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Should Joe Cloggs remark that "the outdoor landscape is a valuable resource" I guess we would all agree. But Joe could have been making one of several points:
Clearly, we have to define our terms before we can carry out a 'landscape assessment'. The problem became a matter of public policy in Britain with the enactment of the 1947 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act. Which areas should be designated as National Parks? How should their boundaries be fixed? In keeping with the spirit of those times, the matter was left to experts.
The problem re-appeared during the 1970s as a result of concern about major planning decisions, such as the routing of roads. It was felt that scenic quality should be an influence on road alignment, but that the matter could not be left to experts for the simple reason that experts always disagree. Planning inspectors yearned for a degree of objectivity, by which they meant agreement, on matters relating to scenic quality. A significant study was commissioned from the University of Manchester and published under the title Landscape Evaluation. It was a a good report but the title assumed the the third of the interpretations of landscape listed above: the report gave no consideration to the evaluation of agricultural, woodland, recreational or other resources. Many of the publications on the subject at that time were, frankly, laughable.
In 1988 the Countryside Commission published Landscape Assessment - a countryside Commission Approach (CCD 18). It contained 'a lot of horse sense but no horse', in that the recommended approach to landscape assessment was, at best, a wobbly-legged foal. The Commission, which became the Countryside Agency, continued to give serious attention to the subject, resulting in the interim guidelines published in 1999. It is a useful, wise and interesting document. but does not give a 'tried and tested method' which one could employ. At best, one can identify many horses and many riders setting out on different journeys.
The report opens with the statement that 'The landscape is one of our most precious national assets'. A diagram is then used to answer the question 'What is landscape?'. It is represented as a combination of geology, landform, air, climate, soils, flora, fauna, land use, settlement, enclosure, memories, associations, preferences, touch, smells, sounds, form, pattern, texture, colour.
The topic of 'landscape character assessment' is then explained as an umberlla term which separates:
The distinction between fact and value, on which the above rests, has a well-established place in western philosophy. It relates to the distinction between objective and subjective. Inclusion of the word 'character' in the title appears to exclude the assessment of natural resources per se. This point requires further consideration. Let us consider 3 other types of assessment:
One might see a difference between Restaurants and TVs and the other examples in that they have a clearly defined purpose. It is safest to keep off the subject of feminine beauty. Books can be evaluated from different points of view. If, for example a technical book is well-written, well-illustrated and out-of-date do we classify it as a good book or a bad book? Similarly with landscape, if a desert wadi has no economic or habitat value, but is very beautiful, do we classify it as better or worse than a less beautiful wadi which contains a well of water or oil? It is worth referring back to these examples when considering landscape character assessment.
The range of uses for landscape character assessment is given as:
After a clear start the 1999 report becomes difficult to follow as a consequence of being comprehensive. Reference is made to the use of GIS in integrating a vast range of survey information (soils, landform, landcover, hydrology etc). No one can doubt the relevance of this information but there are serious problems in bringing it together. They relate to:
