Similar tables are used for the other harvest systems
6.11 Stakeholder evaluations of the helpfulness of landscape visualizations
used in the public planning process in theArrow IFPA project
Implications
The finding that fairly realistic visualizations of planning options are seen to be useful by lay-communities has been encountered elsewhere, ranging from urban communities (e.g.
Al-Kodmany 1999) to rural aboriginal communities (Sheppard and Lewis 2002). At CALP, we have heard repeatedly from communities that visualizations can be a major help in understanding forestry issues and providing an avenue for dialogue. Lewis (2000) has demonstrated how photo-realistic visualizations substantially increase a community’s ability to articulate its preferences for the landscape and provide a more meaningful type of input to forest management plans (Sheppard et al. 2002). The usefulness of such images to forest managers and planners themselves has also been observed, in identifying data or modelling flaws and raising questions about the scenarios emerging from expert methods (Meitner et al. in press).
However, the full extent of the influence of visualizations on the forest planning and decision-making process has not been mapped out, and skeptics from both the public and from natural resource disciplines raise important issues of what is true and what is misleading (McQuillan 1998; see also Chapter 5). Much more research and testing of these issues as applied to forestry is required before we can strengthen our guidelines for the use of landscape visualization in forestry.
THE ROLE OF LANDSCAPE SIMULATORS IN FORESTRY: A FINNISH PERSPECTIVE
Liisa Tyrväinen and Jori Uusitalo
Possibilities of using visualization in Finnish forestry
At its best, a forestry visualization tool embodies several design goals which may vary according to the particular user. Forest owners can use forest visualization in demarcating appropriate areas for logging. A forest owner may not be interested in knowing in detail the different characteristics of the trees but is certainly attracted by comprehending the commercial value of their forest holding or logging area of interest. Comparison of the commercial value of logging areas need not be separated from other valuations. The current values of each commercial wood assortment may be linked to the visualization system’s database after which the value of each tree, tree group or stand may be queried by a simple mouse click or highlighted with different user-defined colour codes (Uusitalo et al. 1997; Uusitalo and Orland 2001). Visualization enables the forest owner to compare the financial benefits of each area of interest in readily understood form and aids the owner to better contrast monetary benefits with non-monetary ones (Orland et al.
2000).
The role of wood procurement managers in industry is to buy stands that meet market needs. Despite thorough annual and monthly planning based on factories’ orders, wood procurement is a very dynamic process where the demand of each wood assortment may vary rapidly. Some wood assortments may be extremely desirable at one instant but may be totally rejected at another. Most wood assortments’ demand varies by season and economic trend while some high value wood assortments are highly desirable at all times (Uusitalo et al. 1997).
Advanced forest visualization tools may possess extremely valuable features with the potential to aid wood procurement managers to judge with greater accuracy the distributions of sizes and qualities of the forest resource which are critical to purchase decisions (Uusitalo et al. 1997). Extensive use of computer graphics enables the user to visually classify the trees according to different tree characteristics. With the help of special data-selection tools, the user can customize a classification for the characteristics and define a colour palette to represent each class. This colour classification enables the manager to efficiently envision the especially advantageous characteristics of a stand or forest holding (Orland and Uusitalo 2000).
Moreover, forestry in Finland is submitted to scrutiny by different types of governmental and non-governmental consultation organiza-tions. Due to an increasing number of urban forest owners living far from their forest resources, local forest owners’
consultation associations have gained an important role in the wood trade in Finland. The major tasks of the local manager are to consult forest owners on wise management practices and to control wood trade (Uusitalo et al. 1997). Visualization is now seen as a powerful tool to assist everincreasing numbers of urban forest owners with little technical forestry knowledge in understanding forest dynamics and their huge impact on forest and scenic resources over time (Orland and Uusitalo 2000). In order to show wood buyers what is available from their owners’ forest, the local managers need an effective tool to
Applications in the forest landscape 113
communicate complex multi-dimensional data. Some forest visualization software have an ability to demarcate stand boundaries with different colour codes which can help the manager to separate different stands and forest holdings at one view. This feature has great value in Finnish forestry due to the small average size of forest holdings and stands (Uusitalo and Orland 2OOl).
During the past decades, due to the structural changes in agriculture and forestry, the countryside has changed from being a place of primary production and is becoming a place of recreation and tourism services production. Also, the motives of private forest owners in Finland have changed towards non-consumptive uses. Today, one-fifth of private forest owners consider scenic and recreational values as the most important management objective, and half of owners consider them to be as important as income from wood production (Karppinen et al. 2002). Moreover, urbanization has challenged urban woodland planners and managers to create and maintain attractive environments to meet the wide array of demands from urban people. In the abovementioned forest areas, a balance between traditional economic and the less tangible amenity benefits of forests has to be achieved. In this context, evaluation of visual impacts of forest management practices is crucial in order to meet the expectations of tourists, recreationists and other users (Nousiainen et al. 1998; Tyrväinen and Tahvanainen 2000).
Visualization tools could serve as facilitators in forest planning and design in areas with scenic values, tourism development areas and in peri-urban and urban forests (Tahvanainen et al. 2001; Tyrväinen et al. in press). First, the visualization can be applied in landscape preference research to illustrate various management options for different interest groups such as local residents, experts and (other) decision makers. The information relating to the preferences of various groups can be fed into forest planning systems, for example, to simulate alternatives that are socially acceptable for the wider user groups. Second, computer-aided illustrations can be used for presenting and communicating new management ideas and options in planning. The future scenarios of management and development lines of forests could be discussed through the use of visualization (Tyrväinen et al. in press). The tool would be helpful in finding a common goal or sharing ideas between professionals and/or wider audiences. Third, the tool can be used in interactive planning sessions to illustrate particularly the visual consequences of management options and to present different development scenarios. These various ways of using visualization will help in gathering, in particular, local information related to a planning area and learning about the stakeholders’ opinions, values and preferences related to future development plans of the area.
Review of three forest landscape simulators
So far, two different types of technology have been used for visualizing forest resources in the context of making decisions about forest management. Simplified computer graphic representations are able to depict the presence of plant species, size classes, etc.
found in forest inventory databases. These approaches usually lack the ability to represent detailed aspects of forest landscape composition and thus are unable to achieve the visual realism that might be needed for a specific evaluation. In cases needing such improved visual fidelity, calibrated photographic images have proved their competence but for situations demanding strong validation of the visual conditions it is more difficult to
demonstrate strong relationships to underlying tree data. These two categories have been called geometric modelling and video imaging, respectively (Orland 1988; McGaughey 1997).
There are three virtual landscape simulators, FORSI, MONSU and SmartForest, which are partly or totally developed in Finland and are thus able to illustrate forest landscapes in Finnish conditions. In Finland, 75 per cent of the land area is covered by forests, and typical views are close-ups with small scale and fine features. All approaches are based on the use of map information, a digital elevation model (DEM), compartment data of the target area, and visual objects.
FORSI, a commercial landscape simulator is intended to fulfil the needs of practical visualization in forestry organizations. The system has been developed by the Finnish private enterprise Instrumentointi Oy. The Forsi-simulator has a high degree of fidelity in rendering forest scenery with a texture-mapping technique. The two-dimensional visual objects represent the main elements of a forest landscape (trees, shrubs, undervegetation, logging residue). The objects are generated from digitized photographs, and therefore the program produces rather photo-realistic images, in particular when describing scenes from a distance. The tree library of the program consists of main tree species photographed in commercial forests in southern Finland (Figure 6.12). Nevertheless, additional tree species and objects, such as houses and recreational facilities, can be added to the library or included in the pictures manually.