A fuzzy modeling approach to
wild land mapping in Scotland
Steffen Fritz, Linda See
and Steve Carver
Paper outline
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Aims of this study
Methods of wilderness mapping
The Scottish situation - Remoteness and Apparent
Naturalness
The internet questionnaire
Visibility and distance analysis
Incorporating Naismith’s Rule with Dijkstra’s shortest
path algorithm to map remoteness
The fuzzy model for apparent naturalness
Combining remoteness and apparent naturalness
Further research
Conclusions
Aims and Objectives
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Develop a mapping tool to map perceived wild land areas on a local
level
– Model can be applied to Scotland and to other areas in Europe
– Model takes into account measurable factors such as remoteness
and apparent naturalness
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Information is acquired with the help of an internet questionnaire
– each individual produces a different wild land map
– remoteness and apparent naturalness criteria can be combined and
weighted according to its importance
Methods of wilderness mapping
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The way you define wilderness will influence the way you
are going to map it.
Ecological vs perceptual definition
Rob Lesslie: ‘undeveloped land which is relatively remote
and undisturbed by, the process and influence of settled
people’
The whole of Australia was mapped using 4 criteria:
naturalness, apparent naturalness, remoteness from access
and remoteness from settlement
Methods of wilderness mapping
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Definition by Nash ‘There is no specific material thing
that is wilderness. The term designates a quality that
produces a certain mood or feeling in a given individual
and, as a consequence, may be assigned by the person to a
specific place”
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Huxley (1974) ‘"wilderness is where one feels oneself to be in a
wild place, according to the sensibility of one's particular experience
and knowledge on a global and local scale."
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Kliskey and Kearsley (1993) mapped multiple perceptions
on wilderness based on that definition.
The Scottish situation
 Landscape
has been dramatically altered due to its
long settlement and land use history
 since ‘pure wilderness’ does not exist in Scotland
it is better referred to as wild land
 people still value the land according to factors
such as remoteness and the absence of human
artefacts and as such perceive it as wild.
The internet questionnaire
 Questions
1. Profile
 2. General questions about hiking
 3. Mapping Remoteness - the long walk in
 4. Impact of certain man man features on personal
wild land perception such as hill roads, roads,
builtup areas, isolated buildings, coniferous
plantations, pylons, shielings (old crofts), grazing
(sheep, cattle), arable land, ski lifts
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Mapping Remoteness
Mapping Remoteness
 Using
Naismith Rule (1892) to map pedestrian
travel times
 Modified by Langmuir (1984)
 5 km/h plus 0.5 hour per 300 m of ascent,
 minus 10 minutes per 300 m descent for slopes
between 5° and 12°,
 plus 10 minutes per 300 m descent for slopes
greater than 12°.
Mapping Remoteness
Non purist
low wild land
< 20 minutes
medium wild land
20 - 40 minutes
high wild land
40 - 80 minutes
Purist
low wild land
< 60 minutes
medium wild land
360 minutes
high wild land
720 minutes
Mapping Apparent Naturalness
Mapping Apparent Naturalness
The fuzzy Model
Visibility and Distance Analysis
 Done
on a 50m resolution using EDX data
for each feature (roads, hillroads, buildings,
built-up, coniferous plantations)
 Euclidean
distance was calculated for
visible and non visible features
Man Made Features
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Roads
Hill Roads
Pylons
Coniferous Plantations
Grazing
Arable Land
built-up area
isolated building
ski-lift
hydroelectric power plant
shieling
quarry
Fuzzy Impact Map of Buildings
Fuzzy Impact Map with OR operator
Composite ‘wild land’ map of purist
Current Problems and Further Research
 Visibility Analysis
is very computational intensive
 OR operator for factor maps is problematic
 length of feature is not taken into account
 Validation - further research will focus on
interactive maps and some kind of ground truthing
 Photographs as additional aid
 Grouping of respondents - purist groups composite maps
Conclusions
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Wild land is not easy to map and it can only be done up to a certain
degree using measurable criteria
Internet questionnaire is very useful to capture information on overall
individuals perception of wild land
Naismith surfaces can be used to measure perceived remoteness
remoteness on a local level
Apparent Naturalness can be measured within a fuzzy modeling
framework
Applications:
Quantitative data on wild land is very useful in decision making e.g.
public inquiry, if then modeling
Relative wild areas can be ‘objectively’ compared