Abstract
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.
Adapted and updated from a paper (Sheppard et al. 2008) published in Proceedings of “Digital Design in Landscape Architecture 2008”, 9th International Conference on IT in Landscape Architecture, May 29–31 2008, Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Dessau/Bernburg, Germany.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Funded primarily by the GEOIDE National Centres of Excellence research network.
- 2.
LIDAR: Light Detection and Ranging techniques using laser-scanning of landscape surfaces to create detailed 3D models.
- 3.
Approximately half of the Delta public sample were first shown a version of the visioning packages without visualisations, in order to distinguish the results of the overall visioning process from the specific impacts of the visualisations. The results of this comparison are reported elsewhere; in this chapter, the results described apply primarily to the visioning process including visualisations.
- 4.
Funded primarily by Natural Resources Canada and BC Ministry of Environment.
- 5.
Funded primarily by the GEOIDE National Centres of Excellence research network.
- 6.
A fourth visioning study was conducted for the Elbow River drainage in Alberta, by a University of Calgary research team and partners, using an integrated set of geospatial modeling tools (see Pond et al. 2012); however, this project did not employ landscape visualisation and so is not discussed further here.
- 7.
Funded by BC Real Estate Foundation and BC Ministry of Community development, with support from the Columbia River Trust and City of Kimberley.
References
Appleyard D. Understanding professional media: issues, theory, and a research agenda. In: Altman I, Wohlwill JF, editors. Human Behavior and Environment, vol. 1. New York: Plenum Press; 1977. p. 43–88.
Barron S, Canete G, Carmichael J, Flanders D, Pond E, Sheppard SRJ, Tatebe K. A climate change adaptation planning process for low-lying, communities vulnerable to sea level rise. Sustainability. 2012;4:2176–208.
Bishop ID, Lange E, editors. Visualization in landscape and environmental planning. London: Taylor and Francis; 2005.
Bishop ID, Rohrmann B. Subjective responses to simulated and real environments: a comparison. Landscape Urban Plann. 2003;65:261–77.
Burch S, Sheppard SRJ, Shaw A, Flanders D. Planning for climate change in a flood-prone community: municipal barriers to policy action and the use of visualisations as decision-support tools. J Flood Risk Manage. 2010;3(2):126–39.
Cohen SJ. Scientist-stakeholder collaboration in integrated assessment of climate change: lessons from a case study of Northwest Canada. Environ Model Assess. 1997;2:281–93.
Cohen S, Sheppard SRJ, Shaw A, Flanders D, Burch S, Taylor B, Hutchinson D, Cannon A, Hamilton S, Burton B, Carmichael J. Downscaling and visioning of mountain snow packs and other climate change implications in North Vancouver, Br Columbia. J Mitig Adapt Strat Glob Change. 2011;17(1):25–49.
Daniel TC, Meitner MJ. Representational validity of landscape visualizations: the effect of graphical realism on perceived scenic beauty of forest vistas. J Environ Psychol. 2001;21(1):61–72.
Dockerty T, Lovett A, Sunnenberg G, Appleton K, Parry M. Visualising the potential impacts of climate change on rural landscapes. Comput Environ Urban Syst. 2005;29(3):297–320.
Ervin SM. Answering the ‘what ifs’. Landscape Archit Mag. 1998;10:64–73.
Furness III TA, Winn W, Yu R. The impact of three dimensional immersive virtual environments on modern pedagogy: global change, VR and learning. In: Proceedings of workshops in Seattle, Washington, and Loughborough, England in May and June 1997. Seattle, WA: Human Interface Technology Lab, University of Washington. 1998. Available online at http://www.hitl.washington.edu/publications/r-97-32/. Accessed 1 June 2004.
IPCC. Climate change 2007: synthesis report. In: Core Writing Team, Pachauri RK, Reisinger A, editors. Contribution of working groups I, II and III to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Geneva: IPCC; 2007. p. 104.
Kriegler E, O’Neill B, Hallegatte S, Kram T, Lempert R, Moss R, Wilbanks T. The need for and use of socio-economic scenarios for climate change analysis: a new approach based on shared socio-economic pathways. Global Environmental Change. 2012;22:807–22.
Lewis JL, Sheppard SRJ. Culture and communication: can landscape visualisation improve forest management consultation with indigenous communities? Landscape Urban Plan. 2006;77:291–313.
Lowe T, Brown K, Dessai S, de França Doria M, Haynes K, Vincent K. Does tomorrow ever come? Disaster narrative and public perceptions of climate change. Public Underst Sci. 2006; 15:435–57.
Moser S. Making a difference on the ground: the challenge of demonstrating the effectiveness of decision support. Climatic Change. 2009;95(1–2):11–21.
Moser S, Dilling L, editors. Creating a climate for change: communicating climate change and facilitating social change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2007.
Mulder J, Sack-da-Silva S, Bruns D. Understanding the role of 3D visualisations: the example of Calden Airport expansion, Kassel, Germany. In: van den Brink A, van Lammeren R, van de Velde R, Dane S, editors. Geo-visualisation for participatory spatial planning in Europe: imaging the future. vol. 3. Mansholt Publication Series. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers; 2007. p. 75–88.
Nicholson-Cole SA. Representing climate change futures: a critique on the use of images for visual communication. Comput Environ Urban Syst. 2005;29(3):255–73.
Pond E, Schroth O, Sheppard SRJ, Feick R, Marceau D, Danahy J, Burch S, Cornish L, Cohen S, Pooyandeh M, Wijesekara N, Flanders D, Tatebe K, Barron S. Collaborative processes and geo-spatial tools in support of local climate change visioning and planning. In: Chrisman and Wachowicz, editors. The added value of scientific networking: perspectives from the GEOIDE network members 1998–2012. GEOIDE Network, Québec: Cité Universitaire; 2012.
Pond E, Schroth O, Sheppard SRJ, Muir-Owen S, Liepa I, Campbell C, Salter J, Tatebe K, Flanders D. Local climate change and landscape visualizations guidance manual. Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning, UBC. 2010.
Pond E, Schroth O, Sheppard SRJ, CALP. Visioning and visualizations, Kimberley Climate Adaptation Project. Vancouver: Real Estate Foundation; 2009. p. 28.
Rantanen H, Kahila M. The SoftGIS approach to local knowledge. J Environ Manage. 2009;90(6):1981–90.
Salter JD. Designing and testing a prototypical landscape information interface for lay-people. Unpublished Masters thesis, Faculty of Forestry. Vancouver: University of British Columbia; 2005.
Salter JD, Campbell C, Journeay M, Sheppard SRJ. The digital workshop: exploring the use of interactive and immersive tools in participatory planning. J Environ Manage. 2009;90:2090–101.
Schroth O. From information to participation—interactive landscape visualization as a tool for collaborative planning. Institute for Spatial and Landscape Planning. Dissertation. Zurich: ETH Zürich; 2007.
Schroth O, Pond E, Campbell C, Cizek P, Bohus S, Sheppard SRJ. Tool or Toy? virtual globes in landscape planning. Future Internet. 2011;3:204–27.
Schroth O, Pond E, Muir-Owen S, Campbell C, Sheppard SRJ. Tools for the understanding of spatio-temporal climate scenarios in local planning: Kimberley BC case study. Zurich: Swiss National Sciences Foundation; 2009.
Shackley S, Deanwood R. Stakeholder perceptions of climate change impacts at the regional scale: implications for effectiveness of regional and local responses. J Environ Plan Manage. 2002;45(3):381–402.
Shaw A, Sheppard SRJ, Burch S, Flanders D, Wiek A, Carmichael J, Robinson J, Cohen S. Making local futures tangible—synthesizing, downscaling, and visualizing climate change scenarios for participatory capacity building. Global Environ Change. 2009;19(4):447–63.
Sheppard SRJ. Guidance for crystal ball gazers: developing a code of ethics for landscape visualization. Landscape Urban Plan. 2001;54(1–4):183–99.
Sheppard SRJ. Landscape visualisation and climate change: the potential for influencing perceptions and behaviour. Environmental Science and Policy. vol. 9. New York: Elsevier; 2005a. p. 637–54.
Sheppard SRJ. Validity, reliability, and ethics in visualization. In: Bishop ID, Lange E, editors. Visualization in landscape and environmental planning. Chapter 5. London: Taylor and Francis; 2005b. p. 79–97.
Sheppard SRJ. Local climate change visioning: a new process for community planning and outreach using visualization tools. Plan Canada. 2008;48(1):36–40.
Sheppard SRJ. Visualizing climate change: a guide to visual communication of climate change and developing local solutions. Abingdon: Earthscan/Routledge; 2012.
Sheppard SRJ, Cizek P. The ethics of Google-Earth: crossing thresholds from spatial data to landscape visualization. J Environ Manage. 2009;90:2102–17.
Sheppard SRJ, Meitner MJ. Using multi-criteria analysis and visualisation for sustainable forest management planning with stakeholder groups. For Ecol Manage. 2005;207(1–2):171–87.
Sheppard SRJ, Salter J. The role of visualization in forest planning. In: Encyclopedia of Forest Sciences. Oxford: Academic Press/Elsevier; 2004. p. 486–98.
Sheppard SRJ, Shaw A, Flanders D, Burch S. Can visualization save the world? Lessons for landscape architects from visualizing local climate change. Conference Proceedings, digital design in landscape architecture 2008, 9th international conference, 29–31 May 2008, Germany: Anhalt University of Applied Sciences Dessau/Bernburg; 2008.
Sheppard SRJ, Shaw A, Burch S, Flanders D, Wiek A, Carmichael J, Robinson J, Cohen S. Future visioning of local climate change: a framework for community engagement and planning with scenarios and visualization. Futures. 2011;43(4):400–12.
Snover AK, Whiteley Binder L, Lopez J, Willmott E, Kay J, Howell D et al. Preparing for climate change: a guidebook for local, regional, and State Governments. Prepared by climate impacts group (Centre for Science in the Earth System), University of Washington, and King County, Washington, in association with and published by ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability, Oakland. 2007.
Tatebe K, Shaw A, Sheppard SRJ. Technical report on local climate change visioning for Delta: findings and recommendations. The Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning. Vancouver: University of British Columbia; 2010.
Tress B, Tress G. Scenario visualisation for participatory landscape planning: a study from Denmark. Landscape Urban Plan. 2003;64:161–78.
Winn W. The impact of three-dimensional immersive virtual environments on modern pedagogy. HITL Technical Report R-97-15. Human Interface Technology Laboratory, Seattle: University of Washington; 1997.
Zube EH, Sell JL, Taylor JG. Landscape perception: research, application, and theory. Landscape Plan. 1982;9:1–33.
Acknowledgments
The co-authors wish to acknowledge the following people whose work on previous studies and papers on climate change visioning has directly contributed to this chapter: Adelle Airey, Kristi Tatebe, Ellen Pond, Sara Muir-Owen, Sara Barron, Glenis Canete, Jon Laurenz, Stewart Cohen, John Robinson, Jeff Carmichael, Sonia Talwar, Rob Feick, John Danahy, and Rob Harrap. We also wish to acknowledge the vital support from our many partners on these projects, including agency staff and stakeholders from the communities of Delta, BC; District of North Vancouver; Kimberley, BC; Clyde River Hamlet, Nunavut; and Toronto, Ontario.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sheppard, S.R., Shaw, A., Flanders, D., Burch, S., Schroth, O. (2013). Bringing Climate Change Science to the Landscape Level: Canadian Experience in Using Landscape Visualisation Within Participatory Processes for Community Planning. In: Fu, B., Jones, K. (eds) Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6530-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6530-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6529-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6530-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)