The Role of Visual Resources in Ecosystem Management

I recently read a really great article from the Landscape Journal about how visual simulations can be used to reveal potential impacts to the landscape.  Here is my summary, but if you are interested in reading the article, you can visit  http://nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/jrnl/2002/nc_2002_ribe_002.pdf

Authors:

Robert G. Ribe: Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon and Director  of the Institute for a Sustainable Environment.

Edward T. Armstrong: Landscape Architect with Foothill Associates in Roseville, California.

Paul Gobster: Research Social Scientist with the USDA Forest Service’s North Central Research Station in  Chicago, Illinois.

The article begins by discussing how legal and political events are directly impacted by landscape policies that produce a public landscapes less beautiful than their original condition; specifically in response to clear cuts in the Cascade Mountains and their effects on the spotted owl.  They reference work by Ulrich (1986) and Wohlwill (1976) to explain that, “Affected perceptions of landscapes can have strong emotional impacts” and that “These perceptions often form the basis of people’s environmental ideology” (pg. 42).  The authors argue that scenery can play an important role in influencing key events, and that negative perceptions associated with specific landscape policies can result in a call for the creation of new policies and landscapes. 

The article’s primary landscape conflict is centered on the northern spotted owl controversy in the old-growth forests of the Cascade Mountains in western Washington, Oregon, and northern California.  The authors explain that even though there was legal action in place to save the owl in old growth forests, the controversy was amplified when it began to conflict with the economies of timber harvesting dependent communities.  They reveal that “As the conflict raged, images of subject national forest landscapes were prominent in the war for public opinion.  Photos of clear cuts, often many at once, appeared in countless books, pamphlets, and articles” (pg. 43).  The result was a public demand for a major policy change to replace clearcuts with regeneration harvesting techniques. These new techniques emphasized “concerns about ecological health and natural disturbance patterns rather than the more-economically driven ideal of a repeated rotation of harvests over time around areas of national forest (Fedkiw 1998?)” (pg. 43).  The authors suggest that these new management choices are more biocentric, creating scenic landscapes that exhibit fewer adverse impacts.

The authors introduce issues in “forest aesthetics and the shifting policy landscape” by revealing that the public became aware of the “visual spoils created by ‘cut and run’ loggers” in the early 20^th century (pg. 44).  The public’s outcry for better management policies spurred the creation of the national forests and national parks.  However, they explain that “unlike the national parks, which typically emphasize scenic enjoyment, the legislation founding national forests… centered on a more homocentric, utilitarian, and conservative doctrine of sustained resource yield”, which has created conflicts between professional and public perceptions of what a national forest landscape should be (pg. 44).  An example of this conflict is the Monongahela national forest controversy of the late 1960s and 1970s when the public started a policy revolution based on negative reactions to extensive clearcutting in West Virginia.  The most important outcome of the Monongahela controversy was the creation of the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) in 1976. Since then, the Forest Service has introduced the “Visual Management System (VMS) to assign a visual quality objective (VQO) to every area of land, setting a level of scenic protection” (pg. 44). The authors explain that the VMS procedures establish visual landscape protection and mitigate impacts to meet VQO design standards for projects that affect scenery, like clear cutting and harvesting.  For the past 20 years, the NFMA has been responsible for limiting the size of clearcuts, distributing them further apart, and creating “more naturally-appearing clearcut designs in more scenic and visually sensitive places” (pg. 44).  The authors emphasize that “ecosystem management should change how scenic management plays out in the landscape, especially where scenic protection is at its weakest” (pg. 45).  This suggests that collaboration between new aesthetic policies and new public land management paradigms would present numerous opportunities to incorporate ecology with aesthetics.

The case study describes how Cascade Mountains controversy was directly impacted by public perception and dissatisfaction with past clearcutting activity.  Even though the public lands around the Cascade Mountains are not near popular areas or major highways, the impacts of the land’s intense harvesting is very visible from airplanes.  In an effort to improve the scenic quality, researched decided to produce simulated landscapes to help predict the evolution of the forest landscape.  Because there are too many variables (floods, climate change, fire, disease, timber harvesting, etc.) involved to accurately predict exactly how a landscape will look in the future, theses simulations could only project possible outcomes.  However, these simulations can serve “as stimuli, along with the original existing-condition photos, to elicit public perceptions and measure changes in potential beauty.  This approach allows researchers and the public to understand the visual impacts of potential changes before they are applied.   The model below explains the experimental design process.

The authors explain that the study “derived and analyzed scenic perceptions of one simulated, authentic pattern of landscape change to explore potential scenic impacts” (pg. 47).  This analysis helps researchers locate areas for potential harvesting and create cleared areas that mimic natural fire disturbance patterns.  Phase 1 of the experiment addresses the “visualizing and modeling policy- induced change” and “simulating future forest cover” (pg. 47).  Photographs were taken frequently to reveal the vista views within the study area and beyond.  For each photo a corresponding photo-simulation was produced to reveal the same seen 20 years into the future.  Fifteen scenes were selected to reveal a range in size and landscape appearance.  Each photo was listed by vista scale, distance zones (foreground/middleground/background), and the characteristics it was selected for.  Phase 2 evaluated the scenic qualities, surveying a total of 608 participants from 31 organizations in the Cascade region.  Each participant anonymously rated the scenic beauty of the pictures on a scale from -5 to +5 and privately filled out a questionnaire.   Phase 3 created “models to create changes in scenic beauty” (pg. 53).   The authors reveal that the focus of the photo analyses was to improve the “scenic beauty in pertinent vista views…where policy produced low beauty” (pg. 53).  The illustration below explains the steps in generating photo-simulations, the VMS analysis of the changes to the site’s content, and the parenthetical figures associated with the subsets of high contrast.

The table below is an example of the before and after versions of the photo scenes used in the study and the average scenic beauty ratings.

The results of the before and after photo study reveal that the most favorable improvements were toward harvest reductions in large to medium size vistas.  The authors  conclude by explain that even though new biocentric paradigms are in place to improve the scenic quality of landscapes, visual resource management is still necessary to assure this outcome.  They also argue that “Landscape architecture is still needed to mitigate the scenic impact of foreground harvests, even with green-tree retention” (pg. 59).  In time, this new ecosystem management may prove to be a valuable asset in reducing conflicts between the public and professionals, enable managers to preserve traditional scenic values, and allow landscape architects to improve scenically challenged locations in nature.

I really liked how this article addressed the specific challenges of maintain scenic beauty in areas that have a utilitarian agenda.  The authors discuss, in great detail, the benefits and limitations of using visual simulations to reveal possible landscape changes.  I feel that using visual simulations is extremely beneficial anytime you suggest removing a large amount of trees in a dense area, such as vista clearing.  This allows managers to understand all of the positive and negative impacts associated with clearing, and it allows the public to understand the process behind the decision.  I also like how he stresses the need for landscape architects in land management to ensure that the results of the project meet the public’s expectations and perceptions of scenic beauty.