Landscape change in the multi-functional countryside: a biographical analysis of farmer decision-making in the English high weald

There is growing recognition that the landscape implications of agricultural restructuring are complex, location specific and subject to various feedback effects. This paper explores how the economic decline of mainstream farming in the English High Weald is redefining the relationship between agriculture and the landscape, encouraging existing farmers to diversify their income base but also creating opportunities for new forms of land occupancy and management in a multi-functional countryside. Through a biographical analysis of a range of different types of land manager, it is illustrated how attitudes to land use and the occupancy of rural land are changing, distinguishing between holdings that are still seen primarily as sites of production by their farming family occupiers and those that are coming to be regarded chiefly as spaces for living by a new category of lifestyle occupier. The implications of this differentiation of the stakeholder community for future landscape management in the United Kingdom and the European Union are explored.     

解读千年沉积的画卷——浅析瑞典大地景观的形成与发展

该文介绍了瑞典大地景观的历史和自然成因,分析了大地景观的形成受人类历史活动和自然环境演变的双重影响。即一方面体现了农业社会对景观的影响,诠释了农耕者和决策者如何利用和管理上千年来传承下来的土地资源;另一方面也融入了自然界中各种因素所产生的生态效应。以此为鉴,景观设计应尊重自然,大地景观的营造是人类活动适应自然而非改造自然的模式。     

Exploring Indigenous Landscape Classification across Different Dimensions: A Case Study from the Bolivian Amazon

Decisions on landscape management are often dictated by government officials based on their own understandings of how landscape should be used and managed, but rarely considering local peoples’ understandings of the landscape they inhabit. We use data collected through free listings, field transects and interviews to describe how an Amazonian group of hunter-horticulturalists, the Tsimane’, classify and perceive the importance of different elements of the landscape across the ecological, socioeconomic, and spiritual dimensions. The Tsimane’ recognise nine folk ecotopes (i.e. culturally recognised landscape units) and use a variety of criteria (including geomorphological features and landscape uses) to differentiate ecotopes from one another. The Tsimane’ rank different folk ecotopes in accordance with their perceived ecological, socioeconomic, and spiritual importance. Understanding how local people perceive their landscape contributes towards a landscape management planning paradigm that acknowledges the continuing contributions to management of landscape by its inhabitants, as well as their cultural and land use rights.     

Achieving Whole-Landscape Management across Multiple Land Management Units: a case study from the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area

Many landscape and ecological features, such as riparian corridors, may span a number of different landholdings, and management practices are often inconsistent across those boundaries. Obtaining the co-operation of landowners thus emerges as one of the major obstacles to the attainment of Agri-Environmental Policy objectives, which are, to a greater or lesser degree, conditional on appropriate management practices being carried out at an appropriately extensive spatial scale. The utilization of the theoretical principles of landscape ecology is proposed as a framework for the planning and management of large areas, and a potential avenue whereby large-scale landscape plans could be matched with appropriate land-management frameworks. In spite of the difficulties associated with fragmented land ownership and land managers' differing perspectives and practices relating to conservation, the assumption that present patterns of farming and landholding are incompatible with the attainment of landscape-scale conservation management is challenged. The results of a study which has evaluated the scope for multiple-farm collaboration over conservation management planning, within the context of the uplands of the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area, are presented and discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the social dynamics of land ownership, neighbour relations and the 'problem' of common land as key issues in the sustainable management of upland landscapes.     

Landscape and water in the oases of Egypt's western desert

While natural processes, mainly wind and water erosion, define desert landscapes, human manipulation and use of water play important roles in defining the landscape within desert oases. The role of water in the oases of the Western Desert of Egypt is described, and it is considered how the scarcity of water affects its use. The challenge to the protection of these archetypal landscapes presented by new forms of development is identified.     

On change in the landscape

Research in landscape history/archaeology frequently concerns studies of human interventions in the cultural landscape. Decisions are seen to produce interventions that change a setting in some way, and each combination of decision, intervention and result tends, often sub-consciously, to be regarded as an episode of change or a discrete chapter in the evolution of a locality. Research will conventionally culminate in the completion of such an episode. The habit of perceiving landscape change in terms of discrete chapters or episodes distracts attention from the on-going nature of changes that reverberate around a landscape causing adjustments and compensations long after the termination of the initial intervention. The processes of adjustment and compensation endow landscape change with the character of a continuum rather than that of an episode. Examples from a long-term and highly detailed investigation of landscape evolution at Ripley, North Yorkshire, are used to illustrate the need for more refined perspectives on change. These perspectives should embrace continuing consequences of change as well as the initial impact of a decision upon a location.     

Exploring landscape changes using an envisioning system in rural community workshops

In order to understand land use changes it is useful to provide communities with visions of how their landscape may change. For this purpose, we have developed an envisioning system, which can help communities contemplate alternative land use configurations. This system links a geographic information system, virtual reality, mobile computing devices, and environmental process models into a platform that allows visual exploration and evaluation of future landscape scenarios. Alternative land use configurations can be suggested using the GIS interface, which can be viewed via an immersive 3D environment permitting immediate evaluation. Using personal digital assistants, opinions on visible changes can be expressed by a choice of responses. These are fed back to the system, where they are collected. People can then determine if the probable changes accord with their judgements and values and adjust the extent or nature of the changes accordingly. The aim of the envisioning system is to help communities learn about their local landscape, to examine the consequences of applying different values, and to support informed decisions on land use planning issues. We tested the portable envisioning system platform in two public workshops in the Cudgewa Valley of northeastern Victoria, Australia. It is expected that the current land use will diversify, under economic pressures, from predominantly cattle farming as neighbouring valleys have done already.     

Achieving Whole-Landscape Management across Multiple Land Management Units: A case study from the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area

Many landscape and ecological features, such as riparian corridors, may span a number of different landholdings, and management practices are often inconsistent across those boundaries. Obtaining the co-operation of landowners thus emerges as one of the major obstacles to the attainment of Agri-Environmental Policy objectives, which are, to a greater or lesser degree, conditional on appropriate management practices being carried out at an appropriately extensive spatial scale. The utilization of the theoretical principles of landscape ecology is proposed as a framework for the planning and management of large areas, and a potential avenue whereby large-scale landscape plans could be matched with appropriate land-management frameworks. In spite of the difficulties associated with fragmented land ownership and land managers' differing perspectives and practices relating to conservation, the assumption that present patterns of farming and landholding are incompatible with the attainment of landscape-scale conservation management is challenged. The results of a study which has evaluated the scope for multiple-farm collaboration over conservation management planning, within the context of the uplands of the Lake District Environmentally Sensitive Area, are presented and discussed. Particular attention is drawn to the social dynamics of land ownership, neighbour relations and the 'problem' of common land as key issues in the sustainable management of upland landscapes.     

Landscape ecological planning and the future countryside: a research note

Strategies for the conservation of biodiversity have historically tended to focus on key sites rather than the wider countryside. It is now widely accepted that both are important for effective countryside management. Landscape ecology offers an organising framework for the integrated study of patches within their surrounding land use matrix, and offers opportunities for the planning and management of large tracts of countryside. An area of proposed substantial land use change in western England is studied in terms of its landscape ecological properties. Preliminary results are reviewed in terms of their potential land use implications.     

Landscape ecological planning and the future countryside: a research note

Strategies for the conservation of biodiversity have historically tended to focus on key sites rather than the wider countryside. It is now widely accepted that both are important for effective countryside management. Landscape ecology offers an organising framework for the integrated study of patches within their surrounding land use matrix, and offers opportunities for the planning and management of large tracts of countryside. An area of proposed substantial land use change in western England is studied in terms of its landscape ecological properties. Preliminary results are reviewed in terms of their potential land use implications.     

(重新)塑造景观:中国的人类干预景观遗产

景观作为一个整体代表了地球表面的一部分,包括导致其典型形态的所有影响因子和相互关联性。换句话说,景观可以被视为一个生态系统。自然景观被人类干预(通常是农民和农业)到一定程度,即成为文化景观,生态系统演变为农业生态系统,人在这个生态系统中是主要的生态因子。我们今天所看到的文化景观,尤其在中国,是9 000年甚至更长的历史长河中,在自然和人类相互的影响之下逐步地改变、影响或适应特定的生态因子后形成的。由此产生的文化景观反映出人与自然在悠久历史中的相互关系。由于农业必须有定居点的存在,因此典型的文化景观包括土地利用系统以及村庄和建筑。更重要的是,一种长期稳定的文化景观是可持续土地利用的结果,代表了一种内在的审美价值。经由人类活动导致的自然景观向文化景观的转变不应被看作是对自然或自然景观的破坏,而应被理解为对景观的(重新)塑造。取决于是否适合农业发展,文化景观在21世纪面临的发展趋势包括集约化或彻底遗弃。风景园林的任务即在这两种极端情形之间找到平衡点,提出发展理念,同时考虑文化景观的历史的和美学的价值。     

Analyzing public preferences concerning woodland development in rural landscapes in Scotland

This paper considers the decision-making aspects of a closer integration of woodlands with other land uses in rural landscapes in Scotland regarding their socio-economic components and in view of positive implications, which woodlands have for the environment. The research follows a semi-qualitative route and applies a quantitative method of Q-analysis to identify public attitudes towards landscapes by integrating ecological, socio-economic and aesthetic criteria. Some innovative perspectives on the areas of consensus and conflict between people, concerning the future development of rural areas are put forward. The research categorizes landscape preferences and preferences for woodlands, and shows that these preferences are complex. It arrives at a number of conclusions about the role of woodlands in landscape changes, adds to practical suggestions on policy and management decisions for transforming landscapes towards sustainability and suggests that woodland has an important role to play in the integration of aesthetic, ecological and socio-economic components in landscape management in Scotland.     

The role of land abandonment in landscape dynamics in the SPA ‘Encinares del río Alberche y Cofio, Central Spain, 1984–1999

Land use has changed dramatically over the last 30–40 years throughout the Mediterranean. Much of this change has been driven by shifts in agricultural and socio-economic policy. This paper explores landscape dynamics in the SPA ‘Encinares del río Alberche y Cofio’ Central Spain between 1984 and 1999 in an area of approximately 83,000 ha. Categorical land cover maps, derived from three (1984, 1991 and 1999) remotely sensed Landsat images, are analyzed using a suite of landscape pattern metrics, and a simple transition matrix model of landscape change is developed. As with other landscapes in the Mediterranean a key trend is that of the abandonment of agricultural land and its subsequent succession to scrubland and woodland. Although there were significant composition changes in the landscape over the study period configurational changes are less evident. The transition matrix model suggests that there were differences in landscape dynamics between 1984–1991 and 1991–1999—most importantly an increase in the rate of land abandonment is evident. The model predicts a steady state landscape containing a higher abundance of scrubland and woodland, and a corresponding decline in pastureland and cropland. Finally, the underlying socio-economic and other drivers of landscape change in the Encinares del río Alberche y Cofio and some of the implications of recent changes are discussed in terms of increased wildfire risk. Sustainable management of landscapes to protect biodiversity requires the type of study described here. A necessary pre-requisite of such management activities or planning is an assessment of changes in landscape pattern and process, the social and economic pressures driving them, and their possible effects on ecosystem structure and function.     

Temporal mapping of riparian landscape change on the Sacramento river,miles 196–218, California,USA

The middle Sacramento River is a low-gradient meandering sector in which vegetation patches are continuously created and destroyed within a complex landscape mosaic. The erosion and subsequent deposition of sediment begins a process of vegetation succession which continues until the meandering action of the river returns its course to that location. The objectives were: (1) to develop a methodology for photo-interpretation of land cover and canopy height using recent aerial photographs; (2) to validate the results of this methodology through field verification; and (3) to apply the methodology to a time sequence of historical aerial photographs to develop land cover maps to measure cumulative (gross) decadal changes. This research was carried out on a 31-km reach (|similar|6700 ha) of the Sacramento River that exhibits dynamic channel meandering behaviour. The results of the study suggest that the riparian landscape mosaic can change structure dramatically over the course of decades. Thus, conservation planning aimed at recovering threatened and endangered species should take these habitat changes into explicit consideration.     

Beyond the romantic and naı¨ve: the search for a complex ecological aesthetic design language for landscape architecture in New Zealand

Landscape design is an expression and repository of cultural values and beliefs, and in Aotearoa, New Zealand, the designed landscape faces particular challenges. Globalization is seen as a potential threat to landscape identity, which is even more significant for a country which has built its economy and self-image from its unique natural landscape. The potential for resistance is limited by the small size and youth of the profession of landscape architecture in New Zealand. While traditions of farming and gardening extend back to early European settlement in the mid nineteenth century, and beyond to indigenous Maori practices of land modification, professional landscape design is a relatively recent development (the first tertiary course in landscape architecture began at Lincoln College (now Lincoln University) in 1969). Landscape design in New Zealand draws its vocabulary from the power of the country's natural heritage landscapes, convinced that a naturalistic aesthetic exclusively represents environmental health. Some of the core values of New Zealand society are, however, overlooked by designers. The need to develop a critically informed design language which includes the farming landscape along with the natural one is argued. The invention of such a language, referred to as a complex ecological aesthetic, is seen as a potential source of design expression that is invigorated by the tension between mechanistic and natural landscape aesthetics. It therefore has the potential to promote environmental health, while being regionally grounded, and can help face the challenges that globilization poses to the landscape.     

Envisioning England: the visual in countryside writing in the 1930s and 1940s

The dust-jacket art, photographs and end-paper maps used in books published by B.T. Batsford Ltd in the 1930s and 1940s are examined. Drawing on work on landscape representation, publishing history and the history of geographic thought, the ways in which the visual arts associated with countryside writing constitute forms of popular geographic knowledge are explored. It is suggested that more attention should be paid to the ways in which some apparently non-academic, creative and imaginative processes of envisioning landscape inform, and are themselves informed by, an academic discourse—in this case geography—which continually asserts a claim to speak authoritatively of, and for, landscape.     

A question of value: What do trees and forests mean to people in Vermont?

What underlies conflict over natural resource management? This is a question that land managers are increasingly concerned with in their dealings with multiple publics who have diverse needs. The answer relates to the ways in which people value their surrounding environment and how they react to changes in the management of valued places that hold specific meanings for them. The questions considered for this research included: what are the values and meanings people associate with forest places in Vermont, USA and what role do forests play in the landscape of the state and in personal identity? The interpretive qualitative analysis approach taken in this research emphasizes how the ways in which people value forests are linked to wider issues of concern over well being, quality of life and cultural identity. Through the in-depth discussion groups and interviews undertaken, the diversity and complexity of the meanings people associate with the forested landscape of Vermont were explored. Respondents' views of forests and trees in Vermont revolved around four main themes: forests and personal well being, personal and community identity, conflict and confusion, and forest management. Key implications for managers and policy makers are identified from the results and are discussed, focusing specifically on public participation and opportunities for people to have contact with nature and develop a relationship with specific places.     

The role of the spatial dimension within the framework of sustainable landscapes and natural capital

A new paradigm of Natural Capital and Sustainable Landscapes has been suggested. It implies the integration of economic, environmental and social-cultural qualities in a physical setting while focusing on functions in terms of goods and services for people. Due to its anthropocentric perspective it pays less attention to landscape structure and spatial arrangement compared to the widely applied patch-matrix concept. The matrix of land use elements provides the key to understanding land use systems and land use changes and it can play an important role in understanding land use pattern and their dynamics. But one of the remaining constraints for a direct application of landscape ecological concepts in practice is the lack of agreed ways to combine environmental, socio-economic and societal/cultural views. This paper examines both paradigms, asking: does the spatial arrangement of land use types add specific qualities beyond statistical measures of their existence and quantity? For instance, can a landscape be sustainable, as long as 20% of the land use is extensive, 10% is protection area, etc., no matter where the respective patches are, which typical size and shape they have, how connected patches are and how often incompatible land use types are adjacent? This paper elucidates spatial concepts for sustainable landscapes with an emphasis on the role of GIS.     

Integrating landscape-based values—Norwegian monitoring of agricultural landscapes

An accumulating body of research identifies the importance of landscape structure for a wide range of countryside interests. Landscape structure reflects the results of policies and practices, and is well-suited as a target for management actions. New landscape metrics represent a potential for indicator-based management, provided such metrics relate consistently to the landscape values of interest. In this paper we propose that aspects of landscape structure, specifically heterogeneity, may be related to landscape-based values such as biodiversity, cultural heritage and human appreciation. Birds and vascular plants correlated well with our index for the heterogeneity of land types, whereas insects did not. Occurrence of prehistoric graves was also associated with land type heterogeneity, though other types of cultural remains were not. Landscape experience seems to be associated with the heterogeneity of landscape space rather than heterogeneity of land types. Different aspects of heterogeneity, scale, and variation over time all contribute to explain how our measures of landscape-based values vary in their relationship to landscape heterogeneity. Successful integration between disciplines in landscape studies depends on having a common operational framework, a shared theoretical basis, and a harmonised approach to data collection.     

Perceptions of ecological and aesthetic quality by natural resource professionals and local people. A qualitative exploration in a mountainous landscape (La Rioja,Spain)

This research analyses how aesthetic and ecological evaluations of the landscape studied overlap and interrelate in the attitudes of local people and natural resource professionals. The analytical framework adopted, built on Canter’s Theory of Place, explores the people–place relationship by examining the interaction of three components: physical attributes, conceptions and activities. The findings show that the two groups differed in how they ascribed meaning to landscape and how they interpreted its ecological and aesthetic qualities. Both groups expected managed landscape to appear well cared for and to some degree understood this appearance as a sign of good ecological management. However, while they shared a positive perception of some signs of care, they differed in their evaluation of other characteristics. Several implications for landscape management, especially in the detected areas of conflict and synergy, are identified.