Landscape design in infrastructure projects-is it an extravagance? A cost-benefit investigation of practices in dams

Landscape design of major civil infrastructure works has often been undermined as a policy requirement or been neglected in practice. We investigate whether this is justified by technical challenges, high costs or proven lack of utility of landscape design of infrastructure, focussing on dam-design practice. Initially, we investigate global practice and identify 56 cases of dams in which landscape or architectural treatment has been applied. We then create a typology of utilised design techniques and investigate their contribution to improving landscape quality perception through literature review and through the analysis of photograph upload densities in geotagged photography databases. Finally, we investigate costs of landscape works, analysing three dam projects in detail. The results demonstrate that landscape design of civil infrastructure (a) improves landscape quality perception of infrastructures' landscapes and (b) that its implementation can be both economically and technically feasible, especially if existing knowledge from best practices is utilised.

Automated summary

This study investigates the role of landscape design in civil infrastructure works, with a focus on dam design. The results demonstrate that landscape design improves the perception of infrastructure landscapes and can be implemented economically and technically feasible.