BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Sustainable Design and Construction
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbuil.2025.1655317
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Urban Living with Adaptation Measures in Anticipation Against Climate Change: Volume 2View all articles
Aesthetic River Index (ARI): A GIS-Based Multi-Criteria Framework for Assessing Visual Quality in Recreational Urban Rivers
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universitas Kristen Maranatha, Bandung, Indonesia
- 2National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City, Taiwan
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Urban river systems play a vital role in balancing ecological health, recreational utility, and visual harmony in densely built environments. While numerous studies have assessed water quality and flood vulnerability, limited research has focused on the spatial quantification of aesthetic value in urban rivers. This study introduces a novel GIS-based Aesthetic River Index (ARI) that integrates ecological (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index/NDVI), physical (Normalized Difference Turbidity Index/NDTI), and structural components through an Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The index was applied to three case study rivers with distinct urban characteristics: Kalimas River (Indonesia), Love River (Taiwan), and Chao Phraya River (Thailand). Landsat 8 imagery and local land use data were processed to assess vegetation vigor and water clarity, while structural features were digitized and scored for visual impact. Results show that the Love River attained the highest ARI score due to its integrated landscape planning and high water transparency, while the Chao Phraya exhibited the greatest aesthetic disparity. Validation using field-based perception surveys yielded strong correlations (ρ > 0.68), affirming the ARI as a robust tool for riverfront planning. This methodology contributes a replicable framework for incorporating human-centric aesthetics into sustainable river management strategies.
Keywords: Visual Assesment, River management, index, aesthetic, GIS
Received: 27 Jun 2025; Accepted: 21 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Tallar, Geldoffer and Suen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Robby Yussac Tallar, Universitas Kristen Maranatha, Bandung, Indonesia
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