WSP06475

• File Number: 7630.425
• Description: Wild and Scenic - Piedra River
• State: CO
• Basin: Western Slope
• Water Division: 7
• Date: 8/1/1991
• Author: Thomas Brown Terry D
• Title: Landscape Aesthetics of Riparian Environments - Relationship of Flow Quantity to Scenic Quality Along a Wild and Scenic River
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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BROWN AND DANIEL: LANDSCAPE AESTHETICS OF RIPARIAN ENVIRONMENTS

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Fig. 2. Hydrograph of the Poudre River for a typical year. which shows actual. not virgin. mean daily flows
downstream of the sludy area. Actual flows are increased by lrilnsbasin imports and modified by reservoir management.

tested. and it is conceivable that other differences between
the rating and paired-comparison experiments affected the
differenc models. However, the relative magnitudes at least
suggest that flow was more closely related to the paired-
comparison metric than to the rating-based metric. The
impact of flow on scenic beauty appears to depend on the
extent to which the assessment format leads observers to
focus their attention on flow.
We chose in this study to focus on scenic beauty of the
entire 40-mi (64.4 km) stretch of easily accessible Poudre
River scenes within the wild and scenic area. The relation-
ship between scenic beauty and flow reported here repre-
sents a kind of average relationship over the entire stretch of
river, and the percent of the variance in scenic beauty
accounted for by flow in that relationship reflects the wide
range in nonflow features along that stretch. In general, we
expect that the less the variation in nonflow scene features
among the scenes being assessed, the more the variation that
would be dependent on flow differences, all else being equal.
At the other extreme from our study. we might have chosen
only one view for our assessment, and photographed it
repetitively on days without weather differences, so that
only the flow level changed from one scene to the next. In
such a case we expect that the assessment would show flow
accounting for almost all of the variation in scenic beauty.
The relative importance of flow in the context of the full
set of views, as opposed to the importance of flow at only
one location, can perhaps be related to actual recreation
trips to the Poudre River. At the one extreme, consider a
recreationist who prefers to drive through the entire length

TABLE 4. Regression-Adjusted R2 for Restricted and
Full Models

Experiment
Tucson Fort Collins Paired
Ratings Ratings Comparison
(SHE) (SHE) (peE)
lust now 0,08 0.18 O.~6
Full model 0.62 OA2 0.35

of the canyon. On successive trips, he views this large set of
scenes of the river at a range of flow levels. The relative
importance of flow level to him is probably indicated by the
rating-based regression models presented here. At the other
extreme, consider a camper who repetitively returns to one
favorite spot along the river. On successive trips he views
the same scene at various flow levels. The variation is scenic
beauty for this recreationist may be largely flow-dependent.
Of course, for frequent visitors, appreciation of the scen-
ery probably depends to some extent on variety that changes
in flow introduce. Repetitive visitors would probably prefer
some variety in flow level over their successive trips. This
study did not attempt to determine the importance of vari-
ety. Nevertheless, we hypothesize that the contribution of
variety to scenic appreciation has limits; that is, within a
range of flow levels, centered around the flow levels where
scenic beauty peaks, change may be positive, but outside
that range, change is probably negative.

CONCLUSIONS

This study indicates that in stream flow quantity influences
riparian scenic beauty. Public perception of scenic beauty
was found to increase with increasing flow to a point and
then decrease for further increases in flow, and this relation-
ship was robust over a wide range in vegetation, topography,
and scene composition. Dauberr and Young [1981] found
that flow was also related to recreationists' expressions of
willingness to pay. Except for floaters, the two studies found
a similar concave relationship of preference to flow. The
similarity of the two findings suggests that the apparent
effect of flow on recreationists' stated willingness to pay, at
least for shoreline activities such as picnicking, may result
from the beauty of the scenery at different flow levels. Of
course, neither of these studies tested this hypothesis.
However, a recent study of willingness to pay and scenic
beauty at forest campgrounds. [Brown et af., 1990b] found
evidence of increased willingness to pay for camping at
campgrounds located in more attractive forests.
Perhaps because riparian environments are such complex
visual stimuli, the importance of flow to scenic beauty