ABSTRACT
There were several experiments in the USA with Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) in the 1960s and 1970s as part of large watershed area planning. But efforts to employ LCA as a basis for planning and management were largely abandoned in the 1980s, with the exception of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service. The 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), however, declared that it is national policy to ’assure for all Americans…aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings’. NEPA also requires environmental impact assessments of all major federal actions, and as a result consideration of landscape character now occurs primarily through visual impact assessment (VIA). The VIA approaches taken by three federal agencies are described, as well as a selective review of innovative LCA activities in several states.
