An Exploratory Investigation of the Experience of Visible Wind Turbines

Wind turbines are normally the largest structures in the landscape, yet little is known about how they are experienced. Most studies of wind turbines focus on their scenic impact and represent them using visualizations. However, scenic judgments of wind turbines by different viewers can be highly variable and require higher-order cognition. In addition, recent research has called into question the validity of using visualizations to assess very large structures, such as wind turbines. This study explores the more intuitive perceptions of wind turbines, specifically the sense of looming and visual prominence of 35 individual turbines and the sense of looming and the feeling of being surrounded by wind farm turbines at nine viewpoints. Changes in scenic quality and fit with the landscape prior to the wind farms are also rated. The results show that the more intuitive perceptions have higher reliability. These perceptions are affected by turbine exposure, proximity, and extent, which can be represented by physical measures such as distance and the arc of the project around a viewpoint.

This is an open-access article published in Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture and can be downloaded here