Olaf Schroth

Multiple-Case Study of Landscape Visualizations as a Tool in Transdisciplinary Planning Workshops

This paper presents a transdisciplinary multiple-case study, set in Switzerland, that was part of the European Fifth Framework Program project VISULANDs—Visualization Tools for Public Participation in Managing Landscape Change (2003–2005). The project sought production of new visualization tools enabling public participation in landscape management. In cooperation with workshop participants, researchers constructed three-dimensional (3-D) landscape visualizations to represent various scenarios of landscape change. The planning objective was to develop sustainable solutions for landscape-related planning problems in tourism, agriculture, and forestry. Two of the case studies produced implemented results. The research objective was to analyze the effectiveness of landscape visualization as a tool in transdisciplinary workshops with external researchers and local stakeholders. The research illustrates how the interactive construction of different types of landscape visualization may contribute to solutions for planning problems on local to regional scales through transdisciplinary knowledge construction, dialogue, and consensus building.

Visual Climate Change Communication: From Iconography to Locally Framed 3D Visualization

Climate change is an urgent problem with implications registered not only globally, but also on national and local scales. It is a particularly challenging case of environmental communication because its main cause, greenhouse gas emissions, is invisible. The predominant approach of making climate change visible is the use of iconic, often affective, imagery. Literature on the iconography of climate change shows that global iconic motifs, such as polar bears, have contributed to a public perception of the problem as spatially and temporally remote. This paper proposes an alternative approach to global climate change icons by focusing on recognizable representations of local impacts within an interactive game environment. This approach was implemented and tested in a research project based on the municipality of Delta, British Columbia. A major outcome of the research is Future Delta, an interactive educational game featuring 3D visualizations and simulation tools for climate change adaptation and mitigation future scenarios. The empirical evaluation is based on quantitative pre/post-game play questionnaires with 18 students and 10 qualitative expert interviews. The findings support the assumption that interactive 3D imagery is effective in communicating climate change. The quantitative post-questionnaires particularly highlight a shift in support of more local responsibility.

Tool or Toy? Virtual Globes in Landscape Planning

Virtual globes, i.e., geobrowsers that integrate multi-scale and temporal data from various sources and are based on a globe metaphor, have developed into serious tools that practitioners and various stakeholders in landscape and community planning have started using. Although these tools originate from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), they have become a different, potentially interactive and public tool set, with their own specific limitations and new opportunities. Expectations regarding their utility as planning and community engagement tools are high, but are tempered by both technical limitations and ethical issues [1,2]. Two grassroots campaigns and a collaborative visioning process, the Kimberley Climate Adaptation Project case study (British Columbia), illustrate and broaden our understanding of the potential benefits and limitations associated with the use of virtual globes in participatory planning initiatives. Based on observations, questionnaires and in-depth interviews with stakeholders and community members using an interactive 3D model of regional climate change vulnerabilities, potential impacts, and possible adaptation and mitigation scenarios in Kimberley, the benefits and limitations of virtual globes as a tool for participatory landscape planning are discussed. The findings suggest that virtual globes can facilitate access to geospatial information, raise awareness, and provide a more representative virtual landscape than static visualizations. However, landscape is not equally representative at all scales, and not all types of users seem to benefit equally from the tool. The risks of misinterpretation can be managed by integrating the application and interpretation of virtual globes into face-to-face planning processes.

Future delta motivating climate change action grounded in place

In this paper we discuss the Future Delta game, as a time-forward 3-D visualization and simulation tool that aims to motivate actions and behavioral changes and to educate players about climate change mitigation and adaptations solutions and challenges. The game simulation is situated in a recognizable community locale: the flood-prone neighborhood of Delta, BC. Combining climate change modeling, socioeconomic scenario analysis and 3D modeling of real places with engaging soundscapes and imagery, our game is designed to make climate change science and solutions more salient and understandable to the layperson. The project comprises a game simulation and dynamic 3D visualizations of future local climate change scenarios to provide an environment for experiential learning tied to place attachment. The project builds on a foundation rich in research, experimentation, and production in the topic of climate change in Delta, but extends previous work into a new representational platform of virtual game. An initial testing of the game shows that engaging with the game strengthened the users belief that action can be taken to mitigate climate change and increased their support for more transformative social changes to achieve climate mitigation and adaptation.

Bringing Climate Change Science to the Landscape Level: Canadian Experience in Using Landscape Visualisation Within Participatory Processes for Community Planning

This chapter addresses the role of visualisation tools within participatory processes in bringing climate change science to the local level, in order to increase people’s awareness of climate change and contribute to decision-making and policy change. The urgent need to mitigate and adapt to climate change is becoming more widely understood in scientific and some policy circles, but public awareness and policy change are lagging well behind. Emerging visualisation theory suggests that landscape visualisations showing local landscapes in fairly realistic perspective views may offer special advantages in bringing the projected consequences of climate change home to people in a compelling manner. This chapter draws on and summarizes a unique body of research in Canada, applying and evaluating a local climate change visioning approach in five diverse case study communities across the country. This new participatory process was developed to localize, spatialize, and visualize climate change implications, using landscape visualisation in combination with geospatial and other types of information. The visioning process was successful in raising community awareness, increasing people’s sense of urgency, and articulating for the first time holistic community options in mitigating and adapting to climate change at the local level. In some cases the process led to new local policy outcomes and actions. Such methods, if widely implemented in enhanced planning processes, could facilitate uptake of climate change science and potentially accelerate policy change and action on climate change. However, moving from more traditional types of science information and planning to an approach which can engage emotions with visual imagery, will require guidelines and training to address ethical and professional dilemmas in community engagement and planning at the landscape level.

Interaktive Landschaftsentwicklung: Potenziale von Computervisualisierungen in partizipativen Planungsprozessen zur Lenkung der Landschaftsentwicklung am Beispiel der UNESCO Biosphäre Entlebuch (Schweiz)

Seit Ende der 1960er-Jahre finden partizipative Planungsansätze zunehmende Verbreitung. Das Ziel eines partizipativen Planungsansatzes ist die breite Beteiligung der Öffentlichkeit an Entscheidungsprozessen. Diese Tendenz kann unter dem Schlagwort «Betroffene zu Beteiligten machen» zusammengefasst werden. Die wesentliche Grundlage für die Partizipation in der Planung ist die Kommunikation planerischer Inhalte. Die Wahl des Kommunikationsmediums ist hierbei entscheidend. Leider werden in der Planungspraxis auch heute noch zumeist zweidimensionale Formen der Repräsentation gewählt. Diese Pläne sind jedoch nicht unbedingt das geeignetste Mittel der Wahl, wenn es darum geht, räumliche Zusammenhänge verständlich aufzuzeigen. Durch die Weiterentwicklung der Modellsimulation in Kombination mit der beginnenden Verbreitung von Video wurden bereits um 1970 exemplarisch partizipative Planungsansätze mit Visualisierungen von 3D-Stadtmodellen kombiniert. Führend war damals das Environmental Simulation Laboratory an der University of California in Berkeley. Diese Ansätze fanden im Bereich der Stadtplanung etwa ab Anfang der 1970er-Jahre zunehmend auch in Europa ihre Verbreitung (Markelin & Fahle 1979). Nachfolgend wird auf die Rolle von 3D-Visualisierungen zur Partizipation bei der Landschaftsentwicklung eingegangen. Es werden Faktoren präsentiert, die Einfluss auf die Qualität des Mitwirkungsprozesses haben. Des Weiteren werden Möglichkeiten von 3DLandschaftsvisualisierungen als neues Medium zur Beteiligung sowie weiterer Forschungsbedarf im Hinblick auf die Entwicklung von Visualisierungsinstrumenten erläutert. Anschliessend wird ein beispielhafter Entwicklungsablauf anhand des Projektes VisuLands aufgezeigt und es werden Anwendungsmöglichkeiten an konkreten Beispielen für das Untersuchungsgebiet, die UNESCO Biosphäre Entlebuch, beschrieben.