Showing papers in "Landscape Research in 2012"
TL;DR: This paper presents a set of social landscape metrics that measure the composition and configuration of human perceptions of landscapes from multiple study areas using empirical data from PPGIS studies, and distinguishes between two classes of social landscapes metrics, boundary and inductive, and describes some of their applications to land use planning and management.
Abstract: Landscape metrics are used in landscape ecology to quantify landscape characteristics related to structure, function and change by quantifying the structure and distributional pattern of landscape elements such as plants, animals and other physical landscape features. To date, there has been little published research on landscape metrics that include social perceptions of landscape. In this paper, we introduce the concept of social landscape metrics that quantify human perceptions of place resulting from the use of public participation geographic information systems (PPGIS). We present and explain a set of social landscape metrics that measure the composition and configuration of human perceptions of landscapes from multiple study areas using empirical data from PPGIS studies. We distinguish between two classes of social landscape metrics, boundary and inductive, present methods to develop them, and describe some of their applications to land use planning and management. We conclude with a discussion of future research needs for advancing knowledge about social landscape metrics.
105 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a cross-cultural study between Germany and Scotland was conducted to explore why farmers see beauty in the same ordered and controlled arable agricultural landscapes that most other publics find monotonous and boring.
Abstract: Studies of landscape aesthetics based on photographic assessment indicate that farmers have a unique perspective—seeing beauty in the same ordered and controlled arable agricultural landscapes that almost all other publics find monotonous and boring. This paper uses Bourdieu's theory of capital to explore why farmers hold this perspective. Interpretations farmers place on ‘tidy’ features such as straight lines and evenly coloured fields were explored through a cross-cultural study between Germany and Scotland. Results show how farmers ‘read’ agricultural landscapes for signs of skilled farming, and how their interpretation is dependent on knowledge of the connection between efficient farming practices and the appearance of forms and colours in the fields. The implications of agricultural landscape aesthetics for the development of cultural and social capital are discussed.
103 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluate relationships among preferences for landscapes and childhood landscapes and conclude that people feel more at home in the type of landscape they grew up in and more often choose to settle down in this type of landscapes, even if they have moved from their childhood region.
Abstract: Two different theories exist relating to preferences for landscapes: 1) people prefer certain types of landscape independent of their cultural and ethnic background—preferences are innate; 2) people prefer landscapes experienced during childhood regardless of their appearance owing to learned conceptions—preferences are determined by culture. Our aim was to evaluate relationships among preferences for landscapes and childhood landscapes. Results are based on a questionnaire sent out at random to 2000 people in Sweden, and on a qualitative study comprising 19 people. They show that people: i) feel more at home in the type of landscape they grew up in and more often choose to settle down in this type of landscape, even if they have moved from their childhood region; ii) prefer qualities connected to childhood landscapes. However, some of these qualities, those suggested to be innate, are more preferred than others. In conclusion, people prefer landscapes experienced during childhood, but seem to at...
60 citations
TL;DR: The European Landscape Convention: Challenges of Participation as discussed by the authors, 2011, Dordrecht, 2011, 326 pp., 129.95 Euros, ISBN 978 90 481 9931 0
Abstract: The European Landscape Convention: Challenges of Participation Michael Jones & Marie Stenseke (Eds) Dordrecht, Springer, 2011, 326 pp., 129.95 Euros, ISBN 978 90 481 9931 0 Recent years have seen m...
57 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors offer an interpretation of landscape urbanism, then initiates a critical analysis, and conclude that there are inconsistencies and lacunae which landscape urbanists ought to urgently address.
Abstract: This paper offers an interpretation of Landscape Urbanism, then initiates a critical analysis. It attempts to decode the sometimes prolix language in which Landscape Urbanism is presented and to identify a number of ‘tenets’ which most of its adherents would hold. The second part of the paper questions some of these tenets, asking whether Landscape Urbanism's attack on the urban–rural binary is well conceived and whether it is a helpful contribution to the problems raised by worldwide urbanisation. It also considers the implications of Landscape Urbanism for other discourses, including those of heritage, landscape conservation and participatory planning and design. It concludes that there are a number of inconsistencies and lacunae which landscape urbanists ought to urgently address.
53 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the role of multiculturalism and democracy in landscape protection, planning and management, as well as the relevance of social and personal dynamics in a more general manner.
Abstract: findings in their concluding chapter (Chapter 15). The volume undoubtedly makes a very valuable contribution to our understanding of participatory landscape protection, planning and management; it shows that we have made some progress but that we also have a long way to go. Perhaps the one unfortunate aspect of this publication is its (very) steep price tag; this will likely place it out of reach of many who would otherwise have found it to be extremely useful. Given its cost, the book would also perhaps have benefited from a stronger theoretical discussion of the challenges of participation, rather than a predominant focus on case studies. Whilst the editors’ introductory and concluding contributions serve to situate the case studies within their wider context, the publication did leave me with a slight sense of frustration in that the case studies raise many interesting questions that remain somewhat unexplored. This criticism is, however, perhaps unfair—given that this is a first publication on the subject, the case studies at least allow for an identification of these various dilemmas. Perhaps the next step would be to critically analyse the identified influences on participation— which range from the role of multiculturalism and democracy, to the development of effective administrative and political structures, to the relevance of social and personal dynamics—in a more general manner. In the meantime, however, this book is certainly a very valuable addition to the landscape literature.
49 citations
TL;DR: The authors assesses literature on militarized landscapes (sites that are partially or fully mobilized to achieve military aims) and argue that alongside increasing public and media attention, militarised landscapes are a burgeoning area of inquiry in a variety of disciplines, including geography, history, earth sciences and archaeology.
Abstract: This article critically assesses literature on militarized landscapes (sites that are partially or fully mobilized to achieve military aims). It argues that alongside increasing public and media attention, militarized landscapes are a burgeoning area of inquiry in a variety of disciplines, including geography, history, earth sciences and archaeology. To allow for an analysis of different disciplinary perspectives around common themes, this article is structured around the areas of preparing for war, the battlefield, and the ‘homefront’. In light of the research identified in this article, it is no longer possible to treat war and landscape as separate realms. Instead, the challenge is to explore how war and landscapes reciprocally reproduce each other across time and space. The common themes that exist across the scholarly disciplines also indicate the potential for extensive interdisciplinary research into militarized landscapes.
49 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the role of the Norwegian Trekking Association in nationalising hiking practices in Norway through the use of technologies of governance and by incorporating people into particular practices of movement is examined.
Abstract: This article takes a performative approach to understanding the significance of hiking practices in ‘wilderness’ landscapes. It examines the role of the Norwegian Trekking Association in nationalising hiking practices in Norway through the use of technologies of governance and by incorporating people into particular practices of movement. The paper thus shows how the Association was implicated in the production and continued re-production of anationalised landscape, and how the performance of route-making and route-following have prioritised certain kinds of activities, and hence certain kinds of people, over others.
45 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the Andalusian coast (Spain) was assessed for coastal scenery at 45 specific locations and each parameter was assessed via a one-to-five-point attribute scale, which essentially ranged from presence/absence or poor quality (1), to excellent/outstanding (5).
Abstract: The 1101 km length of the Andalusian coast (Spain) was assessed for coastal scenery at 45 specific locations. Selected areas covered resort (3), urban (19), village (8), rural (10) and remote (5) bathing areas. Scenery was analyzed for physical and human parameters via 26 selected parameters. These parameters were obtained by interviews of >500 people on European beaches. Each parameter was assessed via a one-to-five-point attribute scale, which essentially ranged from presence/absence or poor quality (1), to excellent/outstanding (5). Results were subsequently weighted by interviewing >600 bathing area users (not all 26 parameters have equal weight) and subjected to fuzzy logic mathematics in order to reduce recorder subjectivity. High weighted averages for attributes 4 and 5 (excellent/outstanding) reflected high scenic quality, vice versa for attributes 1 and 2. Sites were classified into five classes ranging from Class 1 sites having top grade scenery to Class 5, poor scenery. Seven sites eac...
41 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how landscapes are narrated through the activity of walking and explore how the walking body and the landscape as entwined entities shape each other, creating a narrative landscape of absences and presences.
Abstract: This paper explores how landscapes are narrated through the activity of walking. It follows the footsteps of walkers as they traverse different kinds of terrains in different circumstances and aims to examine how the walking body and the landscape as entwined entities shape each other. The focus is on narrative compositions and how they appear in the landscape through the course of walking. The paper starts by exploring two different types of compositions and then analyses how walking narratives are composed through the connections and disconnections of the walking body with the surroundings, creating a narrative landscape of absences and presences.
41 citations
TL;DR: A method to evaluate the algorithmic complexity of landscapes is developed here, based on the notion of Kolmogorov complexity (or K-complexity), which can be a descriptor not only of the landscape's structural complexity, but also of its functional complexity.
Abstract: A method to evaluate the algorithmic complexity of landscapes is developed here, based on the notion of Kolmogorov complexity (or K-complexity). The K-complexity of a landscape is calculated from a string x of symbols representing the landscape's features (e.g. land use), whereby each symbol belongs to an alphabet L, and can be defined as the size of the shortest string y that fully describes x. K-complexity presents several useful aspects as a measure of landscape complexity: a) it is a direct measure of complexity and not a surrogate measure, well supported by the literature of Informatics; b) it is easy to apply to landscapes of ‘small' size’ c) it can be used to compare the complexity of two or more landscapes; d) it allows calculations of a landscape's changes in complexity with time; e) it can be a descriptor not only of the landscape's structural complexity, but also of its functional complexity; and f) it makes possible to distinguish two landscapes with the same diversity but with differ...
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TL;DR: In this article, a hodological approach to the concept of road demonstrates connections among ideas of kinship, movement, nomadism, metaphor and knowledge, and accounts from the social lives of travellers enlarge the possibilities of understanding the relationship between roads and narrative.
Abstract: This article proposes that the term ‘road’ provides a concept of theoretical value for anthropological discussions of mobility. Based on ethnographic research in two neighbouring settlements in Siberia, I discuss the range of stories indigenous residents offered during our discussions of roads. Their definitions of roads contrast with those used more globally. A hodological approach to the concept of road demonstrates connections among ideas of kinship, movement, nomadism, metaphor and knowledge. Accounts from the social lives of travellers enlarge the possibilities of understanding the relationship between roads and narrative.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a preliminary inventory and a brief characterisation of MTLs in Sicily, in line with the multidisciplinary experiences and approaches implemented at European and national levels.
Abstract: EU policy for the conservation of cultural landscapes is of particular importance for a region such as Sicily (Italy) which is the site of many Mediterranean traditional cultural landscapes as well as new landscapes created by contemporary agriculture. Such variety of landscape, however, is not supported or confirmed by specialised inventories that identify and classify the typical Main Traditional Landscape (MTL). On the basis of these considerations, the objective of the present paper is to draw up a preliminary inventory and present a brief characterisation of MTLs in Sicily, in line with the multidisciplinary experiences and approaches implemented at European and national levels. In defining the typological units, the terminology used to identify Sicilian MTLs was modified by experiences developed on the mainland, with entries such as: bocage/semi-bocage, coltura promiscua, Mediterranean open field, mountain landscape, huerta and terrace landscape. Using different spatialised data layers, inc...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present two video clips where the route itself is manifest as the problem for the occupants of a car, and show that offering and taking shortcuts sustains and makes manifest our intimacy with a place.
Abstract: In this article we touch upon the intimate bond between commuters that grows (or, sometimes, does not grow) in their daily wayfinding. The commuter's movement through the world, once established, is a steady back and forth along well-worn paths. Each day the commuters need to recall their way into work, and from time to time their ways change due to congestion, road building, other places they have to go by along the way, or even just whim. The Habitable Cars project that we present here has been concerned with people travelling together as families, friends and car-sharers. In this paper we will present two video clips where the route itself is manifest as the problem for the occupants of a car. Offering and taking shortcuts sustains and makes manifest our intimacy with a place.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the implementation of local landscape planning measures and discuss the factors and framework conditions which are crucial for this implementation, including potential factors and conditions of influence.
Abstract: The knowledge of the effectiveness of local landscape planning in Germany is in the main limited to particular cases and derives mostly from qualitative single case studies. This applies especially to the implementation of measures defined by landscape plans. To fill that gap, the paper focuses on the implementation of those measures. Furthermore, it discusses the factors and framework conditions which are crucial for this implementation. The potential factors and conditions of influence were derived from theory and compiled in 20 investigation hypotheses. In order to gain information on the execution of the measures, 28 randomly selected plans were first analysed, then interviews were carried out with administration representatives. It can be stated that landscape planning has positively influenced the development of nature and landscape in the investigated municipalities. A considerable number of measures had been implemented, although landscape planning as a supply-side instrument proposes gen...
TL;DR: This article explored individuals' attitudes towards the traditional farm landscape and using the contingent valuation method (CVM) their willingness to pay (WTP) for agricultural activities aimed at its protection.
Abstract: This paper explored individuals' attitudes towards the traditional farm landscape and using the contingent valuation method (CVM) their willingness to pay (WTP) for agricultural activities aimed at its protection. Analysis of consumer attitudes towards the countryside can provide information from which policy-makers can ascertain if policy measures aimed at enhancing and protecting the rural landscape are in line with citizens' views and expectations. Results from a Generalized Tobit Interval model suggest that attitudes regarding the importance of particular landscape attributes have a differential impact on WTP. A variety of background variables and whether individuals live in the countryside were also found to strongly influence WTP. More generally, the results would indicate broad public support for second pillar objectives under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) such as the protection of the traditional farm landscape.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the potential for using place names for the identification of historical landscape features characteristic of the agras field system in Northwest Spain, and evaluated statistically the significance of a set of targeted place names as predictors of agras presence.
Abstract: This paper explores the potential for using place names for the identification of historical landscape features characteristic of the agras field system in Northwest Spain. We first evaluated statistically the significance of a set of targeted place names as predictors of agras presence. We then analysed the spatio-temporal distribution of agras using place names from historical records and rural cadastre cartography. Results indicated that there was a significant correspondence between selected terms and agras spatial distribution. Field names showed a strong inertia in time, remaining despite recent land use changes but also in a long-term context, as they indicate the former presence of agras in a coastal sector that disappeared around the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Our findings suggest that identification of historical landscape features by means of place names could be of interest for further landscape research, with application in landscape inventory, monitoring and landscape rest...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore farming landscapes in Orkney, Scotland, focusing particularly on local responses to the rise of the environmental movement and agri-environmental schemes.
Abstract: This paper explores farming landscapes in Orkney, Scotland, focusing particularly on local responses to the rise of the environmental movement and agri-environmental schemes. It argues that where institutional designations of ‘nature’ tended to invoke a generalised temporal stasis, local and regional understandings of ‘landscape’ emphasise specific histories, transience, and movement. Seeking these regional senses of landscape through an ethnographic approach, the paper presents some personal histories of responses to nature conservation that have a context in local cultural understandings of landscape. The continuing importance of the udal land tenure heritage in Orkney in relation to this is described. Finally, the ways that farmers and recreational walkers move around farm land are presented as further evidence for the importance of localised concepts of landscape in contrast to institutional designations of nature, while recognising that environmentalists themselves have come to take on aspec...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how collective memories of place have framed contemporary planning conflicts in a rural arena and explore the emergence of the Irish Rural Dwellers Association as a vocal campaigner for private property rights and a laissez-faire approach to accommodating new housing development in the open countryside.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to explore how collective memories of place have framed contemporary planning conflicts in a rural arena. Specifically, the paper charts the emergence of the Irish Rural Dwellers Association (IRDA) as a vocal campaigner for private property rights and a laissez-faire approach to accommodating new housing development in the open countryside. For the IRDA, postcolonial narratives and national(ist) identities provide an important vocabulary for protest and opposition to state regulation by: 1) providing a discursive device to create a shared storyline of rural struggle; 2) providing an exclusionary device, whereby drawing on ‘memory’ and representations of rurality creates an insider/outsider discourse where some voices are cast as illegitimate; and 3) providing a frame for placing emotional knowledge at the centre of planning and landscape policy-making. This paper questions the authenticity of this policy narrative and addresses the validity of self-acclaimed knowledge wit...
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of the ruins related to a former railway in southern Sweden is presented, where the transformation of one part of the embankment into a multifunctional greenway is studied in detail and the process of dismantling the ruin (metaphorically and literally) within pl...
Abstract: In recent years, ruins have come to be regarded as an asset for the revitalization of urban nature, facilitating a critique of the nature–culture divide embedded in the fabric of contemporary cities and modern planning. This paper therefore argues for investigations of relational spaces of industrial ruins in order to capture their potential within green structure planning. The breakdown of the former order and the establishment of new heterogeneous relationships need to be regarded as vital background information when reinterpreting the ruin as part of the green structure. The concept network ruin is introduced here to inspire further studies of the shattered actor-network and its inertia. In order to illustrate the concept, the paper presents a case study of the ruins related to a former railway in southern Sweden. The transformation of one part of the embankment into a multifunctional greenway is studied in detail and the process of dismantling the ruin (metaphorically and literally) within pl...
TL;DR: Waterton and Watson as mentioned in this paper presented a perspective on visuality and the past in their book "Culture, Heritage and Representation: Perspectives on Visuality and Past".
Abstract: Culture, Heritage and Representation: Perspectives on Visuality and the Past Emma Waterton & Steve Watson (Eds) Ashgate, Farnham, 2010, 296 pp., ISBN 978 0 7546 7598 3 Published as part of the ‘Her...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors have observed when and where patients choose to walk while they were undergoing a treatment program for stress related diseases in a healing garden and explored how patients use and interact with this therapeutic setting by looking at behaviour and location.
Abstract: By participatory observation the researchers have observed when and where patients choose to walk while they were undergoing a treatment program for stress related diseases in a healing garden. The aim was to deepen the knowledge on environment–behaviour relations needed when designing gardens, parks, public open spaces and especially therapeutic environments. The purpose was to explore how patients use and interact with this therapeutic setting by looking at behaviour and location. This can be viewed as a kind of qualitative evaluation of the design of the garden. Depending on people's need and intentions, two main types of recreational walks (Introvert and Extrovert walks) have been observed, each with three sub-groups. These walks take place in different parts of the garden having different characteristics, confirming the need for knowledge on the relation between the design of green spaces and the activities this stimulates.
TL;DR: In this article, a case study of the Hoge Veluwe National Park in the Netherlands is presented, where wilderness aspects are conceptualised as "paradise-like" or "hell-like", thus providing insight into the origins, limits and dynamics of contemporary wilderness concepts.
Abstract: ‘Wilderness’ is often seen as a (biophysical) ideal state in contemporary debates on ecological restoration. We ask what is left of relationships with ‘wilderness’ in present-day Western societies by drawing on a case study of the Hoge Veluwe National Park, the Netherlands. A brief history of wilderness interpretations is constructed as a backdrop to the analysis of the Veluwean land use history. Herein, wilderness aspects are conceptualised as ‘paradise-like’ or ‘hell-like’, thus providing insight into the origins, limits and dynamics of contemporary wilderness concepts. We conclude that the concept of wilderness is inherently paradoxical, and argue that wilderness paradoxes should be not be ignored, but acknowledged and valued in conservation practices.
TL;DR: In this paper, the human experience of landscape is explored in an ethnographic approach from both anthropology and geography, taking the experience of the landscape to be based on fundamental human experience.
Abstract: This special issue is about the human experience of landscape, and presents novel ethnographic approaches from anthropology and geography. Taking the experience of landscape to be based fundamental...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the debate on urban sprawl and reveal embedded conflicts within spatial planning aiming to curb sprawl, and illustrate this with an examination of one of the earliest attempts to control peri-urban development at a regional level in Sweden.
Abstract: Studies in landscape and planning history are used here in order to critically examine the debate on urban sprawl and to reveal embedded conflicts within spatial planning aiming to curb sprawl. The paper aims to illustrate this with an examination of one of the earliest attempts to control peri-urban development at a regional level in Sweden. The discourse on sprawl is first introduced and the fruitfulness of landscape studies in capturing inherent and conflicting aims within planning is examined. Subsequent analysis of the seemingly scattered and weak spatial planning of the 1930s and 1940s in Scania, Sweden, reveals an ad hoc regional plan, developed primarily in order to curb scattered development. The importance of the landscape discourse for the development of the plan, as well as the contradictory treatment of urban sprawl (on a local and regional level), is demonstrated. The final part discusses the importance of this historiography for the ability to deal with the current planning situati...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify problems where outputs from the landscape are multiple consisting of a mix of public and private goods, and suggest that central intervention is needed to ensure pro...
Abstract: Land areas in collective ownership or use are traditionally referred to as commons. Through history, the common use and ownership has been a widespread means of regulating the use of natural resources. Changing economic conditions and technology spawned a process however where land use rights and landowner rights aggregated into the modern form of private ownership of individual farms with full management and owner rights. This process had obvious rationales in terms of production of marketable agricultural products. However, in the twentieth century increasing awareness of the supply of externalities such as clean groundwater and recreational opportunities from landscapes turned the attention once again to commons as an instrument for managing natural resources. Using groundwater and coastal landscapes as case examples, we pinpoint problems where outputs from the landscape are multiple consisting of a mix of public and private goods. In some instances central intervention is needed to ensure pro...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use Ingold's dwelling conceptualisation of landscape to reflect on how material and cultural processes affect stakeholders' perceptions of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, UK.
Abstract: The Scottish model of national parks reflects wider changes in the management of special or protected landscapes. This paper uses Ingold's dwelling conceptualisation of landscape to reflect on how material and cultural processes affect stakeholders' perceptions of the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, UK. Important to understanding different views, is the separation, unique to the Cairngorms, of ‘the park’ from its management organisation. The paper argues that this separation creates a conceptual space for the negotiation of contested claims regarding the park. Such claims reflect not only the relationship between people and place, or as Ingold (2000) puts it, the landscape as it is known to those who dwell in it; they also represent vested interests and regimes of power concerning what happens in specific places. These claims do not reproduce simple splits between, for example, public/private or conservation/development but show a more complex picture.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyse recent developments in farmers' management of the right to hunt and associated landscape activities in three agricultural regions based on surveys from 1995/96 and 2008.
Abstract: Hunting represents an important activity in Danish rural landscapes. In this paper, we analyse recent developments in farmers' management of the right to hunt and associated landscape activities in three agricultural regions based on surveys from 1995/96 and 2008. The results show that the total area on which farmers hunt has increased, especially the area on which the owner is the hunter. This indicates that interest in hunting is increasing, and the interest for hunting may play an increasing role as a landscape activity and as a motive to become a farm property owner. Concerning landscape management, non-hunters, surprisingly, seem to have a more game-friendly management practice than hunters. On the other hand, hunters own farms with forests and/or farms located in areas of high landscape heterogeneity more often than non-hunters. Local hunting associations play an interesting role in relation to non-owners' accessibility to hunting and such associations may play a significant role in the fut...
TL;DR: In this paper, the influence of farm advisors on farmers' decisions regarding "multifunctional landscape commons" is investigated by combining data about the source of advice with evidence of land use and landscape changes and participation in subsidy schemes.
Abstract: This study investigates the influence of farm advisors on farmers’ decisions regarding ‘Multifunctional landscape commons’, a concept covering environmental and landscape values that benefit the public but which depend on farmers’ management practices. The influence of advisors is analysed by combining data about the source of advice with evidence of land use and landscape changes and participation in subsidy schemes. The study compares three agricultural areas in Denmark. Structured interviews were carried out with all farmers possessing more than 2 ha land in 1995–6 and in 2008. Vertical, production and business-oriented advisory services predominate, together with legal and organisational spatial competence networks. A new group of hobby farmers and pensioned farmers tend not to be included in traditional advisory networks, leaving them to carry out landscape changes and multifunctional landscape commons without professional guidance and consultancy. This means the horizontal coordination amon...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an index for quantifying landscape change and for discriminating between magnitude and significance therein, which enables objective comparison of different landscape changes presenting different combinations of magnitudes and significance.
Abstract: Landscape is organised in mosaics: sets of patches with a defined pattern of boundaries through which patches interact Changes in patches cause changes in mosaics Landscape change has two components: a quantitative one, referring to the areas in which changes happen, and a qualitative one, referring to the degree of similarity among the mosaics substituting each other The quantitative component informs on the magnitude of the change: the total area in which landscape mosaics have changed; the qualitative one informs on the significance thereof: the ecological differences between the mosaics substituting each other This paper presents an index for quantifying landscape change and for discriminating between magnitude and significance therein It was tested by study of changes in the landscape mosaics in Madrid, Spain Results show that the index developed is useful for this purpose This enables objective comparison of different landscape changes presenting different combinations of magnitude and significance