Marc Antrop

• PhD
• Ghent University

Due to the multiplicity of challenges facing all societies at the beginning of the twenty-first century, agricultural systems and rural landscapes are under pressure. Solutions for their optimization towards sustainability at high productivity are required. We address the majority of current agricultural systems and discuss approaches for assessing...

Agricultural landscapes (rural landscapes, agrolandscapes) are territories shaped by agricultural production. They have enabled the development of human civilizations and are a cultural achievement. Peasants, farmers and agricultural enterprises feed society. They have created agricultural landscapes for their business and habitats for their life....

Landscape has etymologically multiple meanings, hence a wide variety of interpretations and approaches to study it. The word originated in Western Europe during the thirteenth century, denoting both a tract of land organized by people and its visual appearance. The way the land was organized and shaped created a distinct scenery. Therefore, the lan...

A new geological epoch has begun—the Anthropocene. Huge anthropogenic transformations of terrestrial landscapes over the past five decades have forced its declaration. Exploring of interaction of humans with nature in general, and with landscapes in particular, can be characterised properly by the terms ‘landscape research’ and ‘landscape science’....

Landscapes are dynamic and change continuously. The frequency, speed and magnitude of these changes vary from place to place. Some parts of the landscape may stay stable for long periods and witness from past situations. The landscape is a patchwork of time layers, like a palimpsest. Landscapes evolved over thousands of years and are marked by shor...

The landscape consists of elements, components and structures forming characteristic spatial configurations at different scale levels. Many of these are material, tangible objects we call building blocks and be grouped into a physical and a cultural system that interact. In a holistic system, both groups are equally important and are studied accord...

Very diverse phenomena compose the landscape, configuring complex patterns at different spatial scales. The properties of these patterns allow describing the transcendent and holistic qualities of the landscape, such as landscape heterogeneity, coherence, connectedness and diversity. Often methods and techniques are borrowed from different discipli...

The study of the landscape as an object of research started in Europe during the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The first pictorial representations of landscapes emphasized its visual character and scenery. A new style of garden design and urban planning emerged. The scientific research of landscape started with the systematic descriptions d...

The word landscape has multiple meanings in common language. It refers to a tract of land as well to its visual appearance. It used to denote a territory as well as historical and geographical regions and refers to an area shaped in a characteristic way by the people living in it. Landscape as scenery had an important influence on imagination and a...

The landscape is holistic, which is also referred to as ‘the whole is more than the sum of its composing parts’, and is related to the German concept of the Gestalt. Human perception also works by holistic Gestalt-principles and will be discussed in a separate chapter. The holistic principle means that the structural context of the composing elemen...

The authors use some historical narratives to illustrate how the concept of landscape implies a holistic nature that intimately links the real tangible world with its experience in the eye of the beholder. Holism makes that landscape can serve as an integrated concept between a wide variety of perspectives to study it. This is the basic idea of the...

The complexity of landscape and its multiple meanings make that it is conceptualized differently according to the approach followed: as a complex spatial system of phenomena in interaction, as a scene or image that can be described using rules of perception, and as an existential phenomenon with strong symbolic meanings and values. The bird’s-eye p...

The landscape is a source of inspiration in literature, visual arts and garden design and by extension of the creation of new landscapes. Visiting unknown landscapes brought new ‘incitements’ and new technologies brought new ways of seeing. Landscape art changed the concept of landscape. This is illustrated with the history of landscape painting an...

The landscape is common heritage, supports the environment we live in and affects our well-being. Several measures are proposed to take care of it. However, the responsibility and competence for landscape management, planning and protection is complex. Landowners have the most important territorial competence to make material changes. Authorities o...

The complex, varied and continuous landscape can be understood better when classified in types and spatial units. The classification process comprises three phases: identification, assessment and monitoring. Several methods for identifying and mapping landscape types and regions have been developed for different needs. Typologies classify landscape...

The concept landscape implies the perception by a human observer. People sense and experience their environment holistically, using all senses simultaneously. Gestalt-principles apply here. Various disciplines study landscape perception and the mental information processing resulting in mindscapes and adapted behaviour. Several theories have been f...

This paper aims at evaluating a method for objective visual assessment of constructions in the landscape based on saliency, which is defined as the distinct perceptual quality by which an item in the world stands out from its surroundings and therefore attracts attention (conspicuity). Photographic simulations of public facility buildings, water to...

We analyse if the visual exploration of landscape photographs is influenced by the urbanization level of the landscape and whether this is correlated with visual landscape complexity. We determine if differences in viewing behaviour are related to differences in complexity, expressed by the photograph's spectral entropy. An eye-tracking experiment...

In this study, we analyse how well saliency maps, which are theoretical predictions of the human viewing pattern, are correlated with human focus maps, obtained by tracking 42 observer's eyes while free-viewing landscape photographs ranging from rural to urban environments. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was calculated on the predicted and m...

Does expertise in landscape related issues influence the way landscapes are observed? In an eye tracking experiment 21 landscape experts and 21 laymen were asked to observe 74 landscape photographs, each for 10 s. Experts seemed to make significantly more fixations and saccades, had a longer scan path and a larger visual span than the laymen. As a...

Symbolic worlds of meaning – including ‘landscape’ – can be understood according to Berger and Luckmann (1966) as products of society. These are connected with history. In the German-speaking world, landscape, as such a symbolic world of meaning, has a large “semantic court” (Hard, 1969) of „associations, emotions and evocations” (Hard, 2002) as a...

The European Landscape Convention emphasises the need for public participation in landscape planning and management. This demands understanding of how people perceive and observe landscapes. This can objectively be measured using eye tracking, a system recording eye movements and fixations while observing images. In this study, 23 participants were...

•The essays are examples of an ecological and semiotic discourse on land abandonment in Europe.•How to manage vanishing traditional landscapes when the people who made them lost the practice?•In the context of landscape, reducing diversity to biodiversity alone is not an option.

Reconstruction of past topography is an essential step towards the understanding of past landscapes in terms of biophysical patterns and processes and man–landscape interactions by archaeologists, geomorphologists, geologists and soil scientists. Landscape reconstructions can be based on process knowledge, on data, or on a combination of both. In t...

In Europe, landscape research has a long tradition of drawing on several disciplines. ‘National schools’ of landscape research developed, which were related to the characteristic landscapes found in the different countries and to specific linguistic meanings and legal traditions when using landscape related concepts. International co-operation dema...

Full-coverage maps for several specific soil characteristics were produced at particular time-intervals over a time span of 12,716 years for a 584 km2 large study area located in Belgium. The pedogenetic process model SoilGen2 was used to reconstruct the evolution of several soil variables at specific depths in the soil profile at various point loc...

a b s t r a c t This paper presents new geo-archaeological perspectives on the Late Glacial and Early Holocene human occupation around a large palaeolake, the Moervaart palaeolake (w25 km 2). Intensive fieldwork, using invasive and non-invasive survey techniques, combined with modelling of the palaeotopography and palaeogroundwater and multi-proxy...

The department of Geography of Ghent University (Faculty of Sciences) acts as an important partner in a great number of archaeological projects. Each research group of the department is active in its own field of investigation and they work separately or together in many archaeological projects around the world. These research groups contribute to...

Based on radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) results obtained in the last 5 yr, this paper discusses the absolute chronology of the formation of one of the largest sand dunes within NW Belgium, the Great Ridge of Maldegem-Stekene. Multiproxy analysis of 6 sedimentary sequences points to a complex formation history covering the e...

Visual landscape research is an interdisciplinary approach important for landscape and urban planning. This field of research integrates: (1) landscape planning, design and management concepts, (2) landscape perception approaches, and (3) GISc-based methods and techniques in order to map the visual landscape. It offers possible ways of getting a gr...

This paper discusses the generation of a high precision DEM (Digital Elevation Model) based on high density airborne LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data for an interdisciplinary landscape archaeological study concerning the settlement history and environment in Sandy Flanders, a region to the north of Ghent (Belgium). The objective was to crea...

Field methods to map and reconstruct the morphology of buried river systems are highly dependent on spatial interpolation. Conventional methods, such as standard borehole survey, allow a detailed vertical reconstruction of the shallow subsurface but leave lateral connections between sample locations open to interpretation. Geophysical survey techni...

Some concern about the representation validity of photographs in visual landscape assessments has been expressed in literature. Mostly, studies consider one type of representation, using the mean ratings for only one preference variable, often scenic quality. Here, validity coefficients are calculated using several landscape preference variables. T...

The landscapes in Belgium are exceptional diverse due to the important variation of the physical and natural conditions as well as to the long multicultural and tormented history. Belgium became gradually a federal state which made it difficult to get overall views on matters that became by regional governance such as spatial planning and heritage...

Bronze Age barrows in the sandy areas of Flanders (north-western Belgium): state of research For 30 years now, Sandy Flanders is the subject of systematic and intensive aerial photographical surveys. The Bronze Age barrow research has yielded one of the major results with the discovery of several hundreds of monuments. Consequently, several barrow...

Abstract/summary: Within the framework of a multi-disciplinary research project at Ghent University, geophysical survey and coring was undertaken to map the palaeolandscape in order to gain more insight in the choice of settlement location by prehistoric man. The continued research in the area of the Moervaart palaeolakerevealed that part of the n...

For 30 years now, Sandy Flanders is the subject of systematic and intensive aerial photographical surveys. The Bronze Age barrow research has yielded one of the major results with the discovery of several hundreds of monuments. Consequently, several barrow sites have been further investigated during excavations. During the last few years, this data...

Intensive archaeological investigations in Sandy Flanders (Belgium) revealed sites dating from the Final Paleolithic to the Neolithic, showing a discontinuous spatial and temporal distribution. To improve the understanding of these occupational patterns, a paleolandscape reconstruction is proposed. A major problem in paleolandscape reconstruction i...

Most literature in landscape perception and preference has focused on aesthetic preference by (groups of) people. Factors that could influence the aesthetic preference, such as landscape dimensions and observer's background characteristics, are far less examined. This may be due to the increasing complexity of the dataset, when variation both in la...

Since the end of the last century, the focus in landscape policy is shifting from traditional top-down perspectives into a bottom-up and integrated approach involving participation of local stakeholders. Keywords in the European Landscape Convention (ELC) include participation and awareness-raising: the public should be involved and their aspiratio...

The homogenization and fragmentation of landscapes caused by intensive management is an increasing problem worldwide. Therefore, there is need for development of methods that help to improve sustainable management and maintain the identity of landscapes. We proposed that landscape coherence is the similarity between soil pattern (potential landscap...

The concept of 'landscape' has multiple meaning and is intrinsically holistic. Since the Renaissance period different ways of dealing with the landscape have developed, each with its own perspective, concepts and methods. Three groups can be recognized: the natural sciences (where landscape ecology has a leading role), the human sciences (with hist...

The increasing pace and scale of landscape change initiated a renewed interest in cultural and heritage values of the landscape. Efforts are made in inventorying, monitoring, and evaluating landscapes, needed for developing management and conservation plans, and also new concepts emerged. Landscape character became a new paradigm, as well as time d...

As positional error is a major issue in the assessment of spatial data quality, its propagation has been studied widely in map overlaying. However, few studies deal with a manifest consequence of positional error in map overlaying, namely sliver polygons. Sliver polygons are generally treated as awkward by-products that need to be removed quickly....

The new landscape typology of Belgium fits into the European Landscape Convention to characterise contemporary landscapes in a trans-regional and trans-border perspective. The method uses a combination of holistic and parametric approaches at two scale levels, resulting in two different landscape typologies. Four datasets covering Belgium were used...

This paper contributes to the conceptualisation and analysis of double-sided matching problems, taking the land use planning problem as an example. It does so by introducing functional classification theory at the knowledge level, the symbol level and the system level of a DSS. This theory explicitly expresses the methodological viewpoint of relati...

The prehistoric settlement and land-use systems in the area of Sandy Flanders are being studied in a multidisciplinary research project. In this article, some preliminary results of recent fieldwork along a major Late Glacial palaeolake, called the Depression of the Moervaart, is described, including the excavation of a trench in the deepest part o...

Aim of the paper is to outline an integrated methodology for deriving economic values of the different landscape components. Our approach integrates landscape ecology principles and non-market valuation methodologies. Firstly, we identify landscape types and quantify their attributes with 'metrics' (i.e., objective components) and use discrete choi...

Summary The prehistoric settlement and land-use systems in the area of Sandy Flanders are being studied in a multidisciplinary research project. In this article, some preliminary results of recent fieldwork along a major Late Glacial palaeolake, called the Depression of the Moervaart, is described, including the excavation of a trench in the deepes...

The aim of this overview paper is to analyze the use of various landscape metrics and landscape indices for the characterization of landscape structure and various processes at both landscape and ecosystem level. We analyzed the appearance of the terms landscape metrics/indexes/indices in combination with seven main categories in the field of lands...

The increasing pace and scale of landscape changes involve objective measurements in order to estimate the effects of changes on people's landscape preferences in a meaningful way. In the literature, some attempts have been made to provide a more conceptual base related to landscape preferences. These concepts and their indicators need to be tested...

Change is an essential property of landscape. The continuous interaction between natural processes and human activities defines different landscape dynamics. The general driving forces are well known, as well as the general trends of contemporary landscape transformation. Increased demand on mobility, industrialisation and urbanisation are related...

Settlement models and geographical site analysis contribute to the understanding of the ecological functioning of the landscape. In assessing land qualities, there is an increasing interest to include visibility analysis. The hypothesis is that settlements traditionally locate on places where the more fertile and intensively used grounds can easily...

For most people, their initial contact with the landscape is by the observation of landform and land cover. Human-perception analysis evaluates what is observed in a holistic way and interprets simultaneously according to the available knowledge. Landscape can be approached in multiple ways (Muir 1999, Cosgrove 2003, Claval 2005) and similar concep...

Since the federalisation of Belgium in 1993, the regions became responsible for spatial planning, environment and landscape protection. In Flanders region an inventory was made of the relics of the traditional landscapes from 1995 to 2001. The main objective was the assessment of the cultural and historical heritage values of the landscape, complem...

In order to preserve the overall landscape values in the Pajottenland, the province of Vlaams-Brabant initiated a campaign to raise awareness of local authorities and stakeholders and to stimulate co-coordinated actions. As very few scientific studies exist for the region, an interdisciplinary study was commissioned from the University of Ghent, in...

As landscapes change continuously in a more or less chaotic way, the concept of sustainable landscapes could be viewed as a utopian goal. New landscapes emerge with changing life-styles. Decision making for landscape planning, conservation and management use the concept of sustainability widely. To make it operational, many new associated and more...