Landscape change

Federally-recognized tribes must adapt to many ecological challenges arising from climate change, from the effects of glacier retreat on the habitats of culturally significant species to how sea level rise forces human communities to relocate. The governmental and social institutions supporting tribes in adapting to climate change are often constrained by political obstructions, raising concerns about justice. Beyond typical uses of justice, which call attention to violations of formal rights or to considerations about the degree to which some populations may have caused anthropogenic climate change, a justice framework should guide how leaders, scientists and professionals of all heritages and who work with or for federally-recognized tribes understand what actions are morally essential for supporting tribes’ adaptation efforts. This paper motivates a shift to a forward-looking framework of justice. The framework situates justice within the systems of responsibilities that matter to tribes and many others, which range from webs of inter-species relationships to government-to-government partnerships. Justice is achieved when these systems of responsibilities operate in ways that support the continued flourishing of tribal communities.

We present palaeoenvironmental, geomorphological, archaeological, and place-name data which allow a holistic assessment of the history of landscape change on Sandoy, Faroe Islands, especially in terms of the changes that occurred in response to the colonization of the island by humans. In contrast to other situations in the North Atlantic region, there is considerable continuity in the patterns and processes of landscape evolution across the initial

Vogiatzakis, I. N., Griffiths, G. H. & Bacchetta, G. 2005: Human impacts on Quercus suber habitats in Sardinia: Past and present. Bot. Chron. 18(1): 293-300. Quercus suber L. is a species confined to the centre and western Mediterranean basin. On the island of Sardinia its distribution is limited mainly by soils. Apart from its economic significance to local communities, cork oak habitats are recognised as having both cultural and biodiversity value at a European level. Although traditionally associated with human activities these habitats are today under increasing threat. Among the problems that affect cork oak habitats on the island are soil erosion and loss of organic matter due to ploughing and seeding for pasture. Stock numbers have increased while grazing cattle have been replaced by sheep and are proven to be particularly damaging especially to cork oak regeneration. Although the species is a passive pyrophyte, frequent fires render the trees susceptible to fungal and defoli...

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The increasing pace and scale of landscape changes involve objective measurements in order to estimate the effects of changes on people's landscape preferences in a meaningful way. In the literature, some attempts have been made to provide a more conceptual base related to landscape preferences. These concepts and their indicators need to be tested empirically in different contexts and landscape types. In the present study, different items related to theoretical concepts of both aesthetic preference and cognitive rating were examined. They were combined in an in situ questionnaire, which was conducted among undergraduate students in geography during two different field excursions. Stimuli consisted of 11 landscape vistas selected during the excursions. All vistas represent rather rural landscapes but they vary with regard to relief, degree of urbanisation, and degree of agricultural land use. Statistical analysis of all data yielded significant correlations between aesthetic and cognitive ratings. However, these correlations did not appear to be very strong. When considering landscape vistas separately, the relations between all cognitive ratings seemed to vary. Further, not all cognitive aspects had an equal predicting value for aesthetic preference. Moreover, this predicting value appeared to vary between different landscape vistas. The groups of interrelated cognitive aspects could not be associated consistently with theoretical concepts. The results demonstrated the inconsistencies existing between the contents of the theoretical concepts and the indicators found within the landscape. The findings argued for the necessity to distinguish between different ratings and landscape types instead of using unitary preference measures and generalized data when studying landscape preference.

Rapid population growth and urbanisation in urban areas cause unhealthy development and construction of urban areas, thus the citizens need for nature is increasing. This need, however, increases the demand for rural areas in the near surroundings of the city and leads to rapid urbanisa-tion, degradation and depletion of these resources. Natural resources such as forest areas, agricultural lands, water resources are at the top of the changing and consumed resources due to urbanisation effect. In this research, land use and land use change of the Sapanca Lake Basin, which is one of the most important lake basins of Turkey, were investigated. Sapanca Lake Basin has changed rapidly over the last 20 years. Until the beginning of the 1990s, the basin was dominated by the rural character , but today, urban activities have been more intensively in this basin. The basin attracts a high amount of population due to the second housing and various tourism activities. Sapanca Lake Basin is under the pressure of settlement according to the results obtained from analysis of spatial change. The watershed, which has lost its fertile agricultural lands at first, faces the destruction of forest areas today. This process will increase rapidly if necessary precautions, measures and legal arrangements are not made. In this context, an integrated watershed management plan for the watershed needs to be established and applied immediately.

Detailed understanding of landscape changes along the urban-rural gradient provides a useful tool to compare the structural and functional differences of landscape patches at different orientations. Although several case studies have been conducted confirming the efficacy of this approach, integrating temporal data with gradient analysis is still rarely used in practice. In this study, a combination of remote sensing images, landscape metrics and gradient analysis are employed to analyze and compare both the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban sprawl in Guangzhou, China. The results show that landscape change in Guangzhou exhibits distinctive spatial differences from the urban center to rural areas, with higher fragmentation at urban fringes or in new urbanizing areas. Due to the complexity of top-down constraints and local interactions, Guangzhou exhibits a more complex, dynamic, multidimensional configuration of urban sprawl that is different from other cities in China. Urban area expanded towards the north and south areas due to the increased population and rapid economic development. Property market forces and government policy led to the rapid growth towards the southern areas. The study also confirms the hypothesis of diffusion-coalescence urban dynamics model in the process of urbanization. It demonstrates that in order to reveal the complexity of landscape pattern, temporal data are needed to capture the baseline as well as the spatio-temporal dynamics of landscape changes along the gradient. Combining temporal data with gradient analysis can characterize the complex spatial pattern of urbanization in Guangzhou well.

Floodplains are among the world's most threatened ecosystems due to the pervasiveness of dams, levee systems, and other modifications to rivers. Few unaltered floodplains remain where we may examine their dynamics over decadal time scales. Our study provides a detailed examination of landscape change over a 60-year period on the Nyack floodplain of the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, a free-flowing, gravel-bed river in northwest Montana, USA. We used historical aerial photographs and airborne and satellite imagery to delineate habitats (i.e., mature forest, regenerative forest, water, cobble) within the floodplain. We related changes in the distribution and size of these habitats to hydrologic disturbance and regional climate. Results show a relationship between changes in floodplain habitats and annual flood magnitude, as well as between hydrology and the cooling and warming phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). Large magnitude floods and greater frequency of moderate floods were associated with the cooling phases of the PDO, resulting in a floodplain environment dominated by extensive restructuring and regeneration of floodplain habitats. Conversely, warming phases of the PDO corresponded with decreases in magnitude, duration, and frequency of critical flows, creating a floodplain environment dominated by late successional vegetation and low levels of physical restructuring. Over the 60-year time series, habitat change was widespread throughout the floodplain, though the relative abundances of the habitats did not change greatly. We conclude that the long-and short-term interactions of climate, floods, and plant succession produce a shifting habitat mosaic that is a fundamental attribute of natural floodplain ecosystems.

The objective of the present work is to analyze the role of landscape for environmental security in the Yantra River Basin, exploring its relationships with river-water quality and flood hazard. The relationship between landscape and river-water quality is analyzed on the basis of landscape indicators and assessment tools like Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment (AGWA) and Analytical Tools Interface for Landscape Assessment (ATtILA). The relationship between landscape and flood hazard is explored using set of floodhazard indicators and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The results from ATtILA implementation show that the main sources of nitrogen loading are the agricultural landscapes and the urban areas in the river basin. The SWAT simulation is done for three scenarios in which land cover (forest lands) changes are related to flood hazard. For the most unfavorable scenario, decreasing forest lands, a significant increase of the river discharge is predicted. The degr...

Lakes are excellent repositories of air-borne and especially stream-borne materials. It has long been recognised that lake sediments contain a strong record of catchment soils via the inputs of minerogenic and chemical erosional products. To these may be added a variety of palaeoecological indicators including pollen, fungi, Sphagnum leaves and faunal remains. Pollen analysis, in particular, enables land use change to be assessed over many millennia and demonstrates the landscape impacts of woodland clearance, grazing and crop cultivation. Radiocarbon dating provides a chronology for environmental and agricultural change and acts as an indicator of erosion in its own right. The use of such indicators to reconstruct past instances and patterns of erosion is demonstrated with reference mainly to 50 British and Irish lake sites and especially those which have produced signals of erosion in the form of accelerated sediment accumulation and inversed or reversed sequences of radiocarbon dates during the mid and late Holocene.

Before World War II, most of Toronto's residents were of British descent, and this was reflected in the urban landscape. On St Clair Avenue West, bordering British working class neighbourhoods, a Georgian style predominated and the area was known as Little Britain. After the war, heavy Italian immigration diversified the city and St Clair. Immigrants settled around St Clair where the identity of Little Britain gave way to Little Italy. This study documents and interprets landscape change on St Clair since the war. Photographs show that St Clair retail façades experienced early and sustained change up to the 1990s with new materials and uses of space. Informant interviews with Italian-origin proprietors yielded insights into the identity and meaning of their own renovations and landscape change generally. The changing landscape, like the social process of ethnicity, involved both pride and tensions. Proprietors believed their own 'Italian-style' renovations had necessarily improved upon St Clair's original appearance, and that St Clair now suffers because of recent storefront changes brought on by new immigrant settlers. Together, the visible changes and their meaning to occupants of the landscape suggest how places like St Clair can contribute to our understanding of both landscape and ethnicity.

Human activity during the Anthropocene has transformed landscapes worldwide on a scale that rivals or exceeds even the largest of natural forces. Landscape ecology has emerged as a science to investigate the interactions between natural and anthropogenic landscapes and ecological processes across a wide range of scales and systems: from the effects of habitat or resource distributions on the individual movements, gene flow, and population dynamics of plants and animals; to the human alteration of landscapes affecting the structure of biological communities and the functioning of entire ecosystems; to the sustainable management of natural resources and the ecosystem goods and services upon which society depends. This novel and comprehensive text presents the principles, theory, methods, and applications of landscape ecology in an engaging and accessible format that is supplemented by numerous examples and case studies from a variety of systems, including freshwater and marine "scapes".

Essentials of Landscape Ecology is suitable for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in landscape ecology. This textbook can also be used as a supplemental text in other ecology courses, as well as courses in forestry, resource and wildlife management, conservation and restoration biology, sustainable land-use and environmental planning.  For the professional landscape ecologist, it provides an authoritative overview of the latest research and developments.

Available through all major booksellers or directly from Oxford University Press:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/essentials-of-landscape-ecology-9780198838388

Even if a landscape is characterized by the occurrence of no particular natural or cultural attractions, it is of undeniable cultural and historical value since it documents a long-term relationship between humans and the place where they have spent their lives. One way to identify and quantify the values of normal, unexceptional types of landscapes is by using the concept

The objective of this study was to test a method for analysing long-term structural changes in non-forest wood elements, using a newly developed classification system and relevant landscape characteristics. Although these non-forest wood elements are biotopes that have positive effects for the ecological stability of the landscape little is known about their long-term dynamics. The newly developed knowledge of the historical impact of various landscape management practices on non-forest wood elements can be applied in landscape planning procedures (e.g. planning ecological networks) in order to ensure relevant landscape management in the future. The method was applied in two contrasting study sites, Honbice (244 ha) and Krida (268 ha), located in east Bohemia and north Bohemia, in the Czech Republic. The study was based on old cadastral maps (from 1839 to 1843), black and white aerial photographs (from 1938, 1950, 1966, 1975 to 2006) and field control data from 2006. At the Honbice study site, the proportion of non-forest wood elements increased from 2.0 to 2.9% of the study site, due to large plantations of scattered vegetation in the open landscape. On the other hand, more than half of the wood vegetation in the village was cut down between 1966 and 2006. In addition, the relative length of the tree alleys decreased from 0.021 km ha(-1) to 0.018 km ha(-1) between 1950 and 1966. At the Krida study site, there was a significant increase in non-forest vegetation (from 2.4 to 8.2%), due to abandonment of the landscape (former military area). As the village disappeared, the total amount of scattered vegetation grew, due to the natural succession process. The relative length of the tree alleys decreased from 0.009 km ha(-1) to 0.005 km ha(-1). The method that was applied and based on the analysis of long-term structural changes in non-forest wood elements, using a (newly developed) classification system and relevant landscape characteristics has proved to be a suitable procedure for making a detailed description of long-term structural changes in non-forest wood elements in the landscape. The detailed classification system can be used most efficiently when it is applied to rather small territories. Some characteristics display a similar ability to describe changes in non-forest wood structures (e.g. relative length, proportion of the category).

Protection of water catchment areas is becoming more critical given the rise in human populations and the high demand for water resources. The Mau Forest Complex, one of the major water towers in Kenya, is of both national and regional importance being the source of many rivers draining into Lakes Victoria, Baringo, Nakuru and Natron. In addition, the forest is a source of many ecosystem goods and services to communities living within and in the adjoining areas. However, high human population growth and the subsequent encroachment on the forest have  led to degradation of water resources . Plans to reverse the situation and restore disturbed areas are being put in place. However, lack of baseline data that can be used to assess the extent of disturbance and resistance by people occupying prohibited areas to move out are major hindrances. As a result forceful eviction of people from encroached areas has been conducted by government agencies undertaking the restoration. This command-and-control approach has not been received well by residents who have lived with the forest for a long time and whose traditional forest use practices have been carried out on a sustainable basis. This study investigates the effects of deforestation on water resources in the Sondu-Miriu River Basin by utilizing aquatic macroinvertebrate communities as indicators of water quality. At the same time data on community perspectives are presented by documenting how the community has been living with the forest, viz a vis its conservation and use. Responses in macroinvertebrate communities bear signals of perturbation arising from land use change from forestry to agriculture. The community members feel that these changes are not sustainable and should be halted. It is, thus, appropriate that participatory management approaches should be adopted in lieu  of the command-and-control approach whose outcomes have not proved  successful elsewhere.

The extent and the spatial patterns of landscape transformation we observe today are the result of the historic human settlement process, often dating back hundreds or thousands of years. Analyzing and reconstructing those historical patterns helps to advance the understanding of the dynamics and persistence of present-day ecosystems. This article explores this reconstruction by identifying and analyzing historic drivers of landscape change for seven periods between 1500 and 2000, and presents historical land use maps ...

The geomorphological evolution of the Pilanesberg Complex, an alkaline igneous body emplaced around 1250 million years ago and subsequently exhumed by erosion, reflects the interplay of tectonic and climatic factors over very long time periods that have given rise to regional-scale patterns of geomorphological processes and resultant landforms. The topography and river patterns of the Pilanesberg region have evolved by progressive denudation of Karoo sedimentary rocks (< 30 Ma), revealing evidence for a much older, relict land surface that may have been formed during the Dwyka glaciation around 300 million years ago. The absence of significant placer deposits of gold, platinum and chromium is explained by this proposed model.

The long-term landscape evolution of southern Africa has been a concern of geologists, geomorphologists, palaeontologists and ecologists since early studies on macroscale patterns of metalliferous rock types and topography, summarized by du Toit (1954) and King (1963). These early workers showed that (1) there is a close relationship between geology, topography and geomorphology in southern Africa, and (2) that different landscape elements are of different ages. From this, it can be inferred that the southern African landscape has evolved in different ways, in different places, and at different times, and that there is no single ‘narrative’ of landscape evolution. These large-scale surveys also highlighted the diversity of different landscapes in southern Africa, according to rock type, tectonic history and climate. Based on this information, these workers identified large-scale geomorphic provinces: King (1942) identified 26 such provinces, and later refined them to 18. Using a satellite-derived digital terrain model (DTM), Partridge et al. (2010) identified 34 provinces and 12 subprovinces, the boundaries of which are distinguished largely by river watersheds. Today, the main utility of identifying such large-scale landscape patterns is that they may inform on wider theories of landscape development, related to regional uplift/mountain-building, weathering and denudation over long time periods.

Leggere Roma Correu è una sorpresa e un regalo, consente di riprendere il filo di una corrispondenza interrotta, riappacifica e istiga a recuperare e reinventare il nostro ruolo di attori su quel grande teatro che è il paesaggio. La visione di quattro autori qui si intreccia restituendoci una scena che non abbiamo potuto calcare. Come generosa missiva ricompone un dialogo interrotto invitandoci caldamente ad un re-incontro con la città che colmi il vuoto dell’attuale capacità di re-inventarla.
Reading Roma Correu is a surprise and a gift, it allows us to resume the thread of an interrupted correspondence, reconciles and instigates us to recover and reinvent our role as actors on that great theater that is the landscape. The vision of four authors intertwines here, giving us a scene that we have not been able to tread. As a generous letter, Roma Correu recomposes an interrupted dialogue warmly inviting us to a re-encounter with the city, which fills the void of the current ability to reinvent it.

The Mediterranean island landscape is a mosaic of land-cover types that manifest the historical interaction between physical and anthropogenic processes that have affected significantly landscape composition and spatial configuration. The aim of this study is to investigate the processes and patterns of landscape changes in small Mediterranean islands as exemplified by the Aegean island of Sifnos, Greece. Satellite imagery was used to measure land-cover changes from 1987 to 1999. A suite of landscape metrics was employed to quantify changes in landscape structure. The results show that cropland suffered the highest area loss through conversions to semi-natural vegetation or settlements. The maquis vegetation of Juniperus phoenicea expanded over time with hotspots of expansion mainly located away from settlements. Overall, Sifnos' landscape became less fragmented and more homogeneous. The main drivers of landscape change were agricultural decline and tourism. These processes have resulted in semi-natural vegetation expansion and landscape closure. Landscape polarization of land-use intensity has increased with anthropogenic processes operating only on certain locations close to settlements and large parts of the island loosing their productivist profile. However, tourism should not be considered as the primary cause of land-use polarization but rather as an aggravating factor; agriculture and tourism do not represent competing economic sectors and land-use polarization is mainly the outcome of spatially co-occurring rather than spatially competing processes. Aegean island landscapes' management needs to be pragmatic and as such adaptable to future emerging priorities.

In most parts of the world, land-use/land cover can be considered an interface between natural conditions and anthropogenic influence. Indicators are being sought which reflect landscape conditions, pressures and related societal responses. Landscape metrics, which are based on the number, size, shape and arrangement of patches of different land-use/land cover types, are used-together with areal statistics-to quantify landscape structure and composition.

Landscapes change because they are the expression of the dynamic interaction between natural and cultural forces in the environment. Cultural landscapes are the result of consecutive reorganization of the land in order to adapt its use and spatial structure better to the changing societal demands. Particularly in Europe, history has recorded many successive and even devastating landscape changes, which have left barely any relics today. Today, the changes are seen as a menace, as a negative evolution because they cause a loss of diversity, coherence and identity, which were characteristic for the traditional cultural landscapes that are rapidly vanishing. This growing concern is also expressed in the European Landscape Convention, which will be used as a start for the analysis in this article. Three periods of landscape dynamics are considered: the traditional landscapes before the important changes that started in the 18th century, the landscapes of the revolutions age of the 19th to 20th century, and the post-modern new landscapes. The combined effect of the driving forces such as accessibility, urbanization, globalization and the impact of calamities have been different in each of the periods and affected the nature and pace of the changes as well as the perception people have had about the landscape. Values change accordingly and so does the way of using and shaping the landscape. It is argued that this changing perception also influences what kind and aspects of landscapes are studied, protected and managed. Diversity and identity of cultural landscapes are central in the discussion. It is shown that coherence between small composing elements in a broader spatial context is important for the legibility of the landscape and that the ability to tell the (his)story of a place strongly enhances the identity and the overall value. This offers criteria for inventorying and assessing landscapes, which is needed to define future management and development. Although the general trends of future development of the European landscapes are rather well known, planning and managing future landscape remains difficult and extremely uncertain. The processes and management in past traditional landscapes and the manifold relations people have towards the perceivable environment and the symbolic meaning it generates, offer valuable knowledge for more sustainable planning and management for future landscapes.

The rural landscapes of Europe are in both a homogenisation and a fragmentations process. Regional differences are disappearing due to the dominating equalising impact of the worldwide market. If regional differences are not maintained and protected then the cultural landscapes of Europe and their biological diversity will decline and only remnants will remain. Models on agricultural management and data on landscape changes from all Europe con®rm this. Regional differences have to be maintained through conscious environmental and ecological planning. Concepts for this have been developed in all countries in Europe, such as the ecostabilisation concept and the concept of ecological networks. Nature management by farmers is more and more accepted. Landscape planners should be aware of their changing role from designer towards negotiator with the actors in the landscape with different landscape functions and planning tasks in mind. #

Given the lack of proper constraints in understanding earthquake mechanisms in the cratonic interiors and the general absence of good quality database, here we reassess the seismic hazard in the province of Kerala, a part of the 'stable continental interior', based on an improved historical and instrumental database. The temporal pattern of the current seismicity suggests that >60% of the microtremors in Kerala occurs with a time lag after the peak rainfall, indicating that hydroseismicity may be a plausible model to explain the low-level seismicity in this region. Further, an increment in overall seismicity rate in the region in the recent years is explained as due to increased anthropogenic activities, which includes changes in hydrological pathways as a consequence of rapid landscape changes. Our analyses of the historical database eliminate a few events that are ascribed to this region; this exercise has also led to identification of a few events, not previously noted. The improved historical database essentially suggests that the central midland region is more prone to seismic activity compared to other parts of Kerala. This region appears to have generated larger number of significant earthquakes; the most prominent being the multiple events (doublets) of 1856 and 1953, whose magnitudes are comparable to that of the 2000/2001 (central Kerala) events. Occurrences of these historical events and the recent earthquakes, and the local geology indicative of pervasive faulting as shown by widely distributed pseudotachylite veins suggest that the NNW-SSE trending faults in central midland Kerala may host discrete potentially active sources that may be capable of generating light to moderate size earthquakes. The frequency of earthquakes in central Kerala evident from the historical database requires that the seismic codes stipulated for this region are made mandatory.

Over the last five years, the Philippines had been wracked by extreme weather events that have resulted to billions of pesos of damages to public and private property. The devastating impact of these natural disasters, particularly flash floods, landslides, storm surges and inundation, have not been seen by many Filipinos for several decades and have affected a far large swathe of the Philippine archipelago than what has been traditionally hit by the average of 19 local typhoons passing through the country annually. In fact, many have said that these extreme weather events and its devastating effect has become the "new normal".

En este trabajo realizamos una tarea fundamentalmente de recopilación informativa para hacer un recuento de las políticas públicas en El Salvador relacionadas con la gestión del riesgo y las medidas preventivas y de organización comunitaria frente a vulnerabilidades en su territorio y hábitat derivadas del cambio climático y actividad sísmica, en especial los desastres que tienen su origen en huracanes, ciclones, inundaciones y terremotos. Recogemos las deliberaciones y opiniones de los funcionarios salvadoreños en el marco de reuniones regionales recientes relativas a la prevención del riesgo y vulnerabilidad de la región centroamericana y en especial de El Salvador.

In a recent paper in this journal, Bradshaw and colleagues analyse country statistics on flood characteristics, land cover and land cover change, and conclude that deforestation amplifies flood risk and severity in the developing world. The study addresses an important and long-standing question, but we identify important flaws. Principal among these are difficulties in interpreting country statistics and the correlation between population and floods. We review current knowledge, which suggests that the removal of trees does not affect large flood events, although associated landscape changes can under some circumstances. Reanalysis of the data analysed by Bradshaw and colleagues shows that population density alone already explains up to 83% of the variation in reported flood occurrences, considerably more than forest cover or deforestation (o10%). Feasible explanations for this statistical finding -whether spurious or causative -are not difficult to conceive. We, therefore, consider the conclusion of Bradshaw and colleagues to be unsupported. However, their study is a valuable first step to show how these or similar flood data might be used to further explore the relationship between land cover and flooding.

This volume presents the rich, but under-utilised and in parts inaccessible, archival historic aerial imagery, traditional photographs and those captured from satellites, for the exploration and management of cultural heritage. An unparalleled resource, for archaeologists and all with an interest in landscapes, images spanning the second half of the 20th century provide an unrivalled means of documenting and understanding change and informing the study of the past.

Case studies, written by leading experts in their fields, illustrate the applications of this imagery across a wide range of heritage issues, from prehistoric cultivation and settlement patterns, to the impact of recent landscape change. Contemporary environmental and land use issues are also dealt with, in a volume that will be of interest to archaeologists, historians, geographers and those in related disciplines.

Due to the fact that ethnic geography is often forgotten in studies on historical
geography, the main factor in the differentiation of geographical environment is often
attributed to a change that its subject is variable. However, the subject is immutable
and human being. People transform their environment in various ways according to
their economic, cultural, religious, and social needs. Cities that change hands with
political movements change completely after a while, and in some, almost everything
can be erased except relief. Changing recreational and cultural areas, cultural textu￾re, and changing city culture of cities have revealed new cities known with their old
names, and sometimes they have reappeared in the world geography as new cities
where even their old names have been changed. In this case, the existence of a his￾torical German town with a German name and a German texture in its architecture
in a country like Azerbaijan and a minaret that could stay in the middle of Hungary
gains even more meaning. While changing cities preserve the changing cultural and
architectural environments within themselves, many buildings that need to be pre￾served are sometimes deliberately erased from the silhouette of the cities, sometimes
within the context of the historical process, natural disasters, and needs. At this point,
the settlements, with their different periods of transformation differing from their
former inhabitants and cultures, create areas that history and geography should deal
with together. In this study, the spatial transformation caused by the human being
was evaluated together with the sample settlements, old and new photographs, and
street views, and the reasons affecting this change and the differentiation it revealed
were emphasized. In the study, the relevant literature was scanned and the neces￾sary archival documents and the reports of the competent authorities were used, but
more land surveys and interviews were made. The main ethnic element living in the
place and the issues such as ignoring its own existence in the environment where it
lives and paving the way for other places of worship, as well as the construction of
Non-Community churches in Muslim villages, zoning law in the country and the
tenders for its past, and the ethnocultural environment shaped as a result of these
and the changed human geography have been revealed. The main difficulties en￾countered in the making of this study were the inadequacy of the relevant literature
within the scope of the article, as well as the reluctance of official authorities (Greek
institutions) to provide documents and their presupposition that there is no double
standard against Muslim religious institutions. despite this, the obvious deformation
of the silhouette on the field and the scraping of historical artifacts from the city sil￾houettes, almost as if history were disregarded, were so obvious that no documents
other than photographs were needed. Despite this, the part of the old mosques that
were allowed to exist, especially in Western Thrace, should have been considered in a separate category. In this context, in the analyzed regions, practices such as destru￾ction, hiding, concealment, or leaving them to be demolished have also been obser￾ved. Before this study, the antithesis of the thesis put forward in the article was also
examined separately and the possibility of the coincidence of the issues mentioned
in the study was also emphasized. In this context, the article has been written with
skepticism, from a middle point, and an unbiased perspective. However, in almost all
practices, it has been clearly seen that there was no protectionist tendency by Greek
authorities towards Muslim religious structures and they do not leave them in their
“actual form” as they should be on the city skyline, regarding them as “alien objects”.
As a matter of fact, this view of the Greek authorities has been proved and revealed
by the pictures from the field as well as the statutes and the documents based on the
data obtained from the interviews conducted with concerned authorities through the
instrumentality of ethnography, discourse analysis, and grounded theory.
Keywords: Geography, Historical Geography, Ethnocultural-Environment, Spati￾al Transformation, Architectural Environment, Islamic Skyline, Greece

This collaborative essay grows out of a debate about the relationship between aesthetics and ecology and the possibility of an ''ecological aesthetic'' that affects landscape planning, design, and management. We describe our common understandings and unresolved questions about this relationship, including the importance of aesthetics in understanding and affecting landscape change and the ways in which aesthetics and ecology may have either complementary or contradictory implications for a landscape. To help understand these issues, we first outline a conceptual model of the aestheticsecology relationship. We posit that:

The rewilding of landscapes is one of the most important and intensively discussed landscape changes occurring in Switzerland, as the need for agricultural and forest land is decreasing. To ensure that decisions concerning future landscape management will be supported by the public, it is crucial to take public opinion into account. Hence the present study aims to assess the public attitudes towards nature and ''rewilding'' processes. In order to analyze these attitudes, we sent a standardized questionnaire to 4000 randomly selected households throughout Switzerland. A cluster analysis led to a typology with four different types of human-nature relationship (''nature lovers'', ''nature sympathizers'', ''natureconnected users'' and ''nature controllers'') that each characterize a particular attitude towards nature. These human-nature relationship types differ in their attitudes towards rewilding as well, allowing a rough classification of the sample into wilderness opponents (51.1%) and wilderness proponents (49.9%). However both groups agree with regard to their opinion concerning the rules and regulations that should apply in future wilderness areas. The parallels of the human-nature relationship typology of this survey with other typologies, and the implications for further research are discussed. We can conclude that, due to the differences concerning the attitudes towards wilderness between the humannature relationship types, between the rural and urban dwellers, and between the language regions, a uniform strategy for the designation and management of wilderness areas in Switzerland is not possible. We recommend that, when managing landscape change, all stakeholders are included in a participatory process and we advise a thorough assessment of the attitudes of the involved persons towards nature and rewilding at the start of such processes. Such an assessment would facilitate the identification of well-defined target groups allowing specific interventions and management actions customized to the needs and characteristics of each of these groups. In addition we see the commonalities between wilderness opponents and wilderness proponents concerning the rules in wilderness areas as an ideal starting point for a successful participatory process.

This paper makes a case for systematic landscape change and describes a possible pathway to achieve it. Taking advantage of opportunities in emerging environmental markets, the potential use of plant biomass and planning based on landscape ecology, this paper proposes using a common property resource system to generate investment in multi-species native agri-forestry plantations that are strategically located across the landscape. The plantations will mimic many of the functions of native vegetation to achieve multiple objectives -attempting to optimize environmental benefit while generating investment and commercial return. A project proposal to put these concepts into practice on the western edge of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area is described and a preliminary analysis of opportunities and threats is presented.