Countryside Council for Wales Wind Farm Project: Project Planning Document - Pgis_5

ORGANISATION AND CONTACT INFORMATION

I. Name: David Miller

II. Organisation: Maculay Land Use Research Institute.

III. Address: Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH.

IV. E-mail address: d.miller@macaulay.ac.uk

MODELS USED FOR DATA ANALYSIS

II. Model Name: Calculation of the visibility of turbines from roads

III. Source of Model:

IV. Computer Language that the model is developed in:- ArcInfo (GRID)

V. Hardware needed to run model: Unix workstation

VI. Data Inputs needed by model:

A. Ordnance Survey Digital Elevation Models - 1:10 000, 1:50 000

B. Wind turbine coverages for Scotland and Wales

C. Road coverage from Ordnance Survey

VII. Model outputs

A. Tables/Statisics

1. Table/graph of visibility of sections of roads within the study areas as a ranking from high to low

B. Maps / GIS datalayers / 3D models / photographs

1. Illustrations of the number of turbines that area visible from each cell along the road

2. Illustration of the sections of road from which turbines are most or least visible.

C. World Wide Web pages

1. Snapshot views of road network and turbine visibility

2. Snapshot views of changes in the visibility ranking of sections of roads with increasing numbers of wind farms (Welsh study site)

VIII. Accuracy/Sources of Uncertainty/Method of Handling

A. Error in DEMs (fromPERR_1)

B. Positional error of turbine locations

C. Obstructions to visibility due to surface features

D. Positional error of the roads

IX. Existing linkages between data (eg in databases) and software (eg databases/GIS/Statistical packages)

A. None

X. GIS Software used

A. ArcInfo (version 7), ArcView (version 2)

XI. Modelling Software used

A. ArcInfo (GRID)

XII. Database Software used

A. None

XIII. Any other comments

The visibility levels of the sections of road are calulated according to the number of turbines that will be visible from each point on the road and then generalizing the presentation of the road network into classes ranging from low to high visibility