Abstract
Public landscape impact assessment of renewable energy installations is crucial for their acceptance. Thus, a sound assessment basis is crucial in the implementation process. For valuing landscape perception, the visual sense is the dominant human sensory component. However, the visual sense provides only partial information about our environment. Especially when it comes to wind farm assessments, noise produced by the rotating turbine blades is another major impact factor. Therefore, an integrated visual and acoustic assessment of wind farm projects is needed to allow lay people to perceive their impact adequately. This paper presents an approach of linking spatially referenced auralizations to a GIS-based virtual 3D landscape model. We demonstrate how to utilize a game engine for 3D visualization of wind parks, using geodata as a modeling basis. In particular, the controlling and recording of specific parameters in the game engine is shown in order to establish a link to the acoustical model. The resulting prototype has high potential to complement conventional tools for an improved public impact assessment of wind farms.
Highlights
Planning of new renewable energy installations in the landscape is a complicated matter in Switzerland and all over Europe
This paper describes the development of a visual-acoustic simulation integrating realistic acoustic emission and propagation into Geographic Information System (GIS)-based 3D landscape visualizations to support landscape impact assessments
We presented an approach to work with GIS-data in a game engine, to simulate wind turbine noise correctly, and to link the noise simulation to the virtual landscape
Summary
Planning of new renewable energy installations in the landscape is a complicated matter in Switzerland and all over Europe. The public generally supports the renewable energy deployment, the implementation of new installations often fails when it comes to choosing appropriate locations, especially regarding wind farm locations on the local level [1,2]. The impact of the new infrastructures on a specific type of landscape characterized by aesthetical quality and a sense of place is one of the most significant factors explaining support or rejection of wind farms [1,2]. There is a strong need for integrating this factor of landscape quality into the site planning of wind farms in order to allow the identification of socially accepted locations for wind power technologies
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