California Sea Grant College Program

The objective of this dissertation is to examine the function and importance of organizational factors in implementation of visual resource manage­ ment (VRM) systems within three Federal agencies. Such systems are means of predicting, controlling, and ameliorating visual impacts upon the landscape from different resource uses. First, historical fac­tors important to the development, adoption and ad­ministration of Visual Resource Management (VRM) sys­tems are examined. Second, Visual Resource Manage­ment (VRM) program administrators were asked to com­ment on the relative importance of a set of organiza­tional factors in the implementation of VRM systems. Third, Visual Resource Management (VRM) administrators were asked to comment on the utility of proposed cri­teria for evaluating the effectiveness of VRM programs, to suggest good and bad examples of VRM program implementation and to comment on internal agency communication regarding VRM program matters.