Beautiful Outdoor Locations
Beautiful outdoor locations are associated with better health and quality of life but what makes a beautiful outdoor space and how can it be quantified? A group of researchers attempted to answer this question using ratings of over 200,000 images from the the online game Scenic-Or-Not. Not surprisingly, images containing valleys, mountains, lakes, coastal scenery and rivers topped the ratings. On the other hand images of many urban areas were rated negatively. We were faced with the problem of using this information to assign a natural amenity score for each county. To do this we calculated the percentage area in each county covered by water and assumed that this was directly proportional to the numbers of rivers, lakes and length of coastline. We calculated the percentage area of each county covered by mountains and also the percentage classified as urban. The results were combined into a formula with positive coefficients for water and mountains and a negative coefficient for urbanisation.
Natural Amenity Rankings
Kerry tops the natural amenity ranking with its dramatic coastline, rugged mountains (including Ireland’s highest – Carrauntoohil) and beautiful lakes. Donegal comes a close second with the magnificent beauty of its mountains sweeping down to meet the wild atlantic in numerous remote headlands and inlets. Wicklow, Mayo and Galway round out the top 5 counties. The top 10 counties include the nine coastal counties stretching from Donegal in the northwest to Waterford in the southeast. These counties score highly primarily due to their long coastlines and mountainous nature. In Ireland, the mountains tend to be located around the coast meaning that the inland counties tend to have lower scores due to the lack of coastal scenery and fewer mountainous areas.