**4. Discussion**

When conducting a regional analysis of environmental perception, there are a great many pitfalls to consider. Regional studies require existing datasets mainly produced to show objective data, but perception is a subjective interpretation of the real environment. People´s perceptions also differ from individual to individual due to their previous experiences. This, however, is a general issue independent of the scale of the study. For these kinds of studies, the elaboration of classification criteria always has to be done by representatives of the local community.

The Agricultural Landscape for Recreation 235

Map 1. Serene. The western part of Skåne Region consists mainly of arable land and cities. Silent (<30 dB(A) nature areas accessible for recreation are rare in that urbanized area. The eastern part has much more assessable nature land, however partly penetrated by road

noise, which reduces the serenity.

The present epidemiological study aimed at finding general associations between well-being and proximity to nature for the population in Skåne. Epidemiological studies provide overall patterns of associations and variations. These kinds of studies do not necessarily give a "correct" picture of individual cases.

One pitfall of using objective data such as forest types, topography, etc., is the issue of interpreting and combining the data so they correspond to common perceptions of nature characteristics. That is what the present paper tries to describe. It is the first study of its kind, and there is a great deal more research to be done to improve the methods. One issue, for example, is that Corine land cover data are derived from an analysis of satellite data, and this is associated with a relatively large percentage of misinterpretation, for some land use types around 30% (Rost & Ahlcrona, 2005).

Because the book focuses on agriculture, we would like to comment additionally on the agricultural landscape. Skåne is in the southwestern half of the region dominated by agriculture. The soil is fertile. Avenues and other landscape elements are impressive. A rather flat zone 30 kilometres wide and following the southern and western coast is the most productive part (the Baltic moraine clay), and is at the same time the most urbanized area, with many roads and railroads creating noise. To some extent this zone is spacious and includes long views, but it is not particularly accessible for walking, and walking promotes a feeling of restfulness. More accessible is the diagonal zone of Skåne from southeast to northwest. This zone has more hills and small scale farmland and is more accessible and silent, offering a restful feeling of "entering another world", a coherent whole. Both zones are rich in impressive visible cultural history, as can be seen in the last map.

There is a need for validation of this kind of analysis. High correlations between the prevalence of GIS-evaluated characteristics and people's responses concerning health and well-being indicate that development of parameters for GIS evaluation is on the right path. Overall, we found a high correlation between people´s perception of a cosy atmosphere and the prevalence of the characteristics. The Skåne study shows that the rural landscape, both arable land and forests, plays an important role in health promotion.

The Swedish National Institute of Public Health now recommends these characteristics as a checklist for green planning (FHI, 2009). The eight characteristics have been implemented in a number of planning projects for housing and infrastructure in Sweden (Skärbäck, 2007).
