PERSPECTIVE OF LANDSCAPE ECOLOGY IN EUROPE

Abstract

Changes and innovation must be brought about traditional landscape ecology with violent land use changes and the changes of social and economic institution in Europe. How to preserve the importance of landscape ecology in future and exert its role to solve practical problems is the urgent task for European landscape ecologists. This paper introduced some research hotspots and made a perspective of landscape ecology in future direction, research framework and main research fields in Europe. Landscape in future should develop into a landscape science which will follow three principles. First, landscape science must match scales in time and space with relevant processes in society, administration and management. Second, it should integrate landscape ecology with economics and psychology/sociology, disciplines involved with design, planning and management and disciplines of decision making. Third, it will keep interaction between decision makers, researchers and users of landscape. Main research field includes the research on water systems: water as a carrier, regulation functions, multiple landscape values and socio economic research related to landscape. We hope our introduction will be a constructive reference to the development of landscape ecology in China.