18
M. García-Martín et al.
2.1 Introduction
Landscapes are dynamic; the use of the land is in constant change as societal aspirations and natural conditions evolve. The ever-growing human capacity to modify
landscapes raises concerns about the consequences these changes will bring for
humans’ and nature’s well-being. Knowing more about land use patterns, rates of
land use change and the drivers behind them are all important in preventing and
reducing tensions between conflicting land uses, predicting future scenarios, developing strategies to achieve more desirable futures and designing adequate policies.
In Europe, the study of landscape changes is currently developing rather vividly, in
part driven by initiatives by the Council of Europe and the European Union. Here,
we refer to “landscape change” as an umbrella concept for the different forms of land
use change and land cover change.
In this chapter, we present an overview of landscape change research developed
in Europe, focusing on meta-studies, case-study research and cross-site comparison
studies of European landscapes that identify processes and trajectories in land use
changes and the driving forces behind them. This chapter is organised into five
sections: Sect. 2.2 an introduction to the current state of landscape change research
in Europe, where we also present the studies included in this overview; Sects. 2.3,
2.4 and 2.5 a review of the main findings of these studies on the trends, drivers and
future scenarios of landscape change; and Sect. 2.6 a summary of research gaps and
possible ways forward for landscape research towards sustainable land management.
2.2 Landscape Change Research in Europe
In Europe, landscape research dates back to the nineteenth century, when Alexander
von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Ritter (1779–1859) introduced the term “landscape” (Landschaft in German) as a scientific concept (Kirchhoff et al. 2013). Since
then it has developed as a vibrant field of study, particularly after the beginning of the
twenty-first century, when the German geographer Carl Troll (1899–1975) coined
the term “landscape ecology” to examine the reciprocal interactions between social
and ecological processes (Turner 2005). At a political level, landscape research has
received increasing attention since the 1970s. It was at this time that environmental
sustainability concerns gained momentum and became a target of United Nations
development programmes, and scholars and policymakers realised the need to overcome the shortcomings of single-sector policies and management strategies, which
prompted the adoption of the “landscape approach” (Sayer et al. 2013). One of the
milestones in the inclusion of the landscape approach in the political agenda was the
European Landscape Convention, in which landscapes were defined as the result of
the interaction of natural and human factors (Council of Europe 2000).
Overall, there have been concerns that landscape changes are of such magnitude
that societies can no longer accept them without putting landscape sustainability
M. García-Martín et al.
2.1 Introduction
Landscapes are dynamic; the use of the land is in constant change as societal aspirations and natural conditions evolve. The ever-growing human capacity to modify
landscapes raises concerns about the consequences these changes will bring for
humans’ and nature’s well-being. Knowing more about land use patterns, rates of
land use change and the drivers behind them are all important in preventing and
reducing tensions between conflicting land uses, predicting future scenarios, developing strategies to achieve more desirable futures and designing adequate policies.
In Europe, the study of landscape changes is currently developing rather vividly, in
part driven by initiatives by the Council of Europe and the European Union. Here,
we refer to “landscape change” as an umbrella concept for the different forms of land
use change and land cover change.
In this chapter, we present an overview of landscape change research developed
in Europe, focusing on meta-studies, case-study research and cross-site comparison
studies of European landscapes that identify processes and trajectories in land use
changes and the driving forces behind them. This chapter is organised into five
sections: Sect. 2.2 an introduction to the current state of landscape change research
in Europe, where we also present the studies included in this overview; Sects. 2.3,
2.4 and 2.5 a review of the main findings of these studies on the trends, drivers and
future scenarios of landscape change; and Sect. 2.6 a summary of research gaps and
possible ways forward for landscape research towards sustainable land management.
2.2 Landscape Change Research in Europe
In Europe, landscape research dates back to the nineteenth century, when Alexander
von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Carl Ritter (1779–1859) introduced the term “landscape” (Landschaft in German) as a scientific concept (Kirchhoff et al. 2013). Since
then it has developed as a vibrant field of study, particularly after the beginning of the
twenty-first century, when the German geographer Carl Troll (1899–1975) coined
the term “landscape ecology” to examine the reciprocal interactions between social
and ecological processes (Turner 2005). At a political level, landscape research has
received increasing attention since the 1970s. It was at this time that environmental
sustainability concerns gained momentum and became a target of United Nations
development programmes, and scholars and policymakers realised the need to overcome the shortcomings of single-sector policies and management strategies, which
prompted the adoption of the “landscape approach” (Sayer et al. 2013). One of the
milestones in the inclusion of the landscape approach in the political agenda was the
European Landscape Convention, in which landscapes were defined as the result of
the interaction of natural and human factors (Council of Europe 2000).
Overall, there have been concerns that landscape changes are of such magnitude
that societies can no longer accept them without putting landscape sustainability