This book maps points of common understanding and cooperation in the interpretation of landscapes. These interfaces appear between cultures, between natural and human sciences, lay people and experts, time and space, preservation and use, ecology and semiosis. The book compares how different cultures interpret landscapes, examines how cultural values are assessed, explores new tools for assessment, traces the discussion about landscape authenticity, and finally draws perspectives for further research.

Rural regions in Europe are evolving under powerful boundary conditions such as globalisation, socio-cultural transformations and climate change, which in turn increases natural hazards. The regional land use and the evolvement of landscapes is increasingly shaped trends and drivers like infrastructural, energy or housing needs, globalised agricultural markets, and consumption habits. To face these challenges and to balance competitiveness with social cohesion, the "InnoLand research and development network" induces and accompanies promising land use innovations at the landscape scale in 10 European rural regions. Based on a common conceptual approach among the InnoLand partners, the development and implementation of new competitive strategies is conducted as a science-practice dialogue with strong commitment to the regional policy design for rural development. With this book, the network partners provide an overview and a comparative analysis of selected experimental regional approaches and give examples for the successful tackling of future opportunities and threats.

Rising U.S. income and wealth in recent decades have fueled an increase in consumption demand for environmental amenities. Many observers and researchers have argued that this at least in part underlies current differentials in economic growth across regions. This collection of key articles addresses the issues and more.

This book aims to explore the avenue of landscape economics and provides the building blocks (from different scientific disciplines) for an economic analysis of landscapes. What exactly constitutes and determines the value of a landscape? It focuses on the value of landscapes in its broadest sense, thereby covering a variety of topics including stakeholder involvement in landscape design, landscape governance and landscape perceptions from different countries. Merely saying that landscapes have value or are important is not sufficient - not when resources are scarce and have alternative uses. Measuring and quantifying the economic value of changes in landscapes would help ensure that landscape management decisions are both (economically) rational and sound.

While many rural areas continue to experience depopulation and economic decline, others are facing rapid in migration, as well as employment and income growth. Much of this growth is due to the presence and use of amenity resources, broadly defined as qualities of a region that make it an attractive place to live and work. Rather than extracting natural resources for external markets, these communities have begun to build economies based on promoting environmental quality. Amenities and Rural Development explores the paradigmatic shift in how we view land resources and the potential for development in amenity-rich rural regions.

Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people’s preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014–15.

Cultural ecosystem services in the form of experiences derived from landscapes are potentially important, but often overlooked. Given the large and unprecedented landscape changes many of the Nordic countries are undergoing, there is a need to find ways of including people's preferences and the value of landscape impacts in policy assessments and decision-making processes. The project aim has been to synthesize knowledge about the magnitude and value of landscape experiences, and investigate current practices and examples of how landscape impacts are incorporated (or not) in policy assessments and decision-making contexts in the Nordics. The literature demonstrates potentially high unaccounted welfare loss from landscape change. We find clear weaknesses in current practices, that a second phase will try to address. The project was carried out by Vista Analysis in Oslo and Department of Environmental Science at Aarhus University from 2014-15.