Landscape ecology is in a position to become the scientific basis for sustainable landscape development. When spatial planning policy is decentralised, local actors need to collaborate to decide on ...the changes that have to be made in the landscape to better accommodate their perceptions of value. This paper addresses two prerequisites that landscape ecological science has to meet for it to be effective in producing appropriate knowledge for such bottom-up landscape-development processes--it must include a valuation component, and it must be suitable for use in collaborative decision-making on a local scale. We argue that landscape ecological research needs to focus more on these issues and propose the concept of landscape services as a unifying common ground where scientists from various disciplines are encouraged to cooperate in producing a common knowledge base that can be integrated into multifunctional, actor-led landscape development. We elaborate this concept into a knowledge framework, the structure-function-value chain, and expand the current pattern-process paradigm in landscape ecology with value in this way. Subsequently, we analyse how the framework could be applied and facilitate interdisciplinary research that is applicable in transdisciplinary landscape-development processes.
Context
In recent years,
landscape sustainability
, the maintenance and improvement of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being in landscapes, has become a core objective of ...conservation initiatives. Yet efforts to promote sustainability often conflict with other landscape objectives. Globally, integrated landscape approaches have emerged as desirable processes for reconciling these conflicts. Integrated landscape approaches seek to foster improvements in landscape-scale governance to meet sustainability objectives.
Objectives
As scientific and political support for these new landscape approaches continues to advance internationally, there is a need to learn from the processes, constraints, and opportunities. We seek to enrich understandings of landscape approaches and their contributions to governance and sustainability through conserving biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services.
Methods
Focusing on eight case studies at different stages of development in Indonesia, we explore how practitioners influence landscape sustainability through integrated approaches. We used questionnaires and literature to collect information on objectives, attributes and challenges of landscapes approaches.
Results
We find landscape approaches in Indonesia closely reflect guidance principles. Emerging lessons from landscapes include adapting strategies to local priorities for inclusive problem-framing and engaging in nested learning systems. Aligning landscape actions with policy for coherent governance across scales remains a key challenge.
Conclusions
Creating and maintaining governance that supports landscape sustainability is a core principle of landscape approaches. Establishing institutional arrangements for landscape sustainability will require working across legislative and political boundaries for coordinated action. We highlight the need to document and measure impact, and the potential for future learning from landscape sustainability science.
▸ Stakeholders can express multiple perceptions on the land through mapping landscape service indicators. ▸ Participatory mapping creates stakeholder knowledge of landscapes into spatial form. ▸ ...Participation in landscape service assessments is crucial for bottom-up management. ▸ It is also necessary in order to capture the non-utilitarian value of landscapes. ▸ We suggest that place-based local knowledge should be institutionalised in the planning.
The evaluation of landscape services essentially deals with the complex and dynamic relationships between humans and their environment. When it comes to landscape management and the evaluation of the benefits these services provide for our well-being, there is a limited representation of stakeholder and intangible values on the land. Stakeholder knowledge is essential, since disciplinary expert evaluations and existing proxy data on landscape services can reveal little of the landscape benefits to the local stakeholders. This paper aims at evaluating the potential of using local stakeholders as key informants in the spatial assessment of landscape service indicators. A methodological approach is applied in the context of a rural village environment in Tanzania, Zanzibar, where local, spatially sensitive stakeholder knowledge is crucial in solving land management challenges as the resources are used extensively for supporting community livelihoods and are threatened by economic uses and agricultural expansion. A typology of 19 different material and non-material, cultural landscape service indicators is established and, in semi-structured interviews, community stakeholders map these indicators individually on an aerial image. The landscape service indicators are described and spatially analysed in order to establish an understanding of landscape level service structures, patterns and relationships.
The results show that community involvement and participatory mapping enhance the assessment of landscape services. These benefits from nature demonstrate spatial clustering and co-existence, but simultaneously also a tendency for spatial dispersion, and suggest that there is far more heterogeneity and sensitivity in the ways the benefits are distributed in relation to actual land resources. Many material landscape service indicators are individually based and spatially scattered in the landscape. However, the well-being of communities is also dependent on the non-material services, pointing out shared places of social interaction and cultural traditions. Both material and non-material services are preferred closest to settlements where the highest intensity, richness and diversity are found. Based on the results, the paper discusses the role of local stakeholders as experts in landscape service assessments and implications for local level management processes. It can be pointed out that the integration of participatory mapping methods in landscape service assessments is crucial for true collaborative, bottom-up landscape management. It is also necessary in order to capture the non-utilitarian value of landscapes and sensitivity to cultural landscape services, which many expert evaluations of landscape or ecosystem services fail to do justice.
The future of humanity depends on whether or not we have a vision to guide our transition toward sustainability, on scales ranging from local landscapes to the planet as a whole. Sustainability ...science is at the core of this vision, and landscapes and regions represent a pivotal scale domain. The main objectives of this paper are: (1) to elucidate key definitions and concepts of sustainability, including the Brundtland definition, the triple bottom line, weak and strong sustainability, resilience, human well-being, and ecosystem services; (2) to examine key definitions and concepts of landscape sustainability, including those derived from general concepts and those developed for specific landscapes; and (3) to propose a framework for developing a science of landscape sustainability. Landscape sustainability is defined as the capacity of a landscape to consistently provide long-term, landscape-specific ecosystem services essential for maintaining and improving human well-being. Fundamentally, well-being is a journey, not a destination. Landscape sustainability science is a place-based, use-inspired science of understanding and improving the dynamic relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes under uncertainties arising from internal feedbacks and external disturbances. While landscape sustainability science emphasizes place-based research on landscape and regional scales, significant between landscape interactions and hierarchical linkages to both finer and broader scales (or externalities) must not be ignored. To advance landscape sustainability science, spatially explicit methods are essential, especially experimental approaches that take advantage of designed landscapes and multi-scaled simulation models that couple the dynamics of landscape services (ecosystem services provided by multiple landscape elements in combination as emergent properties) and human well-being.
Context
Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) exports from rural landscapes can cause eutrophication of inland and coastal waters. Few studies have investigated the influence of the spatial configuration ...of nutrient sources—i.e. the spatial arrangement of agricultural fields in headwater catchments—on N and P exports.
Objectives
This study aimed to (1) assess the influence of the spatial configuration of nutrient sources on nitrate (NO
3
−
) and total phosphorus (TP) exports at the catchment scale, and (2) investigate how relationships between landscape composition (% agricultural land-use) and landscape configuration vary depending on catchment size.
Methods
We analysed NO
3
−
and TP in 19 headwaters (1–14 km², Western France) every two weeks for 17 months. The headwater catchments had similar soil types, climate, and farming systems but differed in landscape composition and spatial configuration. We developed a landscape configuration index (LCI) describing the spatial organisation of nutrient sources as a function of their hydrological distance to streams and flow accumulation zones. We calibrated the LCI’s two parameters to maximise the rank correlation with median concentrations of TP and NO
3
−
.
Results
We found that landscape composition controlled NO
3
−
exports, whereas landscape configuration controlled TP exports. For a given landscape composition, landscape spatial configuration was highly heterogeneous at small scales (< 10 km
2
) but became homogeneous at larger scales (> 50 km
2
).
Conclusions
The spatial configuration of nutrient sources influences TP but not NO
3
−
exports. An ideal placement of mitigation measures to limit diffuse TP export should consider both the hydrological distance to streams and flow accumulation zones.
The reconstruction of society after conflict is complex and multifaceted. This book investigates this theme as it relates to cultural heritage through a number of case studies relating to European ...wars since 1864. The case studies show in detail how buildings, landscapes, and monuments become important agents in post-conflict reconstruction, as well as how their meanings change and how they become sites of competition over historical narratives and claims. Looking at iconic and lesser-known sites, this book connects broad theoretical discussions of reconstruction and memorialisation to specific physical places, and in the process it traces shifts in their meanings over time. This book identifies common threads and investigates their wider implications. It explores the relationship between cultural heritage and international conflict, paying close attention to the long aftermaths of acts of destruction and reconstruction and making important contributions through the use of new empirical evidence and critical theory.
This book delivers a realistic and feasible framework for creating resilient landscapes in an era of anthropogenic climate change.From across six continents, this book presents fifteen case studies ...of differing sociocultural, economic, and biophysical backgrounds that showcase opportunities and limitations for creating resilient landscapes throughout the world. The potential to create socio-ecological resilience is examined across a wide range of landscapes, including agricultural, island, forest, coastal, and urban landscapes, across sixteen countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Samoa, South Africa, the United States, Turkey, Uruguay, and Vanuatu. Chapters discuss current and future issues around creating a sustainable food system, conserving biodiversity, and climate change adaptation and resilience, with green infrastructure, nature-based architecture, green-tech, and ecosystem services as just a few of the approaches discussed. The book emphasizes solution-oriented approaches for an "ecological hope" that can support landscape resiliency in this chaotic era, and the chapters consider the importance of envisioning an unpredictable future with numerous uncertainties. In this context, the key focus is on how we all can tackle the intertwined impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss, and large-scale land-cover conversion in urban and non-urban landscapes, with particular attention to the concept of landscape resiliency. The volume provides that much-needed link between theory and practice to deliver forward-thinking, practical solutions.This book will be of great interest to students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers who are interested in the complex relationship between landscapes, climate change, biodiversity loss, and land-based conversion at local, national and global scales.
Context
Constructing a sustainable landscape pattern from the perspective of landscape sustainability is scientifically built on the clarification of the formation mechanisms of landscape services ...and their relationships. However, the trade-offs and synergies of landscape services have regional heterogeneity, and their influencing factors are largely unknown in polar ecosystem. The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau is a unique but fragile ecosystem, and its landscape services are vital components to the sustainability in this specific polar region.
Objectives
This study sought to understand the landscape service relationships, their dynamics and influencing factors, and achieve a sustainable landscape management in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.
Methods
In this work, we evaluated the spatiotemporal distribution and relationships of multiple landscape services including soil retention (SR), water yield (WY), habitat quality (HQ), crop supply (CS) and livestock supply (LS). We further identified temperature, elevation, population size, land use and land cover (LULC) as influencing factors on landscape services relationships within specific landscape gradients.
Results
Our results show that: (1) SR, WY and HQ decreased significantly from the southeast to the northwest. (2) Regulating services-supporting services are mainly identified as synergies, and CS–HQ and CS–LS are manifested as trade-offs. (3) Geophysical factors (temperature, altitude) have impact on the distribution of CS and the trade-off and synergistic dynamics of WY–HQ, increased population size enhances CS–HQ trade-offs, while between supporting and regulating services show trade-offs in high-coverage grassland and unused land.
Conclusions
The quantitative assessment of landscape services and relationships provides the basis for sustainable landscape management in the context of national policies and climate change.
The interaction of human civilisation with nature is reflected in landscape that we consider as a model of totality, a micro-cosmos, providing us a perfect terrain to analyse and systematise ...knowledge on relationships of its elements. Since we consider humans as constitutive part of the landscape, the way of thinking of stakeholders is crucial in landscape formation. In this study, we present the perception of local professionals on the landscape character and landscape changes in a German-French transboundary area, in the southern section of the Upper Rhine Valley between Freiburg/Breisgau and Colmar. Broadening the knowledge about the common and different attitudes and motivations of local professionals helps transboundary cooperation in order to preserve the unique landscape qualities and avoid landscape degradation. The research was an inductive social study based on in-depth interviews. Respondents’ narratives on present characteristics and changes of the landscapes have been analysed, compared and theorised by the grounded theory method. The assessment led first to the definition of seven interpretation axes, (ontological, epistemological, temporal, operative, causal, spatial, and personal), that gave a logical structure to order the information of the interviews and to describe the results. These dimensions also served as a red-thread for the formulation of thirteen concluding theories emerging from the assessment of the narratives. They answer the questions: What is landscape? How landscape characteristics can be captured? What happens, why, when and where in the landscape? The study revealed the similarities and differences of the attitudes, and the patterns of thoughts of German and French professionals. The study brings new insight in the field of transboundary landscape study while confirming existing results on the main topics of landscape changes and driving forces. The paper proves that future strategies have to deal with often-contradictory landscape concepts in neighbouring countries, while their understanding facilitates communication and helps harmonise goals in policies and management.
PDF
