Planning for an extensive open space system: linking landscape structure and function

Abstract

Open space is a term used by landscape planners and landscape architects for land areas that are intentionally left unbuilt as fields and forests while the land around them is developed into buildings and pavement. When rural forested landscapes are developed, open space typically assumes a changed structure of remnant corridors, nodes, and patches of the pre-existing forest landscape matrix. The spatial configuration of these remnant open spaces typically reflects a response to land use controls and accidents of property boundary locations, rather than a concern for landscape structure and function. Landscape structure describes the spatial configuration of the open and developed elements of the landscape at various scales. Landscape function describes the flow of nutrients, species, and energy between these elements. This paper presents a strategy for planning the conception, implementation and management of an extensive open space system for a rural Massachusetts landscape based on key landscape ecological principles which recognize the importance of spatial configuration and the role of connectivity. This open space system is proposed as a key component of a sustainable landscape in which the future integrity of the landscape is guided by contemporary land use policies and practices. The system is ideally comprised of public and privately owned open space lands aggregated into a network that supports the maintenance and enhancement of landscape functions. It differs from most prior open space planning programs in the US in several respects: it is conceived at the landscape scale and addresses the importance of inter-scale connections, it is based on assessment procedures that link structure and function, and it recognizes both the positive (restorative) and negative role of human-induced change and disturbance in the landscape.