Exploring landscape changes using an envisioning system in rural community workshops

In order to understand land use changes it is useful to provide communities with visions of how their landscape may change. For this purpose, we have developed an envisioning system, which can help communities contemplate alternative land use configurations. This system links a geographic information system, virtual reality, mobile computing devices, and environmental process models into a platform that allows visual exploration and evaluation of future landscape scenarios. Alternative land use configurations can be suggested using the GIS interface, which can be viewed via an immersive 3D environment permitting immediate evaluation. Using personal digital assistants, opinions on visible changes can be expressed by a choice of responses. These are fed back to the system, where they are collected. People can then determine if the probable changes accord with their judgements and values and adjust the extent or nature of the changes accordingly. The aim of the envisioning system is to help communities learn about their local landscape, to examine the consequences of applying different values, and to support informed decisions on land use planning issues. We tested the portable envisioning system platform in two public workshops in the Cudgewa Valley of northeastern Victoria, Australia. It is expected that the current land use will diversify, under economic pressures, from predominantly cattle farming as neighbouring valleys have done already.