Modeling Both the Space and Place of Coastal Environments: Exploring an Approach for Developing Realistic Geovisualizations of Coastal Places

Abstract

Effective coastal planning incorporates the variety of user needs, values, and interests associated with coastal environments. This requires understanding how people relate to coastal environments as "places," imbued with values and meanings, and accordingly, tools that can capture place and connect with people's "sense of place" have the potential for supporting effective coastal management strategies. Realistic, immersive geographical visualizations, i.e., geovisualizations, theoretically hold potential to serve such a role in coastal planning; however, significant research gaps exist around this application context. Firstly, place theory and geovisualizations are rarely explicitly linked in the same studies, leaving questions around how to model "coastal place," as well as coastal space. Secondly, geovisualization work has focused on terrestrial environments, and research on how to realistically model coastal places is currently in its infancy. The current study addresses the research gaps by developing a coastal geovisualization under place-based considerations, and then examining its capacity as a tool for connecting with people's sense of place. The research uses Sidney Spit in the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve (BC, Canada) as a study site, and a geovisualization was developed using a combination of ArcGIS, Adobe Photoshop, Trimble SketchUp, and Unity3D. Focus groups were assembled involving Parks Canada staff and Greater Victoria Area residents, and the geovisualization was assessed in terms of its representation of a real-world coastal place and ability for connecting with sense of place. Findings from the study indicate that the presence of certain elements in coastal geovisualizations can contribute to realism and sense of place, such as people, dogs, birds, marine life, vegetation, and boats; however, simultaneously, deficiencies in numbers and varieties of these elements can detract from realism and sense of place. In addition, incorporation of soundscape and viewshed elements both demonstrated as significant to the tool's ability to connect with sense of place, with the latter potentially being more significant among those with higher familiarity with the real-world place. Beach textures were also found to be important for the geovisualization's ability to connect with sense of place; however, this ability can be compromised when running versions of the tool with lower graphical resolution.

From sense of place to visualization of place: examining people-place relationships for insight on developing geovisualizations

“…This research follows two review-based studies that (respectively) uncover areas of convergence between place theory and applications of geovisualizations ( Newell and Canessa, 2015 ) and explore place-based considerations around building coastal geovisualizations ( Newell and Canessa, 2017a ). The findings from this study and the review-based work informed applied research on developing and employing a geovisualization of a particular coastal place located in the Capital Regional District of British Columbia, Canada ( Newell et al., 2017a , b ). Accordingly, this study focuses on residents living in coastal British Columbia, and it examines the place and visual relationships that said residents form with the local coastal environment.…”

“…Visualization of place data were coded, allowing for a consistent way of identifying different visual elements among the survey responses. The coding framework was based on a literature review study conducted in previous research that examined how different coastal user interests and needs can influence perceptions of coastal places ( Newell and Canessa, 2017a ), and it was refined through knowledge and experience the authors gained through building a coastal geovisualization (i.e., what types of visual elements can be modelled, added and manipulated) ( Newell et al., 2017a ). In total, 86 codes were applied to the data, and in an approach similar to thematic coding ( Seidel and Kelle, 1995 ), this number was reduced to 33 by identifying common themes among the coded elements and grouping them accordingly ( Table 1 ).…”

A new era of digitalisation for ocean sustainability?

“…In the case of benthic habitats, for example, automated classification is evolving rapidly thanks to advances in multi-spectral underwater image processing and segmentation algorithms as applied to coral and algal cover in reef systems (Bicknell et al, 2016[19]); and new methodologies are emerging using genetic programming for content-based analysis in capturing the temporal dynamics of fish abundance (Marini et al, 2018[20]). Deep Learning methods for underwater species detection and recognition are also developing rapidly, notably for fish (Salman et al, 2016[21]; Naddaf-Sh, M., 2018 [22]; Villon et al, 2018[23]; Wang et al, 2019[24]; Ditria et al, 2020 [25]); and other marine creatures (Lopez-Vazquez et al, 2020 [26]), but also for more general object and marine resource recognition (Hu G. et al, 2018[27]; Cao et al, 2016[28]; Pelletier et al, 2018[29]; Sun et al, 2018[30]).…”

Seeing Climate Change: A Framework for Understanding Visualizations for Climate Adaptation

“…The evaluation asked participants about the relevance of the presentation as well as ease of understanding of the presented data. Furthermore, the authors of [15] used a realistic and highly interactive geovisualization to model a coastal environment in order to familiarize users with the region. The software allowed stakeholders and local residents to apply different park management scenarios to the simulation, such as fencing (location, length, material) and boat mooring regulations (distance from shore, restricted number of vessels).…”

“…The participants were then able to virtually "walk" around the area from a first-person point of view using the arrow keys on a keyboard, to preview what sort of impact the different park management scenarios would entail on the area. With this capability, the users were able to determine which management plan they believed to be most appropriate to enforce, as the amount of realism within the geovisualization contributed to their sense of place and understanding of the environment [15].…”