Landscape Planning and Management

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are nonmaterial benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. The CES subcategories cover a wide range of domains (e.g. recreation, conservation of cultural heritage, human-nature relations). The CES concept has been proposed to acknowledge the nonmaterial values linking people and nature in social-ecological systems. Agricultural landscapes are outstanding examples of complex social-ecological systems where synergies and trade-offs between production and conservation determine the CES values. Europe is still rich in such landscapes/systems with outstanding cultural and natural values that deliver a multitude of CES. In this paper, we address the knowledge and perceptions of identified experts on the role of CES in the management of European agricultural landscapes. To achieve this goal, we developed a questionnaire on CES which was answered by experts working with various issues of European agricultural landscapes, including sustainable agriculture, landscape ecology, grassland management, nature conservation, cultural heritage conservation, environmental policy, sustainability research and rural development. The results show a wide knowledge and acceptance of the CES concept within such expert communities. Especially the aesthetic, cultural heritage, educational and recreational values were considered the most relevant CES subcategories. Interdisciplinary approaches, landscape planning and integrative science-policy approaches were perceived as the most promising methodologies to improve the CES approach for policy and management. Our results also show that according to experts the CES concept is still far from practical implementation in policies that target agricultural landscapes. In order to sustain such systems, we suggest the better implementation of inter-and transdisciplinary research for the development of CES-integrative policy and decision-making. of natural resources in order to assure that commodities can be sustainably extracted (Allen et al., 2018; Fischer and Riechers, 2019). The nonmaterial dimensions include intangible values (e.g. interpersonal and social relationships, regional or local identity, social and cultural norms, worldviews and individual interpretations of nature) and goals that foster social recognition of sustainability and reconnection of people with the natural world (Chan et al., 2016; Ives et al., 2018, 2019). The tangible and intangible benefits of nature to humans are

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Growing social and economic needs exert major pressures on landscapes, challenging preserved landscape values and the regional significance of places. As a result, the scope of landscape management has broadened and diversified in response to international calls for greater landscape protection, and to existing and new challenges and tasks. Within this context, landscape impact assessment and more general landscape planning has been regarded as effective mechanisms for promoting sustainable landscape development. Set within the European context, this book aims to provide a contemporary review of landscape impact assessment theory and practice, looking at both the project and planning levels. The monograph is divided into five parts. Chapter 1 presents the formal baseline for the assessment of impacts on the landscape in the context of sustainable landscape development at national, European and global scales. It explains the basic principles and approaches of landscape impact assessment and understanding the definition of a landscape within the framework of both planning and assessment tools. The Chapter further underlines the role of landscape impact assessment in the context of environmental health and climate change. Chapter 2 addresses the issues of assessing impacts on landscape as part of environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment in land use planning. Special attention is given to the interaction between planning and assessment processes. It also proposes a list of basic steps for incorporating landscape issues in impact assessment and land use planning. Chapter 3 is dedicated to methods and techniques for taking into account landscape issues in impact assessment. Chapter 4 examines the importance and the role of public participation for a better and more transparent decision-making process for sustainable landscape management and planning. Chapter 5 brings some interesting case studies supplemented by a number of tables and illustrative materials to illustrate the theoretical and practical information presented in this book. This book will be of interest to professionals involved in the day-today application of landscape impact assessment, as well as scholars and teachers working in the broad area of landscape planning and management. It is based on and directly linked to over twenty years of local and international experience of authors in both environmental assessment and sustainable landscape management. Landscape impact assessment is a field where information quickly becomes dated. As far as possible, the authors have tried to present their latest position.

This thesis [written in Portuguese] aims to discuss the planning and landscape management methodologies, particularly in the context of high natural value coastal areas. It discusses concepts, applies landscape assessment methodologies and proposes innovative ways to formalize planning and management strategies aimed at reconciling human activities with the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources. Specifically, this thesis: a) discusses the concept of landscape using an ontological approach; b) studies how to assess landscape visual quality; c) investigates the usefulness of Phytosociology as a tool for studying and assessing landscape’s ecological quality; d) applies the studied assessment methodologies, both in visual and in ecological landscape quality, to the Southwest Alentejo coastal area. The main results of these applications are: d.1) a spatially explicit model of Southwest Alentejo’s landscapes visual quality; d.2) a spatially explicit model of the stu...