When to stop? A visual impact assessment framework for incremental urban and community expansion in rural heritage landscapes

A new Visual Impact Assessment (VIA) framework provides a transparent, replicable method to determine acceptable thresholds for incremental urban and community expansion in rural heritage landscapes. Applied to the Beemster Polder, the framework integrates point cloud-enhanced GIS analysis, multi-temporal Key Observation Point (KOP) data from Street View Imagery (SVI), and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) visualizations to quantify cumulative landscape change. Public acceptability, gathered through questionnaires and expert interviews supported by VR eye-tracking, informs decision-making alongside spatial character metrics and visibility diagnostics. The framework offers case-calibrated reference bands for review, ensuring heritage-sensitive development while supporting stage-comparable assessments in similar rural-urban fringes.

Peng, Y., Nijhuis, S., Wang, Z., Yu, Y., Verbree, E., & van Oosterom, P. (2026). When to stop? A visual impact assessment framework for incremental urban and community expansion in rural heritage landscapes. Sustainable Cities and Society, 143, 107364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2026.107364