redundancy variance. Further, place attachment, traditional fishery feature, and industrial feature influenced the local image of “Hard working and God respecting" significantly; and the image of “Novelty and glory" was influenced the most by cultural features. For the image of “Reminiscence and tradition", place attachment, cultural features, and local groceries all have positive explanation. On the contrary, place dependence has a negative influence with the image of “Desolation and unclean". Further, there are significant difference between new residents and old residents in the image of “Hard Working and God respecting" and “Desolation and unclean" .
THE EFFECT OF PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES ON ATTRACTION OF FLOWER MARKET STALLS- A CASE STUDY OF CHIEN GUO HOLIDAY FLOWER MARKET
Po-Ting Lu, Yann-Jou Lin
The purpose of this study is to investigate product attributes on attraction of flower market stalls, and compare the relative importance between them. The study selected four major attributes over a range of levels: product types, displays, product abundance, and provide product tag. Nine alternatives were created by orthogonal method. The questionnaire used pictorial representation and asked the respondents to rank. Conjoint analysis revealed that displays were the primary attraction of flower market stalls, followed by product types, product abundance and provides product tag. Analysis of variance showed a significant difference between product abundance and frequency of shopping in flower market with education. At last, the study involves further research by separating the respondents into four segmentations with similarities of preference models.
THE BEHAVIOR INTENTION OF TOURISTS ON PENGHU BATTLEFIELD TOURISM
Ming-Ju Lee, Cheng-Chung Tsai
Because of its diversity functions, battlefield tourism has become one of hot issues and favored by universal tourists in recent years. This research based on Theory of planned behavior, which was developed by Ajzen (1985), to be the basic theory and modified. Research samples were tourists who visit battlefield site at Peng Hu. Next-to-pass was the method that the researcher utilized to collect data and the number of valid questionnaires was 447. Based on research purposes, Structural equation modeling was used discussing the regressive implication for verifying hypothesis. According to results, enhancing the cognitive image decreased social pressure of tourists and its obstacles of resource and opportunity. Then, assessing the cost- benefit could have positive feedback to enhance the tourists' attitude on battlefield tourism. Suggestions were offered in the end of study for industries, administrations, academic institutes and other researchers.
THE LANGUAGE OF SPACE: AUTHENTICITY IN SMANGUS TRIBE'S TOURISM SPACE DEVELOPMENT
Chih-Liang Chao, Pei-Hsin Hsu, Shou-Shiung Chou
The tourist shows particular fascination in the real lives of others and quests for authenticity. So the people being observed gradually come to construct back-stages in a contrived and artificial manner. This study explores the concept of authenticity in tourism development, how Smangus' tribe institutionalizing the tourist space and what kind of meaning(s) of Smangus' authenticity are. This process also can be seen as the kinds of dialogue with tourists and the declaration of hosts. The research site, Smangus Tribe, is situated in mountains in eastern Hsinchu County in Taiwan and owns a collective management system, Tnunan in Atayal, since 2004. The field survey from Jan, 2006 to June, 2009. The data were collected through ethnographic methods, namely participant observation and in-depth interview, and were compared with digitizing aerial photographs and minutes of tribe meeting during tourism development. The study found that Smangus Tribe pursues authenticity and autonomy of tourism development through tourist space development and management. The research results will bring benefits to the process of community-based tourist development and enhance the understanding about autonomy of the indigenous communities in Taiwan.
VOL.16, NO.1
ASSESSMENTS OF THE FUNCTIONAL QUALITIES OF NATURAL AND IMPROVED RIVER SECTIONS IN TAIPEI METROPOLITAN AREA
Shu-Chun L. Huang
Rivers are the major inland water bodies of Taiwan. The multi-functional development of rivers has become one of the nation's environmental policies. In this study, the differences of natural and improved rivers in terms of their ecology, aesthetics, recreational affordance, and preference were examined. In addition, the effects of rivers' muti-functional qualities on participants' preference assessments were explored. The results indicated that the ecological quality, aesthetic quality, and preference level of natural rivers were significantly better than those of improved rivers. Yet, the recreational affordance of natural rivers was significantly weaker than that of improved rivers. In addition, the results of mutiple regression analysis revealed that the ecological, aesthetic, and recreational qualities of rivers were effective predictive variables for preference, and accounted for 49.7% of the variance. The effectiveness of the predictors was aesthetic first, followed by ecology, and recreational affordance. Based on these findings, suggestions are made for the multi-functional planning and design of river landscape.
THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF POTENTIAL WORLD HERITAGE SITES IN TAIWAN
Shu-Hui Chou, Ming-Ching Yang, Yin-Mei Su
World Heritage Sites are the witness to the natural and cultural civilization that human beings have left behind. Countries around the world are treating World Heritage Sites as one of the highest forms of honor. In 2002, Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA), Taiwan had initiated a series of promotion activities and nominated 12 of Taiwan's potential World Heritage Sites. This research conducted in-depth interviews with foreigners and tourism managers. The study found that natural landscapes attract foreigners the most and English information and transportation are the barriers to them. For managers, the related knowledge and promotions of three World Heritage Sites must be updated. Through an induction of the attractiveness attributes and management issues of Alishan forest railway, Jin-Qua-Shi community, Taroko National Park and the Council for Cultural Affairs, this study provide managerial recommendations for Taiwan's government officials and managers of potential world heritage sites in Taiwan.
INFLUENCES OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS ON THE AUTISTIC CHILDREN: WITHIN-SUBJECTS RESULTS
Ke-Tsung Han, Meng-Yu Wang
The results of recent empirical research indicate that natural environments have positive effects on healthy people, patients with physical illness, and even children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Kuo et al., 1998b; Han, 2003). Also, the results of interviews with the parents and teachers of autistic children indicated that contact with nature was helpful for the children's behavior, emotion, and communication. Therefore, "natural landscape restoration" might provide another approach to treating autism in addition to conventional remedies. This study was a quasi-experiment, which adopted the design of "equivalent time-samples" (Bordens & Abbott, 2002). Twenty-four children with autism in Taichung and Changhua were recruited as the subjects. Their parents, class teachers, special educational teachers were invited to evaluate the subjects' syndrome by using scales, which included the "Autistic Children's School Adaptation Scale" (Shih, 2003), the "Aberrant Behavior Checklist" (Aman et al., 1985), and the "Clinical Global Impression" (NIMH, 1970). The experiment period covered six units of each having four weeks (from Nov. 12, 2006 to April 28, 2007). The treatment was to bring the subjects to natural environments at least 30 minutes and two times a week during an unit. The results of ANCOVAs with repeated measures showed that contact with natural environments reduced the subjects' aberrant behaviors.
INFLUENCES OF MICROCLIMATE ON USER'S THERMAL COMFORT IN URBAN PARK
Ying-Chiao Fang, Yann-Jou Lin
The purposes of this study was to understand the influences of microclimate on user's thermal comfort in the urban park, and furthermore to investigate the influences of personal characteristics on thermal comfort. Field surveys were performed in the garden road, playground, eco-pond, lawn and pavilion of the urban park which in the sun and in the shade. Microclimate data were measured including air temperature, horizontal solar radiation, relative humidity and wind speed. Personal characteristics and assessments of microclimate in the moment with thermal sensation, comfort and acceptability were investigated by structured questionnaire. The major results are summarized as follows: The layout and shading of each site were significant influences on air temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity and wind speed. There were significantly correlations in thermal comfort with air temperature and solar radiation. Thermal sensation were significantly influence the assessments of comfort and acceptability, and there were medium correlationships within thermal sensation and comfort and acceptability. In personal parameters, a significant negative correlation were found between age and thermal sensation, and the activity type were significant influences on assessments of comfort and acceptability. The results of the multiple regression analysis showed that air temperature and solar radiation had the most significant influence on the predictive model of thermal sensation, comfort and acceptability.