The future of landscapes and habitats: The regional science contribution to the understanding of geographical space

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed unprecedented landscape change. Most of these changes have been brought by human impact on the environment, and excessive exploitation of resources. While economic growth has brought prosperity and better living conditions, much of the human impact has had irreversible consequences on environmental systems and destroyed fragile ecosystems and biodiversity. One of the dimensions that most suffered from excessive pressure, and is albeit all very little assessed, is the regional spatial change in line with historical and archaeological heritage. Monitoring of these transitions is of utmost importance to guide best the directions of regional planning in future. I advance with explaining the crucial role that Geographic Information Systems can play for regional science in line with heritage, and define techniques for sounder interactions of urban areas and regions in line with complex representation of space. I conclude further, that we are witnessing different types of dynamics in the landscape settings, that can be defined as (i) the coherent landscape, (ii) the dominant landscape and (iii) the vertical landscape lagging under a concept defined as spatial memory of rapid changing regions. All together, a new paradigm where geodesign, spatial analysis and geocomputational advances are linked, regional science must consider a new paradigm which I designate as regional intelligence for a more sustainable future.