Explaining Integrity in Landscape; Presenting a New Conceptual Model

Landscape as natural or artificial environment that understood by human and other creatures and has been a channel for relationship between environment and its residents. But this is not successful in recognition as a whole and there is not a comprehensive result in concluding under an integrated concept due to its holistic conceptual basis on one hand and partial attitude of new sciences on the other hand The recognition of a subject as an independent entity in audience mind and understand of relationships between aspects, dimensions and elements within it and its external links, is named integrity idea. Thus, here we have two categories; first environment that perceived by audience (holistic or partial) as landscape and second is the theme of integrity that wants to give it a unity and present it as a whole. Specialties and sciences that can study environment, each by a way, consider it as an integrated entity and it is possible that ignore other dimensions or consider them as a mental or intangible subjects. Targeting unification to specialized looks in landscape, this research, initially, wanted to determine which aspects of integration will be most noticeable in each of the specializations related to the subject matter. The way this study has chosen to answer this question- instead of referring to specialty fields- is searching the conceptual components of landscape and integrity and then sorting scientific specialty by them. The background research of this article, after a history of definitions and conceptual space in each of the two main themes (Landscape and Integrity), their components has been reviewed from expert point of view and matched them in a table based on the most complete classification. Then, six words (3 word for landscape and 3 word for integrity) were selected from the most perfect classification and was reviewed again with an exploratory approach in relationships between their concepts and meanings. Firstly, three aspects of integration (Image, structure and function) was placed in three aspects of landscape (forms, processes and relationships). With the following composition: Image between forms and relationships, function between relationships and processes, and finally structure between forms and processes. Together, these six words organized a circle of key concepts and components. In this circle- that we can present it on a hexagon- each of the landscape components was confronted with one of the components of integration. In continue, interconnected relationships between integrity and landscape aspects, lead to a three-dimensional conceptual model. This model, not only highlights involved specialty positions and shows that each specialty can search what aspects of the model, but also its geometric formats offers the especial strategy for finding variables to documentation of integration components in landscapes. The basic idea of this article was presenting a model that helps landscape theorists for using the main disciplines related to this category. But what the conceptual model of this paper explains with its geometric metaphors is that basically the integrity of a landscape is conditional on the proportion of cognition derived from each dimension to that of other dimensions. The researcher for measuring landscape integrity, must define variables that can measure the proportion between the three main aspects of the subject (image, structure and function).