Assessing public concern for landscape quality: a potential model to identify visual thresholds

Abstract

Considerable public criticism and sometimes legal obstructions have been directed toward landscape management in relation to the extraction of natural resources. Many managers do not understand public concerns for visually attractive resources. Managers need to know when landscape alterations, like clearcuts, attract public attention and become visually objectionable. A study assessed the opinions of groups of people, representing various organizations, using color slides to simulate views of managed and natural landscapes. Of 63 management actions, 43 were not detected by more than half of the people. Only 31 percent of the management actions were reported by 50 percent or more of the respondents, and large, near actions were not reported any more frequently than small ones. A model was prepared to identify visual thresholds where people might first detect an action without knowing what they were seeing, and finally receive enough information for them to identify the action. Small numbers of respondents detected management actions and fewer identified them, but their responses demonstrated the existence of detection and identification thresholds as well as concern for the environment.Retrieval Terms: landscape management, public concern, resource management, sensitivity levels, visual impacts, visual thresholds

Visual Thresholds for Detection, Recognition and Visual Impact in Landscape Settings

“…Iverson (1985) argued for the concept of visual magnitude (product of the vertical and horizontal angles of an object) to describe quantitatively the visual dimension of an object. Magill (1990) attempted to de¢ne visual detection, identi¢cation and reaction thresholds from an assortment of landscape projects and actions but fell short of achieving quantitative thresholds because of the di¤culties of systematically measuring and manipulating landscape attributes, and also the general information-seeking nature of his study.…”

Visual preference evaluation on urban landmarks in the process of urbanization: a case study of Shanghai Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower

“…Iverson (1985) put forward the concept "visual quality" and described visual effect from a quantitative viewpoint. Magill (1992) and Geneletti (2008) attempted to define visual preference with a series of indexes and landscapes. Other researchers explored how the change of landscapes' physical characteristics influenced landscape aesthetics and tried to establish a correlation between physical characteristics and landscape aesthetics (Buhyoff et al 1994;Real, Arce, and Sabucedo 2000).…”

Identification of Practically Visible Spatial Objects in Natural Environments

“…The material aspects of landscape quality and its change (such as introduction of anthropogenic objects or landuse change) has been the focus of multiple studies (Bishop, 2003;Daniel, 2001;Gret-Regamey et al, 2007;Magill, 1990). These studies relied on the assessment of the visual impact of the introduced objects based on computer visualizations and digital photographs altered by computer animations (Bishop, 2002;Hadrian et al, 1988;Shang & Bishop, 2000) and are restricted to parameters that can be objectively determined, for example by measurement of physical qualities (Groß, 1991).…”

“…These studies relied on the assessment of the visual impact of the introduced objects based on computer visualizations and digital photographs altered by computer animations (Bishop, 2002;Hadrian et al, 1988;Shang & Bishop, 2000) and are restricted to parameters that can be objectively determined, for example by measurement of physical qualities (Groß, 1991). For an object to be notable in a scene, its apparent size must exceed a certain visual magnitude, also known as visual threshold (Iverson, 1985;Magill, 1990). Three different visual magnitudes derived from the parameters of human visual acuity (approximately 1') determine the thresholds for object detection, recognition (or identification) and visual impact (Shang & Bishop, 2000).…”