Contributions of cultural ESs to human well-being, landscape planning and rural development in border landscapes: Local Insights from the Bendimahi River Basin (Eastern Anatolia, Türkiye)

Despite the rise in cultural ecosystem services (CESs) research in urban or peri-urban settings and related participatory approaches, studies on the social values of CESs benefits, in the largely natural and rural border landscapes to locals' well-being are still few. This study uses the Bendimahi River Basin (Van), one of Türkiye's least developed areas along the Iranian border, as an empirical case to explore the links between the locals' social values for ecosystem benefits, landscape characteristics, and human well-being dimensions such as personal and social fulfilment and enjoyment. A questionnaire survey combined with PPGIS landscape value mapping with 348 people was employed to gather data for 15 ecosystem services with an emphasis on CES. The findings of the statistical and spatial analyses revealed that while enjoyment benefits are lowest in the landscape due to the low development, respondents have the highest well-being benefits in social fulfilment through intrinsic, future, continuity, and sense of place values. The male respondents found as experiencing both of these well-being benefits more than women in the Basin. Physical features such as accessibility, water bodies/wetlands, settlements, dynamic topography, and naturalness displayed positive influence on the locals' CES experiences. Due to their facilitation on CESs experiences, improvements in rural tourism and environmental protection are proposed as two paths for the Basin’s development and for enhancing the well-being of its inhabitants. A discussion is provided on how and when to incorporate the social values of CES into landscape planning to improve participatory decision making in rural landscapes.