A saliency mapping approach to understanding the visual impact of wind and solar infrastructure in amenity landscapes

ABSTRACT

Shifts from fossil fuels toward renewable energy (RE) introduce profound changes to landscapes, including visual impacts that are often investigated during environmental and social impact assessment. Moreover, RE transitions are among many visual changes happening in rural areas that are increasingly serving amenity functions and becoming destinations for wide ranges of users. This diversity introduces complexities during infrastructure siting discussions. Emerging grape and wine production landscapes in Canada serve amenity and production purposes, and this study was designed to understand the impacts of RE development using case studies of solar panels and wind turbines in two vineyard landscapes in Ontario (ON) and British Columbia (BC). We applied novel mixed methods, including content analysis and saliency-based visual impact analysis, to textual and image-based representations posted on Instagram of those vineyards. In this case, the addition of low-density RE infrastructures did not seem to disturb the vineyard experience. The technique presented can be applied in a wide range of infrastructure siting contexts, both before and after construction, but requires additional research and calibration.

KEYWORDS:

• Visual impact
• social media
• vineyard
• renewable energy
• tourism

Acknowledgments

We express gratitude to Kirby Calvert, who funded MM from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (430-2018-0035, Sherren, CI). MM was also supported by a Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship and Parya Scholarship. Thanks also to Mike Smit who funds YC by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Grant (435-2018-1018, Sherren, CI).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [435-2018-1018]; Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [430-2018-0035].