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Landscape Dynamics and Evolution
Abstract
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 short periods of profound, revolutionary changes. The most important break with the past occurred during the Age of Revolution starting in the eighteenth century in western Europe. The break marks the transition from traditional landscapes to modern new ones, characterised by a profound change in attitude towards the environment, which is reflected in the landscape. The main driving forces of the changes are demography, economy, politics and natural calamities. Each of them drives characteristic processes: supply in natural resources, movement, urbanisation and industrialisation. These drivers act at different scales: in the past local and regional scales of action dominated, today the global scale has become so important that it is considered as a new driving force: globalisation, including climatic change. Special focus is given on the diffusion process of urbanisation, shaping most of the contemporary landscapes and where the majority of the population lives. Landscape biographies describe the evolution and history of local and regional landscapes. Time depth and landscape paths or trajectories are new concepts in the study of landscape dynamics.
... More recently, the term land-use transition (LUT) has had a greater citation burst in studies of LUD [2], being understood as any change in land-use systems from one state to another and in its dominant and recessive morphology, in the structural sense of LUD and its impacts [3]. In addition, the term change trajectories has also grown in use, associated with determining the sequence of transitions in longer time-series [4]. Regardless of the conceptual approach, the use of a parcel of land is linked to local and global environmental issues, making the knowledge of current and past trends of paramount importance. ...
... For example, on a global scale, agricultural production and growing urbanization are the main drivers of deforestation [8,18], but in Europe, forests are relatively stable and strong urbanization is causing a reduction in agriculture, while at the same time agricultural intensification of some species is a growing reality [19]. Because of recent LUD with complex geographies and disparate impacts, further studies on various scales are justified, to understand variations in frequency, magnitude and irreversibility [4]. The common spatial resolution of LUD studies ranges from world regions/multiple countries [10,20,21], national or similar [22][23][24], to sub-national or regional [25][26][27]. ...
Monitoring land-use patterns and its trends provides useful information for impact evaluation and policy design. The latest in-depth studies of land-use dynamics for continental Portugal are outdated, and have not examined how municipalities may be classified into a typology of observed dynamics or considered the trajectory profiles of land-use transitions. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the spatiotemporal dynamics of land-use in continental Portugal from 1995 to 2018. Our multi-scalar approach used land-use maps in geographic information systems with the following objectives: (i) quantify variations of land-use classes, (ii) assess the transitions between uses, and (iii) derive a municipal typology of land-use dynamics. The methodology employed involved calculating statistical indicators of land-use classes, transition matrices between uses and combinatorial analysis for the most common trajectory-profiles. For the typology, a principal component analysis was used for dimensionality reduction and the respective components were classified by testing several clustering techniques. Results showed that the land-use transitions were not homogeneous in space or time, leading to the growth of territorial asymmetries. Forest (Δ5%), water bodies (Δ28%) and artificial surfaces (Δ35%) had a greater expansion, as opposed to agricultural areas, which had the biggest decline (Δ-8%). Despite the decline of agricultural activities, olive-grove expansion (Δ7%) was a relevant dynamic, and in the case of forests, the increment of eucalyptus (Δ34%) replaced native species such as the maritime pine (Δ-20%). A land-use-dynamics typology was estimated, dividing continental Portugal into 11 clusters, which is informative for sectoral policies and spatial planning, as zonings in need of interventions tailored to their specificities. The findings are a contribution to the study of land-use dynamics in continental Portugal, presenting various challenges for sustainable land uses with regard to the urban system, forest management, food production, soil preservation, and ecosystem protection.
... For the purposes of this paper, we use a broad definition of landscape from the European Landscape Convention that is inclusive of both natural and cultural dimensions: 'an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors' (Council of Europe, 2000, p. 2). Given the extensive reach of human impact on our planet, the development of a landscape is often a multi-functional process where ecological processes interact with consequences of societal decision-making influenced by economic and political factors (Antrop & Van Eetvelde, 2017). ...
... The composition and pattern of land cover and land use within the landscape is a broad-scale experience of the individual, extending beyond their immediate locale. The perception of the composition and pattern of the landscape can be influenced by the social, economic and political experiences of the individual (Antrop & Van Eetvelde, 2017). For example, landscapes can be perceived as 'sacrifice lands' for improving people's living standards, where the landscape is substantially modified for the benefit of people's subsistence and livelihoods, especially in less developed nations (Rigg, 2004). ...
The perception of landscapes involves the process of categorising and differentiating surrounds according to sensory information and the experiences of individuals. Increasingly, due to the ubiquitous nature of virtual globe platforms, individuals are accessing visual information about their surrounding environment through satellite imagery. This investigation aims to examine how people’s perceptions of landscapes are changing when our experiences increasingly occur in digital space, altering the perception paradigm from one where individuals analyse direct objects to one where indirect objects are key in the formation of their perceptions. A case study in Chile, South America, is used to explore the influence of satellite imagery with 52 survey participants responding to questions about land use and land cover (LULC) patterns of the area, before and after, unstructured exploration of the region using Google Earth. The results indicate that satellite imagery is influencing how individuals perceive LULC patterns within their direct surroundings.
... ArcGIS overlay analysis of thematic maps, statistical analysis, or a combination of these two analyses are universally utilized [18,19]. Although relatively objective, parametric methods are highly dependent on the selection of the data, and are limited by differences in data sources, time, resolution, and scale [20][21][22]. When using this approach, it is important to capture, sort, and combine the available data sources [23,24]. ...
In recent decades, the role of heritage railways has gradually shifted from transportation, economy, and trade to tourism, culture, and ecology. The heritage railway landscape is experiencing multiple changes along with a value ambiguity problem. There is a need to comprehensively recognize this landscape in order to promote the transformations and monitor the changes. Inspired by Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), this paper adopts a two-scaled identification framework of landscape character types and areas of the Yunnan–Vietnam Railway (Yunnan section) by integrating holistic and parametric methods. At the regional scale, the landscape character was divided by five natural variables: landform, vegetation, hydrology, soil, and geology. At the corridor scale, the landscape character was classified by five natural and cultural variables: altitude, slope, aspect, land use, and heritage density. At these two scales, k-prototype cluster analysis and multiresolution segmentation (MRS) tool were used to identify landscape character types and areas. The results showed that there were 11 different landscape character types and 80 landscape character areas at the regional scale, and 12 different landscape character types and 58 landscape character areas at the corridor scale. Furthermore, the composition, area, and distribution of these landscape character types and areas were described. The results of this study can form a database for planning, management, and evaluation of the railway.
... In intensive agricultural landscapes, the predominant systems were technologically intensive grape and olive production systems (producción tecnificada) in Castilla-La Mancha Table 2). 4 Initial quotation marks denoting "traditional" rural landscape were used to reflect the historical and ongoing prevalence of dynamic changes (rather than static customs) (Antrop and Van Eetvelde, 2017;Denevan, 2001;Doolittle, 2000;Renes, 2015). Subsequent usage of "traditional" does not utilize quotation marks. ...
OBJECTIVE: This study’s goals are to identify broad-scale types of agricultural landscapes in Spain that are associated with intensification/disintensification and urbanization and then to use case studies to assess the types and extent of cross-landscape connectivity. It examines the social-ecological connectivity of environmental resources, resource users, and governance. The overarching purpose is to improve the understanding of socialecological connectivity in strengthening the sustainability-enhancing resilience of agricultural landscapes amid global agri-food changes.
METHODS: To pursue these goals, we conducted a structured literature review of publications to identify major types of agricultural landscapes in Spain that reflect intensification/disintensification and urbanization trends. Case studies of agricultural landscapes and connectivity were undertaken in the Madrid and Granada regions. These case studies used a structured interview with experienced professional experts in fields of social-ecological sustainability and agricultural landscapes in each region. Analyses including Latent Block Modelling were applied to interview results on types and extent of cross-landscape connectivity in both conventional and alternative agriculture.
RESULTS and CONCLUSIONS: The structured literature review identified the predominance of three types of broad-scale agricultural landscapes in Spain: intensive, “traditional” rural, and peri-urban/urban. Analysis of case-study results revealed variation of the extent and structure of connectivity among clusters of landscape interactions and social-ecological factors. Landscape-level connectivity created both negative agricultural impacts (e.g., extensive water transfers and nutrient pollution in conventional agriculture) and positive impacts (e.g., knowledge system and seed exchanges in alternative agriculture). Interactions of alternative agricultural systems in peri-urban/urban and “traditional” rural landscapes have benefitted from cross-landscape connectivity amid accelerated agricultural change.
SIGNIFICANCE: Research and policy on the landscape-level connectivity of agricultural systems are needed to strengthen sustainability-enhancing resilience of both conventional and alternative agriculture. This study’s approach and results are a strategic complement to existing emphasis on within-landscape cycles of socialecological factors in alternative agriculture. This study’s insights are important in the transition phases of
alternative agriculture and associated food systems amid changes due to agricultural intensification/disintensification and urbanization. Understanding selective cross-landscape connectivity is important for spatial approaches to strengthen the sustainability-enhancing resilience of agricultural systems.
... One of the factors that seem to have played a major role in agricultural change over the last 60 years in Europe is the mechanization of agriculture which favors lowlands and productive plains and marginalizes less productive areas (Antrop & Van Eetvelde, 2017;Jepsen et al., 2015;Petanidou et al., 2008a). The CAP, another significant driver of change for countries of the European Union, has also impacted landscape dynamics on many Mediterranean islands in a different way than mainland areas (Tzanopoulos et al., 2007;Vogiatzakis et al., 2008). ...
The agricultural landscape of Mediterranean islands has transformed radically over the last 60 years. The results differ, due to the interplay of macro, national, and local factors for each setting. In this study, some of these trajectories of change are examined for the island of Lemnos in Greece, using remote sensing and oral history techniques. The first aim is to present the changes in and of the agricultural landscape of Lemnos, applying quantitative and qualitative methods, in order to capture different aspects of those changes. The second aim is to identify the socioeconomic factors that underlie landscape changes or lack of, using local knowledge and perception of the landscape. Land cover maps were produced by aerial photographs using additional texture features, for 1960, 1980, and 2002, through object-oriented image analysis (OBIA). Interviews and a workshop with local actors were used to validate and understand different change trajectories, and to identify the factors behind these changes. Results show that although grasslands have increased, revealing a process of extensification of agriculture in the study area, change has affected a small proportion of the landscape. This process is backed by information revealed through qualitative methods, as migration of labor power in the 1960s and mechanization of the agricultural sector in the late 1970s and early 1980s have been the main factors of the transformation of the agricultural sector in Lemnos, resulting in bigger mixed crop-livestock farms and the abandonment of marginal areas. The results of these processes are discussed in the context of agricultural change in the Mediterranean.
... While both approaches are prone to a certain degree of subjectivity, the latter approach is very time efficient and better to handle inconsistencies in data, such as changing legends in topographic maps or variation in quality and spatial resolution of aerial photographs, which can obstruct quantification of changes. Different models can be used to analyse historical data on land cover and land use changes, such as snapshot, base state and space-time composite models, such as time-depth analysis or landscape change trajectory analysis for further examples see (Antrop and Van Eetvelde, 2017b). The landscape change trajectory approach can be used to identify typical trajectories of change and/or persistency along temporal series of data (Ruiz and Domon, 2009). ...
Counting for as much as 6% of Earth’s terrestrial surface, military land use constitutes an important share of human land use. Yet, only few studies analyse the general impact of military land use on landscape and biodiversity. This article presents a countrywide study of land use, land use change and biodiversity content on all Danish defence sites larger than 10 ha, comprising roughly 40,000 ha or 1% of the Danish terrestrial area. Based on interpretation of historical maps, land use history was analysed for the period from the 1870′s to the present. Furthermore, available national data were applied to assess present land use and biodiversity content within and in the surrounding of defence sites. The historical analysis revealed six typical trajectories of land use change. In terms of total area, the two most important were conservation of open, semi-natural habitat types (47%) and change from agriculture to open, semi-natural habitat types (34%). Results also show, that for sites characterised by these two land use change trajectories, present proportions of open semi-natural habitats as well as biodiversity contents are significantly higher within the sites compared to their surroundings. It is concluded that military land use in most cases had a significant beneficial impact on present day land cover composition and biodiversity.
Os factores-chave e a agenda política, associados tanto com a globalização como com a transformação da paisagem rural, são identificados e revistos. È apresentada uma tipologia de paisagem, baseada no equilíbrio entre intensidade de produção e a influência da urbanização. Os dois principais factores de mudança da política global, as agendas de mercado e da sustentabilidade, são descritos, e a sua influência nas paisagens rurais discutida. Seis exemplos de paisagens agrícolas de diferentes países e situações são analisadas e os padrões de transformação que caracterizam estas paisagens são revistos. Há convergência entre paisagens com condições similares de produção, entre as diferentes regiões e países. Argumenta-se que as duas agendas políticas influenciam de forma desigual os diferentes tipos de paisagem. São revistas brevemente as recentes iniciativas políticas e é proposta uma abordagem baseada na identificação de uma combinação óptima de políticas para os quatro diferentes tipos de paisagem.
This expanded and revised fourth edition of The Geography of Transport Systems provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the field with a broad overview of its concepts, methods and areas of application. Aimed mainly at an undergraduate audience, it provides an overview of the spatial aspects of transportation and focuses on how the mobility of passengers and freight is linked with geography. The book is divided in ten chapters, each covering a specific conceptual dimension, including networks, modes, terminals, freight transportation, urban transportation and environmental impacts, and updated with the latest information available. The fourth edition offers new material on the issues of transport and the economy, city logistics, supply chains, security, energy, the environment, as well as a revised content structure. With over 160 updated photographs, figures and maps, The Geography of Transport Systems presents transportation systems at different scales ranging from global to local and focuses on different contexts such as North America, Europe and East Asia. This volume is an essential resource for undergraduates studying transport geography, as well as those interested in economic and urban geography, transport planning and engineering. A companion web site, which contains additional material, has been developed for the book and can be found here: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/.
This publication provides a sober and revealing analysis of weather-related disaster trends over a twenty year time-frame which coincides with a period which has seen the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties become an established high-profile annual fixture on the development calendar. The contents of this report underline why it is so important that a new climate change agreement emerges from the COP21 in Paris in December.
The report demonstrates that since the first Climate Change Conference (COP1) in 1995, 606,000 lives have been lost and 4.1 billion people have been injured, left homeless or in need of emergency assistance as a result of weather-related disasters. It also highlights data gaps, noting that economic losses from weather-related disasters are much higher than the recorded figure of US250 billion and US$300 billion annually.
Whilst agricultural landscapes are products of the local ecosystem and community in which they are situated, they are becoming increasingly affected by the same global issues, and are converging under the dynamics of globalisation. Combining landscape ecological research and an examination of relevant public policy, this book investigates the dynamic relationship between agricultural landscapes and the global change processes, such as urbanisation, by which they are being transformed. Landscape change is analysed in the context of biophysical patterns, market dynamics, and specific public policy frameworks, through a series of case studies from different OECD countries spanning Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. Particular emphasis is placed upon the way that landscapes are changing under differing policies of agricultural subsidy including the EU Common Agricultural Policy. This is an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers in landscape ecology and agriculture as well as policy analysts working in the agricultural sector.
Despite its common cultural heritage, Europe is the continent in which there is greatest diversity. This diversity, as well as the distribution of people and wealth, goes back a long way in history. The geography of the industrial revolution and the process of formation of nation states can only be understood when looked at in terms of a continuation of mediaeval Europe and of the formation of the economic mercantilist system, concentrated in Western Europe. Pre-industrial urban population density was a major factor in the subsequent differentiation. The Communist interlude in Central and Eastern Europe is ending up with the reintegration on a peripheral and semi-peripheral basis of this part of the continent into the world economy and the revival of acute nationalism. The extent of the disparity in economic terms between this area and Western Europe is a particularly daunting challenge, given the fact that the populations in Centre-Eastern and Eastern Europe share the same identity and references points as those in Western Europe. Europe, regional diversity, spatial production, population pattern, towns
The primary agent: two farmers in the same global space When the young Danish dairy farmer, Svend Petersen, completed the last round of his large cowshed on a dark November night in 2007, New Zealand farmer Gordon Grey of the same age had just started his working day by checking the operation of his centre pivot irrigator. The two farmers are, as individuals and as members of two distinct societies, of course different. At this particular point in time their immediate situations were also quite different - Petersen was working indoors with dark, cold and wet weather outside, whereas Grey was enjoying an early spring morning. Despite these practical differences the two farmers shared a number of common conditions. They both had smiles on their faces, as milk prices on the open global market had risen over the previous year and they had each received substantial increases in payments per kilogram of milk. Both farmers deliver their milk to dairy cooperatives which are among the largest multinational dairy corporations in the world. They are part of a global food network driven by corporate marketing strategies and benefit from economies of scale, but neither farmer has any influence on how their milk will be processed. At this moment in time they are also competitors, but it is quite possible that they may become partners, as the two companies are cooperating and may merge in the future.
In the recent extensive literature on European cultural landscapes, much attention is given to regional variation. Less interest seems to be given to history. Ecologists in particular often use the ‘traditional landscapes’ model, which suggests a slow and gradual development of the man-made landscape, leading to a ‘climax’ during the 19th century. In that vision, landscape change sped up around 1900, after which time most landscapes underwent a process of rapid transformation. In this paper, I criticise the distinction between a stable pre-1900 and a dynamic post-1900 history, particularly by emphasising the flawed vision of a stable past. Developments in the past could be—and have often been—quick and intensive. The paper highlights the importance of historical research in landscape studies.
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 and processes that are mainly
driven by global economical forces. They cause a polarisation of geographical
space in more intensively used core areas and vast areas of marginalisation and
even land abandonment. Landscape changes accordingly. However, at the local
level the response to these forces can be very different. Based on detailed case
studies in different rural areas in Europe, mechanisms of transformation could be
recognised. They relate to functional changes in the land use, mainly caused by
actors who possess the spatial competence, i.e. the landowners, and rarely
planned, gradually and stepwise causing a structural transformation of the
landscape. Examples of changing farming practices and residential housing are
discussed briefly.
Keywords: landscape change, processes, sustainability, local scale.
1 Introduction
This paper describes some actual processes that change landscapes at the local
scale. Change is considered as an essential property of landscape dynamics. This
is also a basic element in the definition of landscape in the European Landscape
Convention by the Council of Europe [1].
\“ ‘Landscape’ means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the
result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors” (Chapter I,
article 1).
Agricultural landscape sustainability is affected by combinations of agricultural developments and various forms of urbanisation. This paper analyses how public policy, including spatial planning, has responded over time and affected these two drivers which intersect in various ways depending on the regional context and local conditions. Using data from recent Danish studies, the paper shows how a large proportion of farmers perceive their farm more as a living place than as a production place. Most of these farmers are hobby farmers with an urban income who have moved from an urban setting to the rural landscape. As such, these hobby farmers represent a form of urbanisation, usually termed ‘counter-urbanisation’, and they manage the landscape differently to full-time farmers, while they also affect demand for land and thus price levels. Furthermore, long-term and recent developments in public policy as responses to changing agricultural landscapes are analysed and discussed. With a focus on counter-urbanisation, the paper discusses how agricultural policies, environmental policies and spatial planning policies are poorly integrated and—when viewed together—fail to respond to the intersecting dynamics of agricultural developments and urbanisation. The paper proposes a collaborative landscape planning approach to ensure policy integration and to promote agricultural landscape sustainability.
With the increasing complexity of landscape issues and a paradigm shift towards holistic approaches, there is a crucial need to understand both the human and physical dynamics of landscapes and their interactions. From a holistic perspective, the landscape can be viewed as the combined result of dynamic interactions between land and individual. Based on this view of the landscape, this paper develops an approach based on the concept of landscape trajectory. Landscape trajectory is proposed as an intrinsic landscape characteristic, describing the nature of the interactions between physical and human dynamics. It recognizes three types of landscape trajectories: (i)
This paper uses the concepts of human carrying capacity and natural capital to argue that prevailing economic assumptions regarding urbanization and the sustainability of cities must be revised in light of global ecological change. While we are used to thinking of cities as geographically discrete places, most of the land "occupied' by their residents lies far beyond their borders. In effect, through trade and natural flows of ecological goods and services, all urban regions appropriate the carrying capacity of distant "elsewhere', creating dependencies that may not be ecologically or geopolitically stable or secure. The global competition for remaining stocks of natural capital and their productive capacity therefore explains much of the environment-development related tension between North and South. Such macro-ecological realities are often invisible to conventional economic analyses yet have serious implications for world development and sustainability in an era of rapid urbanization and increasing ecological uncertainty. -from Author
This is the first report of patterns of population change during the 1980s in the major urban regions of the European Union (of 12), using the results of the 1990 census round (or registration data where no census was taken). There is evidence of a substantial breakup of the previous regular pattern of decentralisation, which had been spreading from northern to southern European cities and from the largest to the medium-sized cities. During the 1980s there was a significant degree of recentralisation in many northern European cities, with nearly half of all core cities gaining population. The evidence presented here is consistent with arguments advanced in an earlier paper which suggested that such a change of patterns should be anticipated. There does not appear to be a complete reversal of previous patterns, however. Some urban regions continue to decentralise and decline; others are declining but experiencing relative recentralisation. The pattern is that there is now a greater variation in patterns. Cities which are experiencing the most relative recentralisation show that they are not a random group. They have characteristics consistent with the causal analysis which is presented. The plausibility of general, rather than particularistic explanations, is made greater by the very similar change of trends recently reported for US cities.
This paper develops a theoretical foundation for the notion of differential urbanization, in which groups of large, intermediate-sized, and small cities go through successive periods of fast and slow growth in a continuum of development that spans the evolution of urban systems in developed and less developed countries. A model depicting net migration patterns over time for major metropolitan, intermediate-sized, and small urban areas identifies six stages of differential urbanization. Data from three countries that span the development spectrum are used to test the accuracy of this model. A distinction between mainstream and substream migration flows provides an indicator of the concurrent concentration and deconcentration forces shaping urban systems. Counterurbanization represents the final phase in the first cycle of urban development, and is followed by a second cycle in which urbanization and spatial concentration dominate once again. At advanced levels of urbanization, the model can be used to characterize the degree of development within regions or subregions of a country. Also, precise definitions are suggested for the “clean break,” the end of urbanization, and the beginnings and ends of polarization reversal and counterurbanization.
This paper seeks to examine the ways in which the process of social change is affecting the countryside and is suggesting a framework through which the spatial order involved might be viewed. An attempt is made to break away from the more traditional frameworks as exemplified by the rural-urban dichotomy and continuum models. In contrast to the more familiar morphological and landscape approach emphasis is placed upon socio-economic structure, behaviour, and value systems. Changes in these systems manifest themselves through the concepts of population, depopulation, and repopulation. Although these are universal the differences that do exist from place to place are a reflection of both social and spatial selectivity.
This article uses the concepts of human carrying capacity and natural capital to develop a framework to evaluate a city’s ‘ecological footprint’. It argues that prevailing economic assumptions regarding urbanisation and the sustainability of cities must be revised in light of global ecological change.
Peri-urban areas are usually a heterogeneous mosaic of rural, urban and natural systems which are quite dynamic across time. In this paper we contrast a static and a dynamic-based classification of local administrative units (LAU) in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA) to gain further insights onto the current land cover patterns and recent land cover changes in urban and peri-urban areas of the LMA. Using 16 landscape pattern indicators, we characterized the 211 LAU in the region contrasting a static (2006 data) and a dynamic-based (changes during the period 1990–2006) approach, and used cluster analyses to identify LAU typologies. Using the static approach we identified seven types of LAU, of which two were clearly urban, two could be considered rural, and three could be considered peri-urban. These latter could be distinguished among themselves by the landscape matrix type where urban areas were inserted. The dynamic-based approach yielded five types of LAU with specific trajectories in time, ranging from stable to highly dynamic. The frequency of the different dynamic typologies was not independent from the static ones, with typically urban areas being predominantly stable and rural areas having characteristic and exclusive trajectories of change. Peri-urban LAU were mostly moderately dynamic but shared a typology profile mixing highly dynamic LAU with moderately dynamic and stable ones. The combination of a static and dynamic view provides added value for the formulation of spatial planning policies in peri-urban areas.
This is the first book to look comprehensively at both the biology of English woodlands and at the part they have played in human affairs. Focussed on woodlands of over 500 years of age, the volume draws on many detailed examples from East Anglia. Having reviewed the principal sources of woodland history, chapters on woodland soils, flowering plants and tree communities illustrate the variety of detail within woods. There are accounts of the prehistory and history of woodlands, their management and products, the wood-pasture system, and the way in which the use and management of woodlands have related to wider economic and social issues. Almost half the text is devoted to an explanation of the character and development of oak, elm, lime and other distinctive woodland- types, and to the histories of the beech and birch trees in England. -J. Sheail
Landscape Assessment in England in its modern sense has origins in the late 1980s, following unsuccessful attempts to produce objective, quantified methods (Countryside Commission 1987; 1993; Countryside Agency & Scottish Natural Heritage 2002). More broadly, the method can be carried back to the 1940s and 1950s and the creation of the first UK protected areas, known in UK legislation as National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty using criteria of ‘specialness’, perceived naturalness and aesthetic quality. Going back further, there is a long English tradition of landscape assessment based on the aesthetic values of landscape; this included interest in consciously designed high status ornamental landscape. For some heritage managers and planners, ‘landscape’ still seems to mean only ‘natural’ or ‘designed’ landscape.
Urban models represent valuable pedagogic tools for teaching and learning in urban geography. This article is the first in a series of three that employ urban models to assist teachers and students in understanding the major agents and processes involved in the construction and reconstruction of contemporary urban environments. The article focuses attention on cities of the Developed World and provides critical analyses of urban models formulated on the basis of the major theoretical perspectives of urban ecology, political economy, humanism and post-modernism.
Throughout history the W intellect has increasingly tried to assign causes to events rather than attribute the responsibility for them to individuals. Self has consequently been treated as a dependent variable and geographers have treated the individual as a force having no responsibility for the landscape which he serves. A logic and a method are needed to assert the decisive role of the individual in the making and meaning of the landscpae. The geography of landscape attempts to identify key individuals and thousands of lesser figures who have left their mark on every landscape.-C.A.Middleton
Multi functionality is a concept of current fashion but of application as old as mankind. The concept risks remaining an empty box without clarifying its role in the sustainability debate. The basic task for applied landscape ecology and related sciences should be the providing of guidelines in the development of multifunctional "neo-rural" land. This land carries production, protection and life qualities across current functional and sector interpretations. New insights in multifunctionality should give inspiration for alternative ways of landscape classification, methods and projects. Since there are already many disciplines and models of multi functionality, there is room for expanded transdisciplinary interpretations of landscapes of the future.
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.
The understanding of cultural landscapes in Europe is a scientific process that is developing from a qualitative approach towards a quantitative one. Traditional landscape classifications are qualitative and intuitive. Quantitative classification methods from ecology can be used to improve our understanding of landscape character. The ITE land classification that has been developed in the 1960s and 1970s appears to be a sound basis for European approaches. Variables differ on different scale levels from climate at the highest to land cover at the lowest level. The hierarchy of a European classification can be used to stratify diversity patterns in Europe. Biodiversity, land use products and land use impacts is at the species level linked with biogeographical divisions of Europe. At the ecosystem level it is linked with land classes and its landscape diversity is found at the level of land use and management.
The objective of this study is to better understand the complexity of deforestation processes in southern Cameroon by testing a multivariate, spatial model of land-cover change trajectories associated with deforestation. The spatial model integrates a spectrum of independent variables that characterize land rent on a spatially explicit basis. The use of a time series of high-spatial-resolution remote sensing images (Landsat MSS and SPOT XS), spanning two decades, allows a thorough validation of spatial projections of future deforestation. Remote sensing observations reveal a continuous trend of forest clearing and forest degradation in southern regions of Cameroon, but with a highly fluctuating rate. A significant proportion of the areas subject to a land-cover conversion experienced other changes in the following years. The study also demonstrates that modeling land-cover change trajectories over several observation years allows a better projection of areas with a high probability of change in land-cover than projecting such areas on the basis of observations from the previous time period alone. Statistical results suggest that, in our southern Cameroon study area, roads mostly increased the accessibility of the forest for migrants rather than providing incentives for a transformation of local subsistence agriculture into market-oriented farming systems. The spatial model developed in this study allows simulations of likely impacts of human actions, leading to a transformation of the landscape (e.g., road projects) on key landscape attributes (e.g., biodiversity). Currently, several road projects or major logging concessions exist in southern Cameroon.
Traditional landscapes are changing with increasing speed and an important cultural heritage is becoming lost. New landscapes replace the traditional ones gradually or sometimes abruptly. This article analyzes the characteristics and mechanisms of landscape changes at a settlement level, by using case studies in the countryside of southern France where landscapes are in transition between new residential urbanization and land abandonment. Structural changes in land use, building and field patterns between two time periods are studied using aerial photographs covering a period from 1960 to 1999. The photographs were scanned to allow on screen digitalization and interpretation of selected features and details, which were consecutively mapped and analyzed in a GIS. Changes observed on the aerial photographs were compared with the population statistic and the accessibility of the place. All cases show very different and unique trajectories of change with complex interactions between different driving forces. Agricultural intensification and land abandonment act simultaneously with different forms of urbanization in the countryside. Although easily recognizable on the aerial photographs, a quantitative assessment of the changes in the different structural components remains difficult and the results can hardly be related to changes in population characteristics and accessibility. Consequently, structural and morphological changes observed on the aerial photographs lead to other interpretations of the underlying functional processes than the statistical data do.
The study characterizes historical land-use change and the development of semi-natural grassland habitats, over 274 years, within a mosaic agricultural landscape (22km2) on the island of Öland (Sweden). We also explore the relationship between previous land-use, habitat continuity and present-day vascular plant species richness in grassland patches. Land-cover maps, based on cadastral maps and aerial photographs, were produced for six time-periods between 1723/1733 and 1994/1997. In 1723/1733, the landscape was dominated by grasslands, with arable land surrounding the villages. The grassland area decreased throughout the study period and grassland patches became progressively more fragmented. Present-day grasslands represent 18% of the grassland area in 1723/1733. The land-use structure of the early 18th century is still evident in the modern landscape. The majority of the present-day grasslands are situated on former common grazing land and have had a continuity of at least 274 years: the remaining grasslands are younger and developed during the 20th century on arable or forested land. The proportion of plant species that depend on grazing and are characteristic of semi-natural grasslands significantly reflects the continuity and previous land-use of grassland sites. The study illustrates the way in which information on historical land-use and habitat continuity can help to explain the structuring of plant assemblages in semi-natural grasslands within the modern landscape.
Although the importance of knowledge about past landscapes has already been stressed in Landscape and Urban Planning, there are still gaps in how this knowledge can be identified and best put to use in landscape planning and management. Two major gaps cited by many researchers are those between ecological and cultural approaches to study and those between empirical and theoretical studies of landscape. There might be two ways to narrow these gaps. One of these is the landscape biographical approach that is now developing in several European countries, particularly in The Netherlands. Another way is a recently demonstrated path dependency approach, which asserts that previous activities in the landscape will influence the subsequent sequence of events. In this essay we discuss these two approaches and how they might be of help in the context of research on periurban landscapes.
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 depth and landscape change trajectory or path. Also, the use of landscape indicators for describing character and assessing changes has been widely tested. In Flanders, the rich landscape diversity is degrading rapidly due to extreme urban pressure and severe fragmentation by transport infrastructures. In this study a series of spatial data layers was used to describe and map the transformation of landscape character. Historical topographical maps and orthophotomaps from different periods were used to define landscape character types, which were mapped as polygons in a GIS. Map overlaying allowed analyzing the time depth and landscape constancy. The landscape character types were used as patches for the spatial and structural analysis and defining indicators of character change. A selection of class and landscape-based landscape metrics were used as such indicators, as well as the openness of the landscape. This selection was based upon the presumed relationship between the indicator and perceivable (visual) properties relating to landscape character. The landscape indicators express change very differently and several indicators are necessary to assess changes in the landscape character.