7. Project Research Ahead

Existing Design Guidelines are often composed of general statements and recommendations. Since there is no detailed scale, the realisation in the field is difficult and vague. Proposed software applications are poorly explained and often too complex for planners, which results in using conventional desktop designing means instead. Therefore we are cooperating with a landscape architect in the study area Bavarian Alps to encounter this problem. We are involved in designing a landscape master plan for the community district Burggen. Main objective is to research the applicability and opportunity to transform design guidelines with modern planning tools into practical landscape planning. The study is focused on the aspect of afforestations of pasture land and their aesthetical and ecological effect. We intend to run through the entire planning proceedure, from the inventory to the final public presentation.

The following survey strategy will be applied within the framework of the FORAM Design Project:

1. Quantitative Survey:
The objective is to identify what the public like or dislike. It was intended to be representative of the national populations of all 6 Partner countries. Because it is not possible to reach a random sample of the overall population in Germany it was decided to concentrate the investigations in a certain region and limit the number of respondents to the random sample of the local population within Study Area Upper Danube Valley.

The quantitative research will be done by the following methodologies:

• a) Evaluation of forest images
  A number of internal and external forest images common to all Partner Countries as well as images depicting forest landscape issues specific to Germany will be evaluated with respect to overall scenic quality. The images used will be original ones and/or manipulated with Photoshop.
• b) Written questionnaire

2. Qualitative Research Studies:
The objective is to identify why the public like or dislike certain forest landscape elements. Thereby preferences which are specific to individual Partner countries shall be investigated.

Based on findings of the Public Preferency Survey we want to develop Guidelines to establish adequate sylvicultural systems. This part of the Design Guidelines refer to the design of the Forest Interior. The second part refers to the overall appearance of forests in the landscape. To research the second part we are going to complete prototypical Design Guidelines for landscape units of the Upper Danube Valley by means of computer simulations as described above.

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