Kulturelle und ästhetische Wahrnehmung der Edelkastanie am Oberrhein : ein experimentelles Verfahren zur landschaftsästhetischen Bewertung von Baumarten am Beispiel von Castanea sativa Mill. Zusammenfassung: The occurrence of the sweet chestnut in the form of grown coppices in the foothill zone of the Vosges the Palatine woods and the Black Forest is due to a long winegrowing tradition in the Upper Rhine region. During the principal winegrowing period sweet chestnut coppices delivered high quality vineyard poles and were an indispensable source of wood and nourishment for rural populations. In the last decades however forests have gradually lost their significance as a production site for society at large. This tendency is also reflected by the sweet chestnut forest stands. The existing coppice stands were either converted into timber producing forests or abandoned. The once graded transition from the open land to timber forests which was originally created by sweet chestnut coppice stands along the timber line was slowly transformed into simply structured farm land alongside timber forests characterized by viniculture.This thesis is part of the EU funded project „The sweet chestnut in the Upper Rhine region – A tree species which connects people cultures and landscapes“. The research tasks of the Chair of Landscape Management were to determine the touristic and sociocultural impact of this tree species. In particular the objective of the thesis was to investigate the aesthetic importance of the sweet chestnut in the Upper Rhine region. The studies intended to demonstrate why traditional cultivation methods of the sweet chestnut should be preserved especially in consideration of the ever increasing homogenization of the landscape. To answer this research question it was first necessary to develop a suitable procedure for evaluating the aesthetic impact of specific tree species on the landscape. The challenge of this thesis was to approachthe simple yet by its nature strongly subjective question regarding the „beauty“ of specific tree species in the landscape from an application oriented perspective (i.e. as objectively as possible).Starting from various methods of image based landscape assessment and empirical social research analytical steps specifically tailored to the research question were developed. These steps made it possible to approach the problem from both a userdependent as well as a user independent point of view. Combining several methods of landscape assessment in order to gradually analyze the impact of the sweet chestnut or any other specific tree species on a given part of the landscape allowed taking i ...