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.

摘要

从化石燃料向可再生能源 (RE) 的转变给景观带来了深刻的变化，包括在环境和社会影响评估期间经常调查的视觉影响。此外，RE 过渡是农村地区发生的许多视觉变化之一，这些变化越来越多地提供便利设施功能并成为广泛用户的目的地。这种多样性在基础设施选址讨论中引入了复杂性。加拿大新兴的葡萄和葡萄酒生产景观服务于便利设施和生产目的，本研究旨在通过安大略省 (ON) 和不列颠哥伦比亚省 (BC) 的两个葡萄园景观中的太阳能电池板和风力涡轮机案例研究来了解可再生能源开发的影响. 我们应用了新颖的混合方法，包括内容分析和基于显着性的视觉影响分析，到这些葡萄园在 Instagram 上发布的基于文本和图像的表示。在这种情况下，添加低密度可再生能源基础设施似乎并没有影响葡萄园的体验。所提出的技术可应用于广泛的基础设施选址环境，包括施工前后，但需要额外的研究和校准。