Landscape Heritage Management

Landscape Protection and Development: Lessons from an Interdisciplinary Research Programme

Landscape research is a breeding ground for interdisciplinary research. That is hardly remarkable since landscape is a complex phenomenon. In the period between 1998 and 2009 a large team of predominantly Dutch archaeologists, geographers and planners have cooperated in a common research effort co-funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NOSR) and a wide spectre of governmental organisations. One of the aims was and is the testing of new methods of interdisciplinarity. The performance has been investigated by two experts halfway. So far the successes and failures have not been thoroughly explored after the completion of the programme. A formal evaluation executed by the NOSR cannot give the ultimate answers and intimate details. What is particularly relevant and open for further scrutiny is the relevance of the research outcomes for planners.

The research proposal encompasses a scan in the literature in order to develop a set of criteria for the measurement of success and failure of interdisciplinarity. The next step may be a round of interviews with the projectleaders in the programme and planners and decision makers. The product of the thesis may be a set of lessons and recommendations for interdisciplinary landscape research.

Belvedere 2.0: Case studies in landscape development

Belvedere has improved the case for landscape heritage management in the Netherlands. Preservation by way of development has proved its value in practice and attracted a lot of international attention. But so far the scientific interpretation of successes and failures lags behind the widespread application of best practices. Now the window of opportunities for heritage management may close again after the completion of the Belvedere programme in 2008. The introduction of a new legal framework for environemntal management and spatial planning may prove to be a major obstacle for a bottom up continuation of Belvedere-inspired projects.

The problem statement pertains to comparative case studies as to the state of the art in planning pactice and reflection with an eye on theory development focusing on landscape development strategies keeping amenities intact.

Various research strategies seem viable. First and foremost we need explorations of the booming body of knowledge packed in Belvedere case studies. Second a critical review of premises and theoretical building blocks is urgently needed. Third new theoretical building blocks must be constructed and amalgamated into a meta-theory solidly founded on the premises of post-normal science. Post-normal science is a word coined by philosopher of science Jerome Ravetz. The notion points at shortcomings of normal science in the interaction between the worlds of power and knowledge.

So this theme opens up roads through the land of practice (descriptive and analytical case studies with grounded recommendations for practicing planners), practice -theory (theory grounded in in the interpretation of case studies).

Landscape, heritage and planning

Perceptions, values and meaning of landscapes in urban and peri-urban regions. With increasing cultural and ethnic diversity, landscapes in Europe are expected to afford opportunities to build new kinds of common ground. Traditional concepts of ‘landscape-belonging’ are challenged by phenomena that mirror increasing mobility, migration, and cultural mixing: these lead to new forms of attachment to, and appreciation of landscapes. Such phenomena appear to be most apparent in urban landscapes, where in-migration and out-migration are particularly vital and dynamic.

Urban and peri-urban landscapes may be considered ideal study grounds, for it is here where examples of mixed societies are developing today that are expected to soon materialise in most parts of Europe. To learn and better understand the contrasting and sometimes conflicting perceptions and values, expressed by different parts of local and regional communities, is of vital importance making sustainable and inclusive spatial decisions about future landscapes.

The focus of this proposed theme is thus on urban public space, and on other accessible urban areas, including sites and landmarks of collective memory and identity. But, ignored and disused areas such as brown-fields and land parcels between traffic arteries are also interesting objects of study. This research builds upon notions such as ‘cultural construction’,  ‘quality of life’, ‘heritage’, ‘appropriation’ and ‘life style’. It up links theories and concepts borrowed from the disciplinary domains of cultural geography, historical geography, psychology (perception and life style studies), landscape architecture and spatial planning. Thus the researchers are tempted to make a contribution to bridging a gap between descriptive/analytical sciences (geography, psychology, landscape ecology, history) and action oriented disciplines (spatial planning, landscape architecture, political sciences). The latter would include processes of valuation and ethics of decision making (participatory approaches). To date, most research to better understand how urban and peri-urban landscapes function has been theoretical. The approach proposed here is to conduct empirical studies that would integrate natural, social and planning science methods.

Landscape and well-being

Most of the social, economic and environmental challenges facing people today have a strong spatial dimension. They concern land and its cultural uses and meanings. They therefore have a landscape dimension, a human element, because wherever there is land and people, there is also landscape. Landscape is not a synonym for environment; it is the interface between social relations and the environment, a part of our own selves not merely our surroundings. For human well-being it is as important as the environment.

Landscape is fluent, unfixed and plural. It is the product of long-term processes in the past and remains subject to continual change through cultural (re)interpretations just as much as through material processes. This is the perspective of the European Landscape Convention, landscape being ‘an area, as perceived by people.....’ in its formal definition.  Landscape is not necessarily to be seen as something that must be preserved but as a living, changing resource to be used in a sustainable way. Like heritage as defined in the Faro Convention, landscape is not simply a material object but a social process in relation to its construction, management and use. Integrated landscape research provides a valuable tool to be used both ‘upstream’ at the source of research and ‘downstream’ in its application. It can be used by policy makers and planners, developers and designers, and civil society as a whole, to manage change sustainably and to facilitate adaptations to change.

Research on landscape can therefore inform responses to all the great challenges facing society in the 21st century. These include urban and rural transformations, post-industrial revitalisation, and demographic and lifestyle changes. There are also the human contributions and responses to changing climate and the effects of physical environmental change on the human condition. All these in turn prompt the needs for new forms of governance, and generate concerns over food supply and security and over heritage, habitat fragmentation or the dilution of biodiversity.

Transgressing disciplinary borderlines in landscape studies

‘Landscape’ as a framework for inter-disciplinary research offers a way to face these challenges in the light of people’s everyday lives.  Recent years have seen significant developments in all of the many spheres of landscape studies, in the humanities and in the social sciences just as in the physical sciences, some of which, such as landscape ecology, have also adopted landscape-based approaches. These developments have enriched landscape as a fundamental research field which studies the long-term past as well as the present, and examines perceptions as well as materiality. Landscape research as a whole is evolving into a freestanding integrative discipline that transcends traditional academic distinctions. It can now offer itself as an essential, integrating and unifying component of the European Research Area.

Modes of disciplinary collaboration and integrative research

(Mono-)disciplinary studies take place within the bounds of a single academic discipline, orientated towards specific research questions.

Multidisciplinary research follows parallel tracks within a number of academic fields between which there is only limited interaction. Each field works within its own conceptual framework and according to its own methods. Knowledge is exchanged but not integrated.

Inter-disciplinary research requires close collaboration between several academic fields at all stages of research from question formulation to definition of results. Crossing boundaries is a goal in itself so that new knowledge can be created and common research goals achieved. Inter-disciplinarity requires one or more unifying concepts, of which landscape offers a prime example.

In trans-disciplinary research, inter-disciplinary academics collaborate closely with non-academics in order to develop new knowledge and to achieve shared research and practical objectives. This approach must be participative and usually produces negotiated knowledge such as common definition of problems, agreement over ‘facts’ and the development of strategies.

Inter- and trans-disciplinarity are both integrative research approaches, in that they create new knowledge and theory from the integration of existing disciplinary approaches.

Tress, B./G. Tress/G. Fry 2006: Defining concepts and process of knowledge production in integrative research, in: B. Tress/G. Tress/G. Fry/P. Opdam (eds.), From Landscape Research to Landscape Planning. Aspects of Integration, Education and Application, Dordrecht, 15-17.

Landscape and the economic, environmental and spatial policies of the European Union

Landscape is so far an unarticulated issue within European Union policy. Its relevance is ubiquitous however across most EU competencies, a high proportion of which have strong spatial components with direct or indirect impact on landscape as well as on environmental matters. Agricultural policies and the funding of major infrastructure projects impact on the materiality of the landscape. Social cohesion programmes look to landscape as a significant constituent of identity, whilst regional and mobility policies influence people’s perceptions of landscape. Explicitly environmental perspectives, such as the Environmental Assessment and Habitat Directives, also impinge on landscape, and attitudes to landscape underpin, sometimes invisibly, their implementation. The trans-sectoral inter-relations between all these activities remain under-developed, however, with consequent weakening of their effects and impact.  Integrated landscape research offers a unifying frame for them, and other social and cultural connections. The emerging new approach to landscape presented here offers an opportunity through which the broadest spectrum of European Union policy areas can be seen under a common light and debated with a common language.