A Changing World: Challenges for Landscape Research

Modern landscape research uses a panoply of techniques to further our understanding of our changing world, including mathematics, statistics and advanced simulation techniques to combine empirical observations with known theories. This book identifies emerging fields and new challenges that are discussed within the framework of the ‘driving forces’ of Landscape Development. the book addresses all of the ‘hot topics’ in this important area of study and emphasizes major contemporary trends in these fields.

Written primarily for researchers and advanced students in environmental and social sciences, this latest book in Springer’s Landscape Series looks at some of the emerging fields and new challenges in landscape research. These include:

• the role of value systems in perceiving, appreciating, and managing landscapes
• the ‘space’ and ‘place’ concept in landscape research
• GIS and remote sensing techniques for gathering and processing spatially and temporally explicit land cover, vegetation, and land use data
• methods of landscape history
• landscape genetics and genetic methods to test landscape connectivity and dispersal of plant and animal species
• palaeoclimatic research, with focus on tree ring based temperature reconstructions
• landscape patterns, processes and model up-scaling
• statistical methods for environmental time series and other observations

Drawing on the expertise of an interdisciplinary team, the book provides a valuable reference for researchers in landscape ecology, landscape perception, conservation biology, ecological modeling, statistics in the environmental sciences and related fields.