2012), even though significant differences were observed by comparing the visual perception of residents and non-residents (Sklenicka and Molnarova 2010). Previous studies proved the presence of active or non-reclaimed mines to be a fundamental contributor to the negative perception of the landscape as a whole (Svobodova et al. In fact, landscape alteration does not directly affect public health, but often generates an adverse reaction within the exposed population and in some cases strongly influences the socioeconomic development of the territory from which the alteration is visible. While many of those negative effects have been progressively reduced with the development of new technologies, landscape changes due to extensive surface excavation are apparent worldwide and represent a significant component of the overall environmental impact, especially when those changes are visible from major residential areas or tourist sites and therefore affect a relevant number of observers (Mavrommatis and Menegaki 2017 Alphan 2017). Quarrying and surface mining projects typically generate an adverse effect on the original landscape quality, together with a variety of negative impacts on different environmental components: loss of soil and vegetation, soil and water pollution, dust dispersion, noise, geological and geomorphological disruptions, eco-systems modification, etc. The visual impact is defined as adverse when the modification represents a discordant intrusion in the original landscape and thus contributes to the reduction of its visual quality. The visual impact defines the modification of a given visual resource and the consequent effect on the perception of potential observers. The updated code has been validated against the original Lvi method, thus confirming the suitability of the revised methodology to represent the perception of potential observers. To that end, the original calculation code has been implemented with two image segmentation algorithms, which objectively designate the areas within the picture to be used for the automatic calculation of the impact level Lvi. This article describes a further development of the Lvi method, which aims at improving the repeatability of the impact evaluation by eliminating some critical issues related to the definition of both the excavation limits and the natural comparison surfaces representing the natural landscape. The Lvi indicator has proven to be highly correlated with the judgement values expressed by potential observers and thus may represent a valuable operative tool in the environmental impact assessment (EIA) procedures, both for the proponent of new projects and for the governmental authorities in charge of decision-making. These two objective variables are determined by elaborating the digital images of the landscape under investigation, taken from the most representative viewpoints. An indirect method has been formerly proposed to quantify the level of visual impact ( Lvi) based on the two physical variables that define the magnitude of change in a natural landscape: the solid angle subtended by the visible alteration from a given viewpoint ( Ω v) and the chromatic contrast between the alteration and the surrounding landscape (Δ E μ). The article deals with the evaluation of the visual impact arising from quarrying, mining and civil engineering works that involve extensive surface excavation.
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