Human well-being depends in many ways on maintaining the stock of
natural resources which deliver the services from which human's benefit.
However, these resources and flows of services are increasingly
threatened by unsustainable and competing land uses. Particular threats
exist to those public goods whose values are not well-represented in
markets or whose deterioration will only affect future generations. As
market forces alone are not sufficient, effective means for local and
regional planning are needed in order to safeguard scarce natural
resources, coordinate land uses and create sustainable landscape
structures.
This book argues that a solution to such challenges in Europe can be
found by merging the landscape planning tradition with ecosystem
services concepts. Landscape planning has strengths in recognition of
public benefits and implementation mechanisms, while the ecosystem
services approach makes the connection between the status of natural
assets and human well-being more explicit. It can also provide an
economic perspective, focused on individual preferences and benefits,
which helps validate the acceptability of environmental planning goals.
Thus linking landscape planning and ecosystem services provides a
two-way benefit, creating a usable science to meet the needs of local
and regional decision making.
The book is structured around the Driving
forces-Pressures-States-Impacts-Responses framework, providing an
introduction to relevant concepts, methodologies and techniques. It
presents a new, ecosystem services-informed, approach to landscape
planning that constitutes both a framework and toolbox for students and
practitioners to address the environmental and landscape challenges of
21st century Europe.
