Social-Ecological Perspectives on Landscapes

Dear Colleagues,

Landscapes contribute significantly to human wellbeing and provide a setting for our daily lives. They also provide a context for ecological processes across time and space. Many landscapes across the world are being rapidly transformed in ways that are fundamentally altering both their societal and ecological functions. These changes are driven by powerful driving forces embedded within political, social and economic systems. Increasingly, we see the breakdown of linkages between people and the landscapes they inhabit, through processes ranging from industrialisation to land abandonment. At the same time, as the interface of nature and society, landscapes can potentially play a leading role in helping us reconceptualise the human relationship with the natural world. For this reason, landscape approaches have been advocated as important contributors to sustainability science. Nevertheless, and despite a growing body of landscape research, notable gaps remain, related to both our conceptual understanding of landscape dynamics and to the practices of landscape governance. 

Dear Colleagues,

For this Special Issue, we welcome scholarly contributions that advance our understanding of how landscape approaches can contribute to sustainable social-ecological systems. We encourage submissions that address the following themes but also welcome other relevant contributions. 

Forces and repercussions of landscape change

How are different driving forces of landscape change related? How significant are feedback loops or synergistic effects? Are there system thresholds beyond which societal and ecological landscape functions are irreversibly altered?

To what extent are driving forces affected by scale? 

How is the behaviour of landscape actors altered in response to landscape change? To what extent can behavioural changes be reversed?

Have we been able to influence these driving forces to any significant extent? Are there system leverage points that have been shown to be particularly significant? 

Do processes of landscape and visual assessment adequately and accurately predict likely landscape changes? 

Landscape governance and management

Are specific land-use/spatial planning mechanisms particularly effective in safeguarding landscape quality? What implementation challenges have these faced and how have these been overcome? How do these differ between built and unbuilt environments?

Are some ways of resolving political land use conflicts more succesful than others? Do we have success stories that show how we can transition our land use and/or landscape governance models in practice?

How is landscape governance influenced by cultural context? 

Are there landscape governance challenges that are unique to particular regions or environments (such as small islands or the homelands of indigenous people)?

Are there landscape governance challenges that are specific to landscape interfaces (such as the urban-wildland interface or the interface between protected and unprotected landscapes)?

To what extent do current landscape planning and management approaches contribute to delivering environmental justice? 

How effective has the European Landscape Convention been in influencing landscape governance? Is there scope or a need for similar initiatives with broader geographical scope? 

People-environment linkages

How are people’s landscape values created and shaped? How do landscape values relate to place and nature connectedness values? 

How significant is the role of experience? What is the relative influence of direct and indirect experiences? Do factors such as frequency or duration of exposure or nature of activity engaged in influence the development of such linkages?

Are there empirical examples of good practice in fostering stronger linkages of people with their landscapes? Is there evidence of the long-term effectiveness of such practices?

To what extent have we been able to set and meet landscape quality objectives?

Dr. Elisabeth Conrad
Prof. Dr. Maria Papadakis
Prof. Dr. Louis F. Cassar
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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