THE ASSESSMENT OF SCENIC ATTRACTIVENESS ON COASTAL WAYS: A CASE STUDY OF PERSEMBE-BOLAMAN (ORDU-TURKEY)

The biophysical characteristics of the areas that can be seen while travelling on motorways have an impact on the perception of the landscape. Highways provide diverse landscape experiences to travellers according to their natural and cultural qualities. Especially coastal ways that combine with nature and the sea have a high potential for scenic attractiveness. This study aims to analyse the scenic attractiveness of coastal ways using GIS and RS techniques. Persembe-Bolaman coastal way in the Black Sea Region of Turkey was selected as a case study. Three road features and seven viewshed features that are assumed to affect landscape attractiveness on the Persembe-Bolaman coastal road were selected. The data set of these features was categorised into three clusters by k-means clustering, one of the unsupervised learning algorithms. The most attractive cluster in terms of scenic attractiveness was selected by determining the characteristics of the clus-ters. In conclusion, it was found that the scenic attractiveness was the highest in Cluster-1, which corresponds to 46.3% of the selected route.