1. Scenic Resource Management Planning Process

Process Overview

Because scenery is such an important resource for the park, National Park Service staff are working with surrounding communities to develop an appreciation for it, and to offer assistance in developing methods to ensure scenic protection. Scenic resources are also critical to the region's tourism industry, so the development of incompatible land uses within viewsheds can have a negative economic effect. The park's Resource Planning and Professional Services Division, which is responsible for the maintenance of cultural resources and for cultural and natural resource compliance under the National Environmental Policy Act, but not for actual resource management, is also concerned with aesthetic quality. The division has developed a scenic analysis process that includes three phases: viewshed analysis, mapping of view areas, and view area scenic quality assessment. This process allows staff to identify the park's most important vistas based on the length of time travelers view each one, the elements that make up the vista, the vista's quality, and the degree to which the vista is threatened by development.

The Resource Planning and Professional Services Division essentially acts as a planning consultant to counties. Rather than pushing for regulation, the division's reports summarizing the results of the scenic analysis process promote a wide forum for community discussion about preserving views and landscapes. By recruiting the assistance of the public, especially local leaders, for the final phase of the process, park staff can help to inspire a collaborative stewardship process for protecting scenic landscapes. Park planners are able to work with counties and communities to illustrate the importance of protecting certain vistas and to provide information that will help them develop protection methods. These methods might include purchase of land or easements or directing development so that it is less visible from the park. One community chose to use the park's protective language to create a local ordinance dealing with telecommunication towers. The view area scenic quality assessment process calls attention to the lack of programs or regulations to preserve farmland in some counties, and may encourage the counties to adopt farmland protection measures, an important issue in much of the area.

Phase One: Viewshed Analysis

In the first phase of the process, viewshed analysis, a GIS software program is used to "look" from hundreds of points along the centerline of the park roadway and analyze what can be seen from any given point. The software then calculates the number of times a certain area is repeatedly seen (this process gives no information on the quality of the view). All that is visible is called a viewshed. The software uses digital elevation model tapes from the U.S. Geological Survey; adjustments are made by inputting field data on vegetation. The viewsheds are rated (indicated by color coding) according to the amount of foreground, middleground, and background; how long a motorist would see the view; and how many times a specific area would be included in viewsheds along the roadway. Red denotes long-duration views close to the viewer and blue represents fleeting glimpses well into the middle ground. Orange, yellow, and green fall somewhere in between, broken down incrementally by time and distance. This park-specific program was developed through a cooperative agreement with the Design Research Laboratory at North Carolina State University.

Phase Two: Mapping of View Areas

In phase two, park staff verify the data from phase one in the field by traveling to a particular site and mapping visual rooms or "view areas." These "view areas" are defined with a brief verbal descriptive phrase, and assigned a code with a letter (according to county) and a number.

Phase Three: View Area Scenic Quality Assessment

In phase three, view area scenic quality assessment, citizen field teams rate the quality of a view according to its scenic integrity. Criteria include vividness (the intensity, strength, or memorability of a scene), intactness (the lack of incompatible and intrusive change from an idealized landscape), and uniqueness (the rarity of the view in the local, regional, and national context). They also assess the vulnerability of the view by land ownership and land use. All of this information is combined to give a number rating to a view, with a higher score indicating a higher quality view that is perhaps more vulnerable to change, giving it a greater priority for protection.

Park staff have several suggestions for implementing phase three, the view area scenic quality assessment, which include:

    Before the meeting:

• rehearse the logistics and know where everything is ahead of time

• don't use a hard sell when trying to recruit participants

• compose teams of different perspectives and talents, and consider using high school students as team members

    At the first meeting:

• take time for introductions

• teach the process at the first view area and expect it to take a long time

• assign everyone a specific task to be in charge of

• sincerely thank everyone for their input and time, state what you have learned from them, and make it clear that what they did helped and mattered.

    Before or after the meeting:

• contact the local editor with a news release and photo to encourage an article.
  
  

One goal of the park staff is to include elected officials and civic leaders on the assessment teams in order to promote a "partnership" with the park and foster a commitment to viewshed protection. The park planning staff can use the information gained from the scenic quality assessment to work with county planners, helping them to develop methods of protection such as enacting new local ordinances, promoting scenic easements, or drafting design guidelines for new development.

National Park Service staff are not alone in working toward resource protection adjacent to the park. A coalition of organizations working to protect the cultural and scenic integrity of the park has developed and distributed a brochure, Are You A Blue Ridge Parkway Neighbor? The brochure describes conservation and scenic easements, gives information on land trusts and other organizations interested in purchasing land for protection, and provides contact information on planners and landscape architects who can help create compatible development.

2. Developing a Cultural Landscape Report

In 2001, Blue Ridge Parkway staff, working with the National Park Service Southeast Regional Office, began to develop a cultural landscape report as part of the general corridor management plan. A landscape architect at the regional level chose 21-22 cultural landscapes within the park representative of the corridor, and will conduct an inventory and analysis to determine which features are significant in order to develop treatments. This effort will help the park's staff to better measure the importance of cultural resources when resource managers enter into management discussions.