Kimberley Climate Adaptation Project_CALP Visualizations_June 2009Dr. Olaf Schroth (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation), Ellen Pond, Philip Paar, Sara Muir-Owen, Cam Campbell, Dr. Stephen Sheppard UBC

In collaboration with the City of Kimberley and the Columbia Basin Trust; CALP funding provided by the Real Estate Foundation and the Ministry of Community Development

Energy Landscapes - Social acceptance of renewable energy options in BC landscapes

REFERENCESBishop, I.D., and E. Lange. Visualization in Landscape and Environmental Planning - Technology and Application. London / New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005. Bishop, I.D., W.-S. Ye, and C. Karadaglis. “Experiential approaches to perception response in virtual worlds.” Landscape and Urban Planning 54, no. 1-4 (May 25, 2001): 117-125. Deussen, O. “A framework for geometry generation and rendering of plants with applications in landscape architecture.” Landscape and Urban Planning 64 (2003): 105-113.

Research GoalsGoal of the study is to explore the social acceptability of two feasible wind, biomass and solar en-ergy scenarios (the “energy landscapes”) in British Columbia with regard to their visual landscape impact. Scenario A) describes community energy on a municipality scale and scenario B) describes large facilities in remote areas on an industrial scale. Within the two scenarios, various design op-tions are tested.

Research Design In a first step, feasible sites for sustainable renewable energy production are identified through a GIS suitability analysis based on Provencial geodata, e.g. the Vegetation Resource Inventory (VIR), the Canadian Wind Atlas, and BC Hydro studies. Second, a range of design options and different combinations of renewable energy technologies are visualized for case study sites in North Vancou-ver, Kimberley (Scenario A), and near Prince George and Prince Rupert (Scenario B). Third, an online landscape preference survey is conducted to identify people’s preference regarding general scenar-io, technology design with regard to visual landscape and identify related context factors.

1. Energy Potential Mapping Base map is the digital terrain data. Then energy potentials are mapped with rough energy poten-tial estimates from BC Hydro and Canadian Wind Atlas for wind energy, solar energy, and from the VRI for biomass energy. Then, a constraints map is created from First Nation treaties and land titles, Important Bird Areas, areas of visual impact etc. Both energy potentials and constraints are finally weighted and accumulated in the suitability map (Schroth et al. 2012).

2. 3D Visualization MethodThe outcome of mathematical modeling and stakeholder workshops was assembled in ESRI ArcGIS, although an open source GIS to have a fully open workflow could replace this. Finally, the modeled vegetation information is exported as vegetation plots based on ESRI multipoint Shapefiles for visu-alization. Biosphere3D (Paar and Clasen 2007) was chosen as the visualization platform because it is scale-independent and can handle large digital elevation models, satellite and aerial images and it provides a sophisticated Level of Detail management that is able to render highly realistic 3D veg-etation models (Deussen 2003) without pre-calculations in the numbers that are required for land-scape visualization (Bishop and Lange 2005).

DiscussionThe project is still work in progress, ie. 3D visualizations and online survey are currently under con-struction. However, one outcome of the suitability analyses and related research was that local re-newable energy potentials may not be sufficient to match current demands. Either remote facilities, e.g. wind farms, on an industrial scale are considered or demand is lowered through increased at-tempts in energy savings (Schroth et al. 2012). Further on-going work is the development of the on-line methodology because there is no comparable study yet, in which respondents first choose their favorite design and then, rate the landscape preference based on their previously chosen favorite design. This way, respondents should be enabled to compare their favorite designs with each other, rather than comparing a wind farm design that was perceived as poorly with a solar farm design that was perceived better, eliminating the technology design as a factor for the overall comparison.

IMAGE TITLE HEREexplanatory text here

IMAGE TITLE HEREexplanatory text here

climate change impacts/link... icon... = higher vulnerability

North Vancouver: Biomass Plantation (Populus canadensis) in Power Line Corridor

North Vancouver: Hot Water Solar Panels on Private Roofs

Capilano Reservoir

Poplar (Populus canadensis) plantation

Case Study Sites

GIS Suitability Analysis for Wind Energy near Prince George green = suitable, red = not suitable

3. Online Preference Study (draft)Landscape preference studies are a well established method to research the affective experience of the landscape such as attractiveness (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989). The preference study will be de-signed as a three-step online study using the 3D landscape visualizations (Bishop and Karadaglis 2001):

•First, an introduction will provide respondents with a map and an overview visualization of the case study site and provide context information.

•Second, for each renewable option, wind, solar and biomass, three designs are shown for 5 view-points, i.e. every respondent assesses 45 images. The results will show which design respondents favor for each technology.

•Third, the three options ranked highest by each person, are shown to them in different combina-tions. This way, respondents can assess combinations such as biomass plantations and wind farms - adding up to the “energy landscapes”.

Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paar, P., and M. Clasen. “Earth, Landscape, Biotope, Plant. Interactive visualisation with Biosphere3D.” In CORP. Vienna, 2007.Schroth, O., Pond, E., Tooke, R., Flanders, D., & Sheppard, S. R. J. (2012). Spatial Modeling for Community Renewable Energy Planning: Case Studies in British Columbia, Canada. In S. Stremke & A. van den Dobbelsteen (Eds.), Sustainable Energy Landscapes:Designing, Planning, and Development. Netherlands: Taylor & Francis.

Solar hot water panels