Abstract
Rural populations are aging and declining, which has reduced the capacity for rural landscape conservation. Thus, collaborative governance with non-local stakeholders is essential to foster innovative ideas by combining knowledge bases. In the current digital era, remote actors can play a part in rural governance across boundaries through information technology. This study focused on the potential of 3D visualization for rural landscape planning and examined the effects and challenges of using 3D models for collaboration with non-local stakeholders. We conducted a survey with remote participants about a rural village landscape, using 3D models created from drone-shot aerial photos, and then discussed the findings with local stakeholders in a workshop in the village. We found that, by using 3D models, various opinions could be obtained from non-local stakeholders who had never seen the actual landscape. They used the 3D model to view the landscape from various perspectives and it enabled participants to accurately grasp local situations and problems. However, some of the opinions gathered in the survey were unrealistic for actual landscape planning. We conclude that 3D models are a useful tool to incorporate external opinions into rural landscape planning across temporal and spatial boundaries, to maintain healthy rural landscapes.
Highlights
A long history of human activity being in harmony with nature has created rural landscapes
This study examined the potential of 3D models to obtain opinions from remote non-local stakeholders to be used in collaborative landscape planning in rural areas
While this study mainly focused on many unspecified people online as potential stakeholders, 3D models can be used for other remote stakeholders who are connected to the local community but cannot participate in the regional planning at a local site due to a geographic barrier
Summary
A long history of human activity being in harmony with nature has created rural landscapes. While the importance of a participatory approach for rural landscape planning has been reported [3], it has become challenging for rural inhabitants to conserve rural landscapes because of local community capacities deteriorating. This is caused by depopulation, emigration of youth, aging, and conflicts within the diversified population due to different lifestyles and mindsets. It is increasingly important for new governance structures to incorporate diverse actors, from both inside and outside the region, into local planning [4,5]. In our current interconnected society, we cannot ignore the many unspecified people on the Internet as potential actors in our planning
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