Cultural Landscapes in Transition: Balancing Heritage, Development, and Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Cultural landscapes represent the "combined works of nature and man", illustrating human settlement and cultural development over time, influenced by both natural and cultural forces. These landscapes provide a legacy of history, showing how local communities have shaped their environments. Since the 1972 World Heritage Convention, cultural landscapes have been recognized within a historical and scientific context, with preservation- and conservation-embracing concepts such as belonging, uniqueness, meaning, and locality. These values highlight the importance of cultural landscapes in shaping identity and cultural heritage.

The 2000 Landscape Convention further emphasized the vital role that landscapes (including land, inland, water, and marine areas) play in individual and social well-being. It highlighted their contribution to enhancing the quality of life, reflecting cultural, scientific, aesthetic, and historical values. Cultural landscapes are irreplaceable assets of immense significance, yet balancing their preservation with modern development remains challenging. In rapidly urbanizing areas, development can be destructive, while low-density regions may face land abandonment.

Reconciling the needs of preservation with modern growth requires dialogue and the development of solutions that align economic growth with cultural integrity. Sustainable practices offer an effective pathway to harmonize these objectives, ensuring cultural heritage is respected while supporting necessary development. Such practices should integrate cultural landscapes into urban planning through designs that maintain the historical and cultural integrity of the area. Planning and designing natural and built landscapes must address climate change impacts and heritage site risks. The challenge ensures that modern development does not conflict with historical and cultural values. This requires thoughtful planning and design that respects heritage while integrating new functionalities and adaptive reuses.

Community engagement is key to creating a shared vision for development and raising awareness of the importance of preserving cultural landscapes. Incorporating green, nature-based solutions and traditional techniques is also essential for promoting sustainability and harmony. Additionally, regenerative and sustainable thinking, which emphasizes carrying capacity and risk identification, ensures long-term preservation. By adopting sustainable practices, it is possible to ensure cultural landscapes continue to shape identities for future generations while adapting to modern needs.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to give insights with the following aims:

1. To recognize the significance of historical and cultural landscapes and the challenges posed by modern growth.
2. To explore best practices for balancing landscape preservation with development.
3. To emphasize the importance of community engagement and awareness in the preservation process, fostering a shared vision that respects cultural landscapes.
4. To emphasize the importance of urban planning and design that respects historical and cultural heritage and proactively identifies and addresses risks.
5. To ensure that cultural landscapes continue to shape identity for future generations by adapting to modern needs through sustainable practices.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that link to the following themes:

• Importance of recognizing and preserving historical and cultural landscapes.
• Significance and challenges of cultural landscapes, including land, inland, water, and marine areas.
• Exploring the historical, cultural, and environmental importance of landscapes.
• Balancing preservation and development.
• Challenges posed by modern growth to these landscapes.
• Community engagement in landscape preservation.
• Investigating the role of local communities in preserving cultural landscapes and promoting sustainable development practices.
• Emphasis on planning and design that respects historical and cultural heritage.
• Proactive identification and addressing of risks.
• Examining best practices, strategies, and policies for harmonizing cultural landscape preservation with urbanization and sustainable economic growth.
• Methods and strategies for maintaining the balance between landscape preservation and modern development.
• Adapting cultural landscapes for future generations.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Prof. Dr. Isabel Vaz De Freitas
Prof. Dr. Fátima Matos Silva
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• cultural landscapes
• preservation and conservation
• cultural heritage
• modern development
• urbanization
• land abandonment
• sustainable practices
• economic growth
• cultural integrity
• community engagement
• traditional techniques
• regenerative tourism
• sustainable tourism
• sustainable planning
• reuses
• adaptation
• carrying capacity