Putting Walkscapes on the Map: GIS-based Visualization for Mobile Methods in Landscape Research

The idea of exploring landscapes by walking is historically and socially deeply rooted and fundamental to our modern understanding of landscapes but is often methodologically underrepresented. This paper illustrates that walking can be considered and applied as a method in landscape research. After a brief explanation of walking as a source of knowledge, a selection of mobile methods from literature is explained and their potential in landscape research is outlined. Based on these expla-nations, a new and innovative mobile method called a Trigger Question Walk is presented. This aims at combing the advantages and potential of existing methods and serves the purpose of digitally processing data from walks in a structured way to visualize results from mobile methods by using GIS. Its application is illustrated by using data from a larger empirical study, which investigates into the inter-relationships between landscape, health, and well-being in the study area of a Geo-Naturepark in Germany.