Isabel Otero

Landscape character assessment with GIS using map-based indicators and photographs in the relationship between landscape and roads

Planning and monitoring of landscapes cannot be reduced to its outstanding features, but must take into account all its characteristics. In this context, the relationship of landscape with roads is of particular importance, because roads alter the territorys environmental resources but also constitute a resource through which the individual comes into contact with the landscape. The aim of this work is to design a methodology to evaluate both the character and the scenic quality of the landscape as viewed from motorways and to provide measures to assess whether the motorway conveys the character of the landscape of which it forms part. The main contribution of this research consists of assessing landscape character through a novel series of map-based indicators and combining the findings with a photo-based method of assessing visual landscape quality. The method has been applied to a case study around a motorway in Madrid Region (Spain). Landscape character values regarding coherence, complexity, naturalness, visual scale, disturbance, historicity, and ephemera are obtained using Geographic Information Systems. Additionally, the landscape quality results derived using photographs allow the incorporation of the users perception at a local scale.

TITIM GIS-tool: A GIS-based decision support system for measuring the territorial impact of transport infrastructures

To achieve sustainability in the area of transport we need to view the decision-making process as a whole and consider all the most important socio-economic and environmental aspects involved. Improvements in transport infrastructures have a positive impact on regional development and significant repercussions on the economy, as well as affecting a large number of ecological processes. This article presents a DSS to assess the territorial effects of new linear transport infrastructures based on the use of GIS. The TITIM - Transport Infrastructure Territorial Impact Measurement - GIS tool allows these effects to be calculated by evaluating the improvement in accessibility, loss of landscape connectivity, and the impact on other local territorial variables such as landscape quality, biodiversity and land-use quality. The TITIM GIS tool assesses these variables automatically, simply by entering the required inputs, and thus avoiding the manual reiteration and execution of these multiple processes. TITIM allows researchers to use their own GIS databases as inputs, in contrast with other tools that use official or predefined maps. The TITIM GIS-tool is tested by application to six HSR projects in the Spanish Strategic Transport and Infrastructure Plan 2005-2020 (PEIT). The tool creates all 65 possible combinations of these projects, which will be the real test scenarios. For each one, the tool calculates the accessibility improvement, the landscape connectivity loss, and the impact on the landscape, biodiversity and land-use quality. The results reveal which of the HSR projects causes the greatest benefit to the transport system, any potential synergies that exist, and help define a priority for implementing the infrastructures in the plan.

Transport Planning and Global Warming

Transport energy consumption in industrialised countries is based primarily on fossil fuels, and is associated with the main negative impacts of transport: climate change, air pollution, congestion and accidents (Sperling, 2004). The emissions of many pollutants are being moderated due to improvements in engines and fuels, but the consequences for health are a growing concern, and particularly the risks posed by nitrogen oxides and particles, which are closely associated to transport. CO2 emissions (the gas considered mainly responsible for the greenhouse effect) are also increasing, and this phenomenon can be seen most intensely in the transport sector. The European Commission’s 2001 White Paper on transport (and the 2006 revised edition) declared that the sustainability of the transport energy model must include the control of transport demand and an improvement in the efficiency of transport modes. It is this area which offers the greatest potential for establishing an effective strategy of action. This requires a greater commitment to the processes of transport deregulation –in order to make consumers aware of price considerations–, the establishment of mechanisms to ensure that these prices reflect actual costs, and the promotion of energy savings. This approach was underlined in the 2005 Green Paper on energy end-use efficiency and energy services, which suggests that overall consumption in the European Union can be reduced by up to 20% without compromising economic profitability. This was subsequently ratified by the European Council’s March 2007 Action Plan which established this as an objective for the year 2020. The European Parliament and Council has also approved Directive 2006/32/EC concerning end-use energy efficiency, as well as revising a proposal for a directive for the development of clean and energy-efficient road vehicles. However, measures require some time after their implementation in order to take effect, and they must be supported by changes in lifestyle which will effectively influence transport use over the forthcoming decades (Rodenburg et al., 2002). A reduction in transport GHG emissions can be achieved by reducing the need for transport, improving the energy efficiency of the different modes of transport and fuels, and balancing modal distribution (Schipper et al., 1997; Steenhof et al., 2006). The measures that can be applied in the transport sector to promote savings and improvements in energy efficiency are well known in general terms (Rodenburg et al., 2002; Cuddihy et al., 2005). These include everything from correctly setting energy prices, and reflecting these prices in the cost of services, including external costs; economic and tax