Treesearch

In this assessment of the aesthetic impact of a proposed nuclear power plant, the historic foundation of American concepts of scenic beauty played a major role. The plant is planned to he located on the Hudson River at the foot of the Catskill Mountains, an area that was also the geographical center of and inspiration for the country's nineteenth century romantic movement. The meaning and quality of several particularly outstanding views became the ultimate focus in studying the visual impact of the plant. A computer-assisted model of the surrounding scenic quality and a visual preference...

Analysis of the visible attributes of landscapes is an important component of the planning process. When landscapes are at regional scale, economical and effective methodologies are critical. The Visual Unit concept appears to offer a logical and useful framework for description and evaluation. The concept subdivides landscape into coherent, spatially-defined units. This study extends that concept by developing methods for consistent mapping and analysis based on available topographic data and aerial photo-graphs, supplemented by field checks. This approach to describing scenic distinction,...

This paper describes the inventory and analysis of visual resources in the Choon-Chon lakeside tourism route between the Seoul tourism circle and the Seolag tourism circle. The study was a service requested by the Korean Society of Landscape Architects under supervision of the Tourism Department of the Kang Won Provincial Government Office, Republic of Korea. It reflects the sightseeing and recreation center of this area in assessing its scenic value. Accordingly, the area that was inventoried and analyzed included about 92 km2 (Mt. Sam Ack district, Ui Am lake district, Choon-Chon lake...

The aesthetic experience of people utilizing the recreational resources of the national parks and forests of the United States is of primary importance since a large percentage of perception is visual. Undesirable intrusions into this sphere of perception substantially reduce the level of enjoyment or satisfaction derived from the recreation experience. Perceived visual disturbance levels of visitors to recreation areas were elicited on the following issues: 1) levels of perceived crowdedness, and 2) the presence of man-made elements in the use area, 3) the influence of man's actions on...

Hells Canyon National Recreation Area was established by an Act of Congress in December 1975. At that time, the U.S. Forest Service, which administers most of the land included, was given the responsibility of developing a Comprehensive Management Plan for the NRA within five years. In order to minimize future visual degradation, the Forest Service planning team for the NRA decided that the USFS Visual Management System should be applied to the entire area. The purpose of this system is to define Visual Quality Objectives for the land examined and also to determine the relative difficulty...

This paper describes the use of computer graphics in designing part of the Sunshine Ski Area in Banff National Park. The program used was capable of generating perspective landscape drawings from a number of different viewpoints. This allowed managers to predict, and subsequently reduce, the adverse visual impacts of ski-run development. Computer graphics have proven, in this case, to be an effective and economical tool in ski-area design.

This paper will discuss a comprehensive environmental assessment methodology that includes a numerical method for visual management and analysis. This methodology employs resource and human activity units as a means to produce a visual form unit which is the fundamental unit of the perceptual environment. The resource unit is based on the ecosystem as the fundamental unit of the physical environment. The human activity unit is based on the activity setting as the fundamental unit of the behavioral environment. Therefore, the enviroplan methodology allows the simple integration of environmen...

The scenery assessment process for the Mt. Mitchell Suitability/Feasibility Study was conducted by National Park Service personnel and consultants in 1977-78. It combined approaches designed by Lewis (1962) and Jones (1976) in a comparative evaluation of the scenery of two large landscapes in the Appalachian physiographic province. The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which parts or all of the +245,000 acre study site surrounding Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina, satisfied national significance, natural area criteria for designation as a new national park. The design...

Before any question about wise management decisions concerning the visual resource of our environment can be answered, it is necessary to conduct a detailed analysis to determine the integral visual inventory of landscape, as it impresses any involved person. With this method of landscape analysis researchers and planners can specify the potential of any region with an approach suitable for the problem. The knowledge about visual landscape elements is, in addition, a requirement to comprehend their influence on the motivation of any visitor or inhabitant.

Results of the 1977 Federal estate are highlighted. The survey of recreation on the Federal estate represents a unique data set which was uniformly collected across all Federal land managing agencies and sections of the country. The on-site sampling procedures utilized in this survey process have never before been applied on such a large scale. Procedures followed and lessons learned are featured together with survey results relevant to public attraction to visual resource quality and instances of landscape degradation.