Changing the countryside by land consolidation

Abstract

Land consolidation is a system of technical and legal measures for the improvement of farming conditions and land productivity. In western and central Europe, the execution of these land consolidation schemes causes great changes in the appearance of the countryside: existing landscape elements such as trees, shrubs, and hedgerows, often do not fit into a more efficient pattern of fields, roads, and watercourses. Being aware of the cultural losses of an unguided development, the Netherlands took legal, organizational, and financial, measures to achieve a planned development of landscape. Therefore landscape plans, including protective and creative measures, were made to provide the basis for the execution of the land consolidation schemes. There is rapid development nowadays in the scope and quality of these landscape plans for which a considerable amount of money is made available annually in the Netherlands. Although agriculture is the main purpose of the consolidation schemes, there is a tendency to cater to a much broader range of interests in which recreation and nature protection are getting more and more attention. Urbanization requires a multi-purpose approach in land-use policy.