Open sessions > S.4 – European Landscape Transition across Europe. The Challenge of Central and Eastern Europe

S.4 – European landscape transition across Europe. The challenge of Central and Eastern Europe

Chair – Pedroli Bas, Land Use Planning Group, Wageningen University & Research

Abstract: The pace and impact of recent landscape changes diverge largely across Europe. Shifting political and socio-economic situations in the European post-communist countries and accession to the EU are gradually having an imprint on landscape heritage, identity and character, reflected more and more in landscape functions, structure and pattern as well. Land take, land use intensification and land abandonment appear as major processes in the landscape, driven by market competition, land ownership conditions and changed opportunities for work and mobility. Global trends, facilitated by EU policies and measures, visibly change local landscapes and livelihoods. While the north-western and Mediterranean parts of Europe experienced comparable landscape changes earlier, for countries of Central and Eastern Europe such landscape transition is now occurring as an unintentional and inevitable side-effect of socio-economic progress, for better and for worse. Are Central and Eastern Europe now making the same mistakes as those witnessed in other parts of Europe earlier? How is landscape transition monitored? Where are the hotspots of transition and what are the mechanisms of change? How are changes in the landscape perceived and influenced by communities in the East and the West? Is there an opportunity for modern commons to arise?  This session will fundamentally reflect on such issues, building upon empirical observations of changing landscape-related phenomena.

Program

Chair: Bas Pedroli

1. Land abandonment and vulnerability of the rural landscape in Romania. Case study: Buzau County – Valentina Stoica
2. Landscape and land use change in a close-to-capital suburban area – an East-European Case – Csaba Centeri, Krisztina Demény, Albert Szaniszló, Brigitta Balogh, Gergely Jakab
3. Situated cultures of coastal accessibility: considering landscape commons – Anu Printsmann, Tarmo Pikner, Asko Ijäs
4. Pustara – a specific planned industrial settlement in the Croatian rural landscape – Ivana Brkanić, Lucija Lončar, Dina Stober
5. Urban pastoralism, an important large scale phenomenon in postsocialist era, as an environmental tool for maintaining biodiversity in the city green gaps – Roxana Maria Triboi

Chair: Bas Pedroli

1. Landscape 100: How Finland, Latvia and Estonia used landscape in celebrating their Centenary anniversaries – Hannes Palang, Anu Printsmann, Maunu Häyrynen, Hannu Linkola, Anita Zarina, Margarita Vološina
2. Transition, depopulation and abandonment – insights from historical satellite images on land use change in Latvia – Zigmars Rendenieks, Mihai Nita, Volker Radeloff
3. Agricultural land-change in the period of post-socialism and EU-accession – Róbert Pazúr, Juraj Lieskovský, Alexander Prischchepov, Daniel Müller
4. When peace and quiet is not enough: Place-shaping and the role of leaders in sustainability and quality of rural life – Joanna Storie, Mart Kulvik