A fuzzy modeling approach to wild land mapping in Scotland

Steffen Fritz, Linda See

and Steve Carver

Paper outline Aims of this study Methods of wilderness mapping The Scottish situation - Remoteness and Apparent

Naturalness The internet questionnaire Visibility and distance analysis Incorporating Naismith’s Rule with Dijkstra’s shortest path

algorithm to map remoteness The fuzzy model for apparent naturalness Combining remoteness and apparent naturalness Further research Conclusions

Aims and Objectives Develop a mapping tool to map perceived wild land areas on a local

level

– Model can be applied to Scotland and to other areas in Europe

– Model takes into account measurable factors such as remoteness and apparent naturalness

Information is acquired with the help of an internet questionnaire

– each individual produces a different wild land map

– remoteness and apparent naturalness criteria can be combined and weighted according to its importance

Methods of wilderness mapping The way you define wilderness will influence the way you

are going to map it. Ecological vs perceptual definition Rob Lesslie: ‘undeveloped land which is relatively remote

and undisturbed by, the process and influence of settled people’

The whole of Australia was mapped using 4 criteria: naturalness, apparent naturalness, remoteness from access and remoteness from settlement

Methods of wilderness mapping

Definition by Nash ‘There is no specific material thing that is wilderness. The term designates a quality that produces a certain mood or feeling in a given individual and, as a consequence, may be assigned by the person to a

specific place” Huxley (1974) ‘"wilderness is where one feels oneself to be in a

wild place, according to the sensibility of one's particular experience and knowledge on a global and local scale."

Kliskey and Kearsley (1993) mapped multiple perceptions on wilderness based on that definition.

The Scottish situation

Landscape has been dramatically altered due to its long settlement and land use history

since ‘pure wilderness’ does not exist in Scotland it is better referred to as wild land

people still value the land according to factors such as remoteness and the absence of human artefacts and as such perceive it as wild.

The internet questionnaire

Questions 1. Profile 2. General questions about hiking 3. Mapping Remoteness - the long walk in 4. Impact of certain man man features on personal

wild land perception such as hill roads, roads, builtup areas, isolated buildings, coniferous plantations, pylons, shielings (old crofts), grazing (sheep, cattle), arable land, ski lifts

Mapping Remoteness

Mapping Remoteness

Using Naismith Rule (1892) to map pedestrian travel times

Modified by Langmuir (1984) 5 km/h plus 0.5 hour per 300 m of ascent, minus 10 minutes per 300 m descent for slopes

between 5° and 12°, plus 10 minutes per 300 m descent for slopes

greater than 12°.

Mapping Remoteness

Non purist

low wild land

< 20 minutes

medium wild land

20 - 40 minutes

high wild land

40 - 80 minutes

Purist

low wild land

< 60 minutes

medium wild land

360 minutes

high wild land

720 minutes

Mapping Apparent Naturalness

Mapping Apparent Naturalness

The fuzzy Model

Done on a 50m resolution using EDX data for each feature (roads, hillroads, buildings, built-up, coniferous plantations)

Euclidean distance was calculated for visible and non visible features

Visibility and Distance Analysis

Man Made Features Roads Hill Roads Pylons Coniferous Plantations Grazing Arable Land built-up area isolated building ski-lift hydroelectric power plant shieling quarry

Fuzzy Impact Map of Buildings

Fuzzy Impact Map with OR operator

Composite ‘wild land’ map of purist

Current Problems and Further Research

Visibility Analysis is very computational intensive OR operator for factor maps is problematic length of feature is not taken into account Validation - further research will focus on

interactive maps and some kind of ground truthing Photographs as additional aid Grouping of respondents - purist groups -

composite maps

Conclusions Wild land is not easy to map and it can only be done up to a certain

degree using measurable criteria Internet questionnaire is very useful to capture information on overall

individuals perception of wild land Naismith surfaces can be used to measure perceived remoteness

remoteness on a local level Apparent Naturalness can be measured within a fuzzy modeling

framework Applications: Quantitative data on wild land is very useful in decision making e.g.

public inquiry, if then modeling Relative wild areas can be ‘objectively’ compared