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Forest Scenic Beauty

The relative scenic beauty of forest scenes can be quantified. This quantification requires careful questioning of members of the public and theoretically based scaling of the public's responses. Furthermore, relative scenic beauty can be statistically related to the characteristics of forest scenes, allowing a quantitative assessment of the contribution to scenic beauty of trees, forbs, downed wood, and other site characteristics. This research documents and illustrates the methods used to quantify scenic beauty and relate it to forest site characteristics.

Software for analyzing scenic beauty ratings or other rating data, called RMRATE, is available for downloading.

Selected Publications

To view PDF files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, available free of charge from Adobe's website.

• Daniel, Terry C., Thomas C. Brown, David A. King, Merton T. Richards, and William P. Stewart. 1989. Perceived Scenic Beauty and contingent Valuation of Forest Campgrounds. Forest Science 35(1):76-90.
  (596 KB pdf file)

• Brown, Thomas C. 1987. Production and Cost of Scenic Beauty: Examples for a Ponderosa Pine Forest. Forest Science 33(2):394-410.
  (688 KB pdf file)

• Brown, Thomas C., and Terry C. Daniel. 1987. Context Effects in Perceived Environmental Quality Assessment: Scene Selection and Landscape Quality Ratings. Journal of Environmental Psychology 7:233-250.
  (683 KB pdf file)

• Brown, Thomas C., and Terry C. Daniel. 1986. Predicting Scenic Beauty of Timber Stands. Forest Science 32(2):471-487.
  (694 KB pdf file)

• Brown, Thomas C. and Terry C. Daniel. 1984. Modeling forest scenic beauty: Concepts and application to ponderosa pine. USDA Forest Service Research Paper RM-256, 35 p. Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Fort Collins, Colo.
  (3.3 MB pdf file)

• This publication is out of print but is accurately reproduced in a PDF file placed on this web site. On page 27 the research paper describes a computer program that is available upon request. That program is no longer available and has been superseded by RMRATE, which is available for downloading from this website.
• Daniel, Terry C., and Ron S. Boster. 1976. Measuring landscape esthetics: The scenic beauty estimation method. USDA For. Serv. Res. Pap. RM-167, 66 p. Rocky Mt. For. and Range Exp. Stn., Fort Collins, Colo. 80521
  (14 MB pdf file--since this document is very large it may take a minute or two to download)

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