Treesearch

The National Environmental Policy Act requires all agencies to develop techniques to insure appropriate consideration of all environmental amenities and values, including those presently unquantified, by all federal agencies in all their activities. These obviously include the values associated with the landscape and its visual resources. The visual resource, however, is inseparably intertwined with people's prior experiences and expectations, as well as nonvisual dimensions of experience; and its values include not only preferences but also cultural norms and ecological functions. Many...

Visual resource management systems incorporate many assumptions about how people see the landscape. While these assumptions are not articulated, they nonetheless affect the decision process. Problems inherent in some of these assumptions are examined. Extensive research based on people's preference ratings of different settings provides insight into people's experience of the environment. The procedure described here has several advantages: (1) It provides a means to evaluate the assumptions underlying alternative visual analysis models; (2) it provides some insights into the dilemma of...

This paper includes an illustration of a planning process to guide vegetation management throughout a travel route seen area and over the time period of a total management rotation (100-300 years). The process will produce direction on visual characteristics to be created and maintained within the biological potential and coordinated with associated re-source objectives. Conceptual treatments to achieve that direction will be shown for a ponderosa pine plant community. The concept of managing vegetation (visual aspects) through timber harvest is both applied and theoretical. Field examples...

This paper documents the conditions, procedures, techniques and conclusions under which a utility was required to replace two-thirds of a mile segment of overhead 69 kv transmission line passing an Ice Age National Scieytific Reserve with underground at the cost of $950,000 vs. $60,000 for overhead (WPSC 1978). Because the proposed right-of-way would not, in this case, create deleterious impact to other aspects of the environment, e.g., soil erosion, vegetation removal, etc.; therefore, the sole issue became whether the overhead transmission line would deleteriously alter the visual...

Land planning allocations are often multi-resource concepts, with visual quality objectives addressing the appropriate level of visual resource management. Current legislation and/or regulations often require interdisciplinary teams to implement planning decisions. A considerable amount of information is currently avail-able on visual assessment techniques both for land planning and project implementation needs. Most literature does not emphasize the interdisciplinary process used to implement multi-resource activities. Processes which are overly complex in analysis or assessment technique...

The U. S. Forest Service has established Visual Quality Objectives for National Forest lands and determined a method to ascertain the Visual Absorption Capability of those lands. Combining the two mapping inventories has allowed the Forest Service to retain the visual quality while managing natural resources.

The Project Visual Analysis is a landscape assessment procedure involving forest vegetative manipulation. A logical step by step analysis leads the user to a specific set of landscape management guidelines to be used as an aid in designing a project or in evaluating whether the proposed project impacts will meet visual objectives. Key elements within the procedure are: the establishment of a visual quality objective based on landscape variety, observer sensitivity, and observer distance; the identification of the visual absorption capability using 5 factors and a numerical rating system;...

The study pertains to the development of an assessment system for the analysis of visual preference attributed to Louisiana river landscapes. The assessment system was utilized in the evaluation of 20 Louisiana river scenes. Individuals were tested for their free choice preference for the same scenes. A statistical analysis was conducted to examine the relationship between the assessment model and the individual's preference for the scenes. The test results indicated that the logic followed in the evaluative model may be of value in the prediction of visual preference for Louisiana river...

This paper provides an overview of methods and results obtained from an extensive social and recreational carrying capacity study conducted for a National Scenic and Recreational Riverway - the Lower St. Croix. The paper also includes preliminary results and illustrations of a cognitive mapping technique for mapping scenic beauty. Over 1000 separate polygons were utilized in the analysis obtained from on-site and riparian users. In addition, user displacement from recognized beautiful areas (St. Croix) to areas of fewer users (Mississippi) is discussed.

Three alternative dams have been considered by Seattle City Light for the Skagit River Narrows in the North Cascades National Recreation Area, Washington. The authors assessed the area's existing visual resources, identified three alternative highway and transmission line realignments, evaluated changes in visual character and quality for 13 different combinations of reservoirs, roads and powerlines, and recommended alternatives and mitigation opportunities. These combinations were simulated on "before" and "after" oblique aerial color photographs which facilitated visual impact evaluation....