What We Do

Landscape Character Assessment

Mark has been involved in developing the current landscape guidance for England and Scotland, and the LANDMAP Method in Wales. Diacono Associates is also one of the partners in developing the Living Landscape Method, and was part of the team which derived the Landscape Typology of England. His work involves numerous county and district LCA projects, most recently in Cornwall, Dorset and Suffolk.

Landscape Sensitivity and Capacity

Having developed the methodology for evaluating landscape sensitivity and capacity which is supported for national application by the Countryside Agency, we are developing this further through applied prtoject work throughout much of the South West. For the first time a consistent, transparent evaluation process is available, which produces ecological, cultural, visual and perceptual sensitivity for the project area, providing the basis for the clear, structured evaluation of capacity for a range of changes.

GIS

We are established as the leaders in applying GIS to landscape chaarcter related work. Much misused solely as a map-production package, we make more holistic use of GIS, and its potential for creating dynamic, updatable, decision making frameworks. A GIS is most simply thought of as a spatial database, linking a mapped layers with data attributed to every element on each layer. It has many uses - presenting and comparing datasets being the most common, along with more complex data analysis, and the derivation of new information from otherwise disparate data sources. We are ever pushing the boundaries in order to develop applications which respoind to user needs, and we are currently working on its potential for driving landscape monitoring work in conjunction with an AONB partnership in the South West.

Environmental Evaluation

We have played a leading role in developing and applying a variety of evaluation techniques, many of them for the four English conservation agencies. Mark has been involved in developing and piloting the Quality of Life Capital Approach (formerly known as Environmental Capital), on local, regional and national projects, and in our work in Cornwall we are taking this further in providing a criteria- and evidence-based framework for establishing what matters and why as the means for managing landscape change across the county.

Internet Communication

We provide a wide range of internet based services to our clients. These include complete websites, additional web pages for existing sites, online questionnaires, and online GIS. Our capabilities expand with the growth of new technologies. While we have the capability to offer the most contemporary internet solutions, we are keen to ensure that any approach we take is user-led. We prefer to work closely with the client through the planning stage to ensure that the final solutions are tailored to current needs, anticpate likely future developments, and are focused on identifying and enabling the user groups.