The Scenery Management System: The Evolution of Landscape Aesthetic Management in the U.S. Forest Service

The Visual Management System (VMS), developed by the United States Forest Service in 1974, set the standard for integration of aesthetic considerations in large scale resource management decisions. The VMS included objective criteria such as distance of view and visual magnitude. At the same time, it relied on somewhat subjective definitions of aesthetic landscapes and expert assessment of impacts based on classical principles of art and beauty. In the years since, understanding of ecological succession, disturbance agents, and effects of various management practices has increased. There has been a corresponding emphasis on constituent involvement in land and resource management decision-making.

In this context, the Forest Service developed Landscape Aesthetics: A Handbook of Scenery Management in 1996. Building on the foundation of VMS, the Scenery Management System (SMS) combines a number of approaches:



expert and perceptual definitions of existing and desired aesthetic conditions of the landscape;

gauging of the relative importance of landscapes based on "sense of place" or "place attachment" mapping;

a classification index to evaluate aesthetics versus other resource values, negotiation on acceptable degrees of change to achieve desired conditions, and;

aesthetic, along with ecological, sustainability.

The resultant system is at once more complex and better integrated into broader land and resource management systems and processes of the agency. Complex, in that it requires continuous education, discussion, and negotiation with both internal and external stakeholders in resource management with somewhat undefined outcomes. Better integrated, as it incorporates the limitations and potentials of ecological process in the formulation of desired landscape conditions, and fits within established planning protocols. Ironically, due to decreased emphasis on the more impactive resource treatments such as clearcut timber harvest methods, the need for this more sophisticated aesthetic resource approach has been questioned. Recent insect and disease disturbances and the reintroduction of fire as an ecosystem management tool may well be catalysts in raising public and management awareness of importance of aesthetics in forest management. [Abstract]

[Proceeding in Landscape and Urban Planning, Vol. 54, Issues 1-4, 25 May 2001]