The banana production landscape of Costa Rica is threatened by the Panama disease, a destructive crop disease which might not only effect the export market and thus the national economy of Costa Rica, but also many smallscale farmers. In order to understand the complexity of the production landscape, including all land use types with bananas involved, it is necessary to describe the land use variability of this area. For this purpose a multi-scale framework has been developed. The focus lies on the use of three scale levels, which are seen as spatially explicit entities with their own properties. On every scale level the land use variability is described with the use of scale-dependent land use indicators, combined with data from other scale levels. The use of the framework in the context of the banana production landscape of Costa Rica specifically showed the importance of the transect-scale, between the farm scale and the landscape scale. Although this scale is often discarded by the main stakeholders, important processes like socioeconomic activities and the existence of bananas between the large-scale plantations, became visible on this scale. The multi-scale description of land use variability, including interactions among the scales, finally made it possible to evaluate possible risk elements in the landscape, related to the potential spread of Panama disease.