Landscping

Lana&ape and Urban Planning, 19 ( 1990) 2 13-250 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam -Printed

213 in The Netherlands

Toward a Sustainable Landscape with High Visual Preference and High Ecological Integrity: the Loop Road in Acadia National Park, U.S.A.
CARL STEINITZ
Department of Landscape Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 (U.S.A.) (Accepted for publication 12 January 1990)

ABSTRACT Steinitz, C., 1990. Toward a sustainable landscape with high visual preference and high ecological integrity: the Loop Road in Acadia National Park, U.S.A. Landscape Urban Plann., 19: 213-250. This paper reports on research which develops an experimental mode of landscapeplanning, using simulation modelling methods ap plied to Acadia National Park and Mt. Desert Island, Maine, U.S.A. The research was directed at establishing levels of sensitivity to landscapemanagement and design changes for both the ecological landscape and the visual landscape.Both are of great importance to the park; evidencepoints to the perceivedbeauty of the landscape as the overwhelming reasonfor the user-popularity of Acadia. A detailed geographic information system (GIS) wasprepared for the island. User preferencesfor the visual landscapesof Mt. Desert Island were assessed via interviews with several hundred residents and visitors. Five conceptually diflerent existing visual models werecomparedfor their ability to havegeneratedthe surveyresponses. Based on results,a new and more predictive model was then developed. Analyses werealso conductedto identifi the landscape elements of the island which are most important for maintaining a diversity of wildlife habitats and thus their ecological integrity. The visual and ecological models were applied to the GIS, mapped and compared. Twelve landscapeplanning policies and actions were simulated along the Loop Road, the most frequently used route in the park. Using spreadsheetmethods, these were evaluated

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