What Four Things You Need to Know About Visual Impact Mitigation?

Learn what visual impact mitigation is and why it should matter to you.

How can you reduce the impact of your construction project, and why should you do so?

At Natina, our goal is to improve the aesthetics of construction projects in order to preserve the beauty of nature. In fact, this objective is in our mission statement: “Construction will leave its mark. Natina will minimize it.”

By giving galvanized steel, concrete and rock a natural patina with our solutions, we aim to mitigate the visual impact of construction jobs. What exactly does that mean, and how do we do it?

Here’s the four things you should know about visual impact mitigation.

1. What Is Visual Impact Mitigation?

Visual Impact Mitigation is the actions that are taken to omit, minimize or balance the effect of the natural and built features of a construction project. There are many elements that must be carefully considered before starting a job, and increasingly, visual—or environmental—impact, is one of them. In the case of a transmission tower being placed on a mountainside, planning is needed to ensure the topography remains intact as much as possible.

While similar, visual quality is generally defined as the visual significance or appeal of a landscape based on cultural values and its intrinsic physical elements. The goal should be to avoid disrupting the beauty of the environment in any way possible, and that’s where visual impact mitigation efforts come into play. In some cases, visual impact mitigation is needed to move forward on a construction project.

Some of the most common types of visual impact mitigation include:

• Avoiding impact, or making changes, such as moving the project or reducing its size to avoid affecting nature too much.
• Minimizing the impact, usually by adding design elements that make disturbances to the landscape less noticeable.
• Rectifying the impact by fixing or restoring the affected area.
• Reducing or eliminating any impacts over time, such as continually working to preserve the area.
• Compensating for any visual impacts, like replacing or providing alternative resources to make up for any disturbances to nature.

Natina Steel Solution on Guardrail in California

2. How Does Natina Embrace Visual Impact Mitigation?

At Natina, we understand the importance of every type of mitigation when it comes to construction projects. But we’re most familiar with the idea of minimizing impact with design elements and reducing maintenance traffic, time or disruption.

This is because our color solutions add a natural brown patina and finish to materials like galvanized steel, rock and concrete. Our goal is to complement and balance construction projects, which helps areas remain scenic and beautiful.

3. Why It’s Important to Mitigate Visual Impact

In recent years, federal, state and local agencies and developers have put more emphasis than ever on visual impact mitigation. The main reason for this is the understanding that we must protect nature and ensure that the planet is not negatively affected by our progress. In other words, while we can all agree that fences, transmission poles, guardrails and other structures are important, we should find ways to reduce their impact on the settings.

We need to reduce the human effects from constructed activities while maintaining the visual quality of the world around us. That means we want to ensure that new structures or changes don’t detract from the visual character of natural landscapes. After all, many people enjoying national parks or taking road trips want the view of mountains, lakes and other stunning scenery that nature offers us.

When building transmission poles, lattice towers, signposts, roadways, cell towers, and more, it’s important to mitigate and reduce visual impact when in the planning stages. Organizations like the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and many private construction companies are already planning ahead and accounting for these types of modifications. The benefits of protecting the environment and its inhabitants—while keeping the public in mind—are worth it!

Virginia Lattice Towers treated with Natina and without Natina as galvanized.

4. Examples of Visual Impact Mitigation

Most visual impact mitigation efforts fall into one or more of the categories described above, as they’re supposed to avoid, minimize, rectify, reduce or compensate for visual impacts. For example, a construction company might make the following efforts to reduce the impact on the environment when building:

• Use existing access roads instead of making new ones.
• Build in an area that doesn’t require your team to clear, much or any, vegetation.
• Use only the minimum required lighting for construction.
• Plant more vegetation to make up for any plants you had to trim or clear.
• Use materials that blend in with the landscape and don’t reflect sunlight.
• Treat steel, rock and concrete with Natina Solutions so they match the surrounding landscape and reduce the maintenance required in the future.

These are some of the most common ways construction companies can reduce the visual impacts of their projects.

Here at Natina, we do this by:

• Coloring existing rock instead of adding new rock, which helps keep it out of landfills.
• Applying a non-toxic and natural concrete solution as opposed to strong acid stains.
• Providing a weathering steel alternative with our steel solution reduces touch-ups and the need for crews to visit the site again or close roadways to access hard-to-reach areas.

When we treat materials with our Steel, Concrete or Rock Solution, we’re helping to facilitate a color reaction that results in a mottled rustic brown finish. With natural and environmentally-safe solutions, your project transforms into a rich, brown patina. If you’re interested in reducing the visual impact of your next construction project, contact us to start planning today!