Visual & Aesthetic Resources

Visual and Aesthetic Resources issues that QAR, Inc. can help you address, include: (1) an assessment of existing visual resources within the viewsheds or viewscapes of the project region of influence, including a classification of scenic attractiveness (landscape character), and a classification of scenic integrity (degree of intactness and wholeness of the landscape character); (2) the identification and illustration of landscape visibility (context of viewers, duration of view, degree of discernible detail, seasonal variations, and number of viewers both residents and visitors); (3) the characterization of concern levels about visual resources; and (4) visual and aesthetic resource impacts.

Examples of recent visual and aesthetic resource analyses conducted, include:

Technical Consultant, Greers Ferry Lake Shoreline Management Plan EIS.  Task involved preparing a separate report documenting the current, existing scenic attractiveness and scenic integrity of the lake based on the U.S. Forest Service’s Landscape Aesthetics: A Handbook for Scenery Management, for different boat dock permit limits associated with alternative Shoreline Management Plans. The analysis also depicted, using GIS, the viewsheds of existing docks and marinas, both on the water and land.

The approach taken for the impact assessment of alternative shoreline management plans was to deliberately avoid the debate about landscape preferences and perception, and landscape sensitivity, and simply measure the change in the acreage of the lake and surrounding land from which one or more boat docks would be visible for each management alternative under consideration. These viewsheds were then used as a surrogate for assessing visual impacts. Using this approach, an increase in the number of docks along the shoreline, and an increase in the acreage of the lake and surrounding land from which they would be clearly visible would constitute a visual impact. The larger the number of docks and the greater the acreage of viewsheds, the larger and more significant the adverse impacts to the scenic attractiveness and scenic integrity of Greers Ferry Lake. To Tetra Tech, Inc., Fairfax, VA for US Army Corps of Engineers, Little Rock, AR – 2001-02.

Technical Consultant, Operation and Maintenance of Lake Sidney Lanier EIS.  The task involved applying the same approach outlined above for Greers Ferry Lake.  To Tetra Tech, Inc., Fairfax, VA for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Mobile District, AL – 2001-02.

Project Manager/Technical Director, Women’s Prison and Intake Center EA. Project involved assessing the land use impacts of building and operating a 1,600 bed Women’s Corrections Facility in Wilsonville, OR.  Visual and aesthetic issues centered on the appearance of security fencing and security lighting, involving metal halide lamp sources on 35 foot poles surrounding the 108 acre site. For Coles Environmental Consulting, Inc., West Linn, OR for Oregon Department of Corrections, Salem, OR  - 1999-00.