ABSTRACT
Environmental perception, and peoples' landscape and visual preferences are obviously important elements in assessing socio-environmental impact. Many developments and projects which require environmental impact assessment/social impact assessment, such as transmission lines, coal mines and power stations, have substantial visual impacts. These impacts are far more complex than the straight-forward effects of visual blockage, and their analysis may require an understanding of the psychological and symbolic meaning aspects of environment. Various authors examine the perception of landscape as a subset of the broader concerns of environmental perception. Although oriented toward the analysis of the built environment, many of the key concepts are equally applicable to most analyses of visual preferences. A. Pogacnik reports on a technique in which information on visual-aesthetic relationships in space is taken from panoramic photographs oriented to a "spatial information grid".
