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Abstract
Historical overgrazing of western public rangelands has resulted in the passage of the Public Rangeland Improvement Act of 1978. The main purpose of this Act is to improve unsatisfactory range conditions. A contributing factor to unfavorable range conditions is adverse visual impacts. These visual impacts can be identified in three categories of range management: range projects, vegetative manipulations, and grazing systems. The visual impacts are identifiable in the visual landscape components of landform, vegetation and structures. The impact occurs when the form, line, color or texture of the proposed action visually contrasts with the existing characteristic landscape. The degree of impact is determined by how the action is planned, designed, located and constructed. On the whole, range management activities do not create a significant visual impact on the national landscape, but their appearance must be considered when planning multiple-use land activities.
Parent Publication
Citation
Brown, Bruce R.; Kissel, David. 1979. Range management visual impacts. In: Elsner, Gary H., and Richard C. Smardon, technical coordinators. 1979. Proceedings of our national landscape: a conference on applied techniques for analysis and management of the visual resource [Incline Village, Nev., April 23-25, 1979]. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-35. Berkeley, CA. Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Exp. Stn., Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture: p. 58-62
