Visual Resource Stewardship—An International Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Abstract - the abstract does not accurately describe the paper and is effectively word for word the first paragraph. This needs to be re-written
It is very difficult to understand how this paper contributes to the discussions around landscape character/quality. It largely summarises the history of a number 'instruments' at different scales. There is much information included (e.g. who has won prizes) that is really not needed and adds no value to the narrative. It is not clear why the countries, Regional (European Landscape Convention) and global scale (IUCN and World Heritage) were chosen for discussion.
The paper fails to provide a comprehensive analysis or even a set of arguments. The paper could have provided an analysis of implementations or the differences between the approaches. Or even how the different protection instruments work together.
The author is critical of not including quality as an element but does not concretely present an alternative.
The European element is not put in the scope of the latest developments, and picks up on one pan-European instrument.
A small point but the author switches between Britain and Great Britain and this needs consistency.
Author Response
Reviewer 1
Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate where you are coming from. However the task set for me in compiling the paper in the first place was to address visual resource stewardship from an international perspective - see Rick Smardon’s email below.
Richard C. Smardon 19 April 2018
Dear Dr. Andrew Lothian:
We are in the midst of planning the 2019 Visual Resource Stewardship Conference October 27-30 2019 and would like to invite you to be a plenary speaker at our conference. We are quite familiar with your work and feel that you could contribute to our understanding of visual resource stewardship from an international perspective. I have attached the proceedings from the 2017 Visual Resource Stewardship Conference so you can see the content that will be similar to the 2019 Conference. We look forward to your response.
Richard "Rick" Smardon SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse NY 13210
Co-Chair 2019 Visual Resource Stewardship Conference (315) 470-6500
Richard C. Smardon 19 April 2018
We tried to get some international visual resource stewardship coverage at the 2017 conference, but it really was US Federal land management agency focused. I think the planning group is interested in the European landscape convention and how we can move toward that kind of recognition of landscape character in the US. Also we would be interested in heritage/cultural resource linkages to the visual landscape.
On behalf of the conference planning committee. We are glad to have you on board.
Richard "Rick" Smardon PhD Co-Chair 2019 Visual Resource Stewardship Conference
In light of Rick’s instructions, I prepared an essentially factual account of landscape character assessment, tracing its origins in England and how it was a reaction from measuring landscape quality, and how the English approach then underpinned the European Landscape Convention’s focus on landscape character. To provide a wider international coverage, I described the implementation of LCA in some European countries and also other international programs with which I am familiar – e.g. World Heritage program and the relevance of LCA to this.
The message I wished to impart was summed up at the beginning of the paper:
The key message the paper seeks to impart is that most of the provisions focus on the character of the landscape, not its quality. Because it has been alleged, particularly in Britain and Europe, that it is too difficult to measure scenic quality, landscape character has become the subject instead of the subjective entity of scenic quality. Authorities have stayed clear of subjectivity and applied objective-based analysis to landscape character.
I agree that the paper could have provide greater analysis of the effectiveness of the LCA and the differences in approach, however this would have taken considerably more time and resources. And I am not sure that Rick wanted that.
I have corrected the Britain/Great Britain issue – thanks for pointing that out. I have also revised the abstract.
Whereas the original paper covered only eight European countries, I have now covered 22 to provide a much fuller coverage.
You suggest that the paper should provide an alternative to landscape character assessment. That is the subject of the second paper I presented at the conference, the Community Preferences Method that I developed to assess landscape quality based on community preferences.
Andrew Lothian
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a very long paper, but I note that there is no word limit for papers published in LAND.
It is a very comprehensive review of the topic and is well organised. It will provide a very useful resource for people interested in this topic.
It is well written in English and almost no errors were found.
The paper would benefit from including the authors definitions of 'character' and 'quality' and how they are assessed in the Introduction. The author seems to assume that readers have prior knowledge of these terms, which are critically important to the discussion.
The paper appears to be a conference contribution. This should be acknowledged in the start of the paper to give it context. There is some discussion of the conference context at the end of the paper, such as the author's expenses, which is not relevant to the reader.
From line 746 there are errors in numbering the list of the 10 WHA criteria.
From line 1146, a list of ratings for different generic landscape s included. It appears to be based on the author's work (reference 77) but there is no explanation of the basis for there ratings, how people's perceptions are incorporated or of how the community preference method works. A fuller explanation is warranted here.
Author Response
Reviewer 2
Genius loci You are correct. I have replaced Alexander Pope with ‘ancient’.
Landscape character assessment
The 1987 Countryside Commission paper identifies the factors affecting natural beauty as including ‘visual’: extent/degree of enclosure, form, scale, continuity/ harmony/contrast, diversity, colour, texture, presence of eyesores/detractors from scene, contribution to wider landscape, views out and in – length and breadth, and boundaries to views.
The 2014 paper (Tudor, 2014) reduces these down to colour, texture, pattern and form plus sounds, smells, touch and feel.
However, I could find no reference in these documents to landscape ecology, the nearest being ecosystem services which is a different concept.
Criterion 7
I have added the following sentence at the beginning of section 4.2:
Criterion 7 of the World Heritage criteria - superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance – is clearly of most relevance here.
I disagree with your suggestion to move section 4.5 to the beginning of section 4 as this is a review of Criterion 7 some time after it was established and would be out of place at the beginning.
Section 6.1 Europe landscape studies
I have now covered 22 European countries though I could find no reference to Poland’s cultural landscape that you mentioned.
American landscapes – I have deleted the appendix.
Third person
I have amended the text to remove the first person.
Tables
I note your comment about Tables, however the Instructions for Authors does not provide any formatting criteria:
All Figures, Schemes and Tables should have a short explanatory title and caption.
All table columns should have an explanatory heading. To facilitate the copy-editing of larger tables, smaller fonts may be used, but no less than 8 pt. in size. Authors should use the Table option of Microsoft Word to create tables.
References
I have placed references at the end of sentences instead of within them.
Fonts
Arial font is used throughout.
Emphasis
Italicised throughout.
Section 4.1 starts from 8
?
Figures pixelated
Could find none pixelated.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear Author,
It was a pleasure to read your work and an honour to review it. The great value of your article is the systematization of knowledge and previous achievements in the field of landscape assessment. Nonetheless, there are a few suggestions and questions which I would like to rise:
1. When you mention "genius loci" in the line 99, there is a feeling that it was Alexander Pope's idea, while the concept dates back to antiquity. It is the way the sentence is built that gives this feeling. In reality, you mean his understanding of the concept and not the concept itself.
2. Landscape ecology uses the concepts of composition and configuration, among others. Were they important in the development of Landscape Charactere Assessment methods?
3. In the section 4 it is not very clear why Criterion 7 was selected for an in-depth analysis. I guessed this was because it speaks of the aesthetics. Maybe a little reorganisation of the subsections could make it more comprehensible from the start? Maybe shifting some content of 4.5 subsection to the beginning of the section 4 would make the entire argument clearer? This is polemical, however, and I believe your decision will be the best.
4. I had a doubt whether Subsection 6.1. truthfully is a summary, or rather some limited examples? After several pages sacrificed to the UK, we can have an impression here that other European countries are doing very little about the assessment of their landscapes. The language barrier might be one of the reasons for which the knowledge about some national practices is not discussed on the international forum. Nonetheless, they do exist. For example, there are studies that classify all contemporary cultural landscape types in Poland. There also are some interesting studies that take subjective assessment into account and create emotional maps of suburban landscapes. In Germany, another example, computerized tools were used to match viewers' sensations (e.g., eye movements) with the landscape viewed... I know it is impossible to summarize all landscape assessment studies in one article, but maybe the word "summary" shall be substituted?
5. Regarding the scenic quality of American landscapes - what is presented in the appendix are "likely ratings". Taking into consideration the large geographical scale, the error range can be great. And the landscape changes dynamically yard by yard. For this reason, the maps at such a scale have little predictive power. For example, the landscape around Yellowstone might be rated 8/9, but it is just enough to step out one half of a mile and the landscape will change into suburban area with motels and fast-food restaurants, of yet very different aesthetic quality. I value your work very much and I have no intentions to diminish its significance, I am only asking myself a question whether we can assess the scenic quality in this scale in a reliable way?
6. Finally, there are some editorial points to mention: the narration should be led in the third person rather than in the first; tables' format differs from the Land's template; the citations are introduced in different ways (some starting from new paragraph); some fonts are different, as well as formatting of a few paragraphs; different emphasis styles are used (bold or italic); numbering in section 4.1. starts from 8; some figures are pixelized (e.g. numbers in figure 6 or the World Heritage logo)
Last but not least, I would like to confirm that I value your work very much.
I would also like to apologize for any English language errors, which could make it harder to read this review. I am not a native English speaker.
Sincerely yours,
Author Response
Reviewer 21 Feb
This is a very long paper, but I note that there is no word limit for papers published in LAND.
It is a very comprehensive review of the topic and is well organised. It will provide a very useful resource for people interested in this topic.
It is well written in English and almost no errors were found.
The paper would benefit from including the authors definitions of 'character' and 'quality' and how they are assessed in the Introduction. The author seems to assume that readers have prior knowledge of these terms, which are critically important to the discussion.
Thank you for this observation. I have added the following to the Introduction.
The terms, landscape character and landscape quality, need to be defined from the outset. Landscape character is the distinct, recognisable and consistent pattern of elements in the landscape that makes one landscape different from another, rather than better or worse [29] whereas landscape quality is the human subjective aesthetic perception, both positive and negative, of the physical landscape, responding to its land forms, land cover, land uses, the presence of water and other attributes [87].
The paper appears to be a conference contribution. This should be acknowledged in the start of the paper to give it context. There is some discussion of the conference context at the end of the paper, such as the author's expenses, which is not relevant to the reader.
I have added the following:
This paper was delivered, in an abbreviated form, at the 2019 Visual Resource Stewardship Conference held at the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago on
October 27 – 30.
From line 746 there are errors in numbering the list of the 10 WHA criteria.
I could not find any problem with the list of the 10 WHA criteria. However, I have expanded the criteria
- Human creative genius;
- Architecture or technology, monumental arts, town planning or landscape design;
- Cultural traditions, living or past;
- Building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates significant stage(s) in human history;
- Traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture(s) … vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change;
- Events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works;
- Superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance;
- Major stages of Earth's history, record of life, geological processes, significant geomorphic or physiographic features;
- Ecological and biological processes in evolution and development of ecosystems;
- Natural habitats for conservation of biological diversity, including threatened species.
From line 1146, a list of ratings for different generic landscapes included. It appears to be based on the author's work (reference 77) but there is no explanation of the basis for there ratings, how people's perceptions are incorporated or of how the community preference method works. A fuller explanation is warranted here.
I have deleted the Appendix following comments by another reviewer.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
