Visibility mapping in New York's coastal zone: A case study of alternative methods

Abstract

Most scenery evaluation methodologies incorporate visibility extent. In New York's coastal zone, visibility mapping for planning and project studies is complicated by low topographic relief, and diverse configurations of water edge and upland surface character. A generalized visibility model has been developed, including macrolandscape, observer, and sight‐line recording. Based on a prior shorescape study of New York's coast, the Lake Ontario Port Bay site was selected to test alternative visibility methods. Within the study site, four “landscape control points”; were chosen which provided extensive views of representative land and water forms, and surface types. For each control point, four families of visibility mapping approaches were applied: primary (field observation); secondary (topographic maps and vertical air photo analysis); tertiary (physical topographic model); and quaternary (digital terrain computer model). Major study conclusions are: the methods require different resources; all methods readily produced visibility maps; all methods, except secondary, could be used to produce perspective scenes for subsequent content evaluation; all methods except primary omitted one or more elements of the general visibility model; all methods should incorporate field work due to critical viewer environment conditions; sensitivity analysis in each method produced ambiguous zones; each view map was different, particularly in the background. An integrated, multi‐approach strategy would appear desirable for most planning and project applications.