The implementation of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) at national and regional scales has brought with it the need to rethink landscape governance policies. In view of the disparity of possible methods for approaching landscape knowledge derived from the ELC, this article proposes the study of the three most ambitious landscape assessment methods developed in Spain at present. Specifically, those of Valencia, Galicia and Catalonia. Their study and comparative reading allow us to conclude that they have a similar structure imposed in part by the requirements of the Convention. Despite this, all three demonstrate a wide operational flexibility depending on the purpose of each one. As a derivative of the study, it is argued that a method seeking to fulfill both a sustainability and a public participation agenda would have to combine quantitative forms of socio-ecological assessment with a qualitative measurement of cultural appreciation of landscapes.

Inspired by the European Landscape Convention, landscape conservation policies in European countries are increasingly becoming connected to cultural heritage policies. In some European countries such as Spain, the vision of the ELC has been enriched with that of the guidelines on the inclusion of Cultural Landscapes on the World Heritage List. The Spanish National Cultural Landscape Plan, an instrument for the implementation of the ELC promoted by the Spanish Institute of Cultural Heritage, expressly states that its definition of cultural landscape should be based on the definition of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, but incorporating the ELC. However, this confluence is ultimately reflected in confronting guidelines. This study deepens this duality of the concept of cultural landscape, explores its conflicting spatial implications, and discusses its use in Spanish regional instruments. Through the statistical study of a sample of Spanish cultural landscapes, our study recognizes the need for guidelines for the identification of landscapes of special interest, especially if they are to be converted into cultural properties afterwards. Although the study cannot provide a method that solves the problem of the spatial dimensions of the landscape without major concessions, it has provided a classification of the dominant typology.

Landscape conservation efforts in many European countries focus on cultural landscapes, which are part of the cultural identity of people, have a great heritage significance, improve the living standards of local populations and provide valuable cultural biodiversity. However, despite a wide arrange of protective measures, the management of preserved areas is seldom effective for the protection of cultural landscapes. Through a multi-approach analysis, we characterise the main heritage attributes of 17 Protected Landscapes in Spain and assess their management effectiveness by quantifying the evolution of the spatial pattern inside and outside protected landscapes. Our method has proven useful to quantitatively describe the spatial-temporal patterns of change of the protected and unprotected landscapes studied. We highlight the following results: (i) the concepts of uniqueness and naturalness are not appropriate to preserve cultural landscapes; (ii) the land protection approach currently adopted is not useful for the protection of cultural landscapes, particularly of the most rural ones; (iii) the landscapes studied with greater rural features can be considered as “paper parks”. We recommend that different protection measures focused on the needs and desires of the rural population are taken into account in order to protect cultural landscapes that are shaped by traditional rural activities.

Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) are undervalued and poorly understood compared to other types of ecosystem services. The sociocultural preferences of the different actors who enjoy a landscape are intangible aspects of a complex evaluation. Landscape photographs available on social media have opened up the possibility of quantifying landscape values and ecosystem services that were previously difficult to measure. Thus, a new research methodology has been developed based on the spatial distribution of geotagged photographs that, based on probabilistic models, allows us to estimate the potential of the landscape to provide CES. This study tests the effectiveness of predictive models from MaxEnt, a software based on a machine learning technique called the maximum entropy approach, as tools for land management and for detecting CES hot spots. From a sample of photographs obtained from the Panoramio network, taken between 2007 and 2008 in the Lozoya Valley in Madrid (Central Spain), we have developed a predictive model of the future and compared it with the photographs available on the social network between 2009 and 2015. The results highlight a low correspondence between the prediction of the supply of CES and its real demand, which indicates that MaxEnt is not a sufficiently useful predictive tool in complex and changing landscapes such as the one studied here.

Resumen El tren fue un símbolo muy empleado en la literatura estadounidense del XIX, sobre todo de la primera mitad. La metáfora de lo ferroviario en ocasiones expresaba una invasión: de la máquina en el jardín; de lo industrial en lo rural. En la literatura, el tren apareció como el paradigma de un mundo cambiante, ruidoso y veloz que penetraba y alteraba un mundo tranquilo y bucólico. Esto contrastaba con otra imagen coetánea, derivada de la expansión de la nación hacia el oeste, que veía el tren en su sentido literal de máquina que posibilitaba contactar con lugares de gran valor estético. Así, en una convivencia cultural de lo disociado muy común para el país en aquella época, el tren significaba simultáneamente la privación y el acceso al paisaje. Olmsted desviaría lo ferroviario de esta confrontación. Al contrario que los paisajistas que le precedieron, él aceptó plenamente la necesidad del mundo moderno. Su carrera, de hecho, se puede entender como una ambición por aminorar sus consecuencias más perniciosas. El tren penetró este discurso tanto en su forma literaria como literal. La primera, como vehículo narrativo en algunos de sus muchos libros de viajes. La segunda, como elemento a tener en cuenta en el diseño de las periferias urbanas. Aquí encontraría soluciones espaciales muy interesantes cuando combinó la línea férrea con enclaves residenciales unifamiliares. Finalmente, la suma de ambas resultó en un nuevo sentido figurado de lo ferroviario; una lectura que supone la aportación más innovadora de este trabajo. Se argumenta que, en su imaginario, Olmsted trasladó el tren de una confrontación paisajística cualitativa (paisaje industrial vs. Paisaje bucólico) a una perceptiva. Abstract U.S. literature, during the 19th century, sometimes employed the train as a symbol that expressed an invasion: the industrial taking over the rural. The railroad exemplified a rapidly changing world penetrating into a quiet, bucolic one. However, this contrasts with another contemporary meaning of the railroad derived from the country’s expansion to the west: the train as the machine that allowed contact with new landscapes of great aesthetic value. This resulted in the coexistence of dissociated realities very common in the country during that time: the train simultaneously symbolizing the deprivation and the connection with the American landscape. Olmsted diverted the railroad from this confrontation. Contrary to his predecessors, he recognized the benefits of the modern world. His landscape career was, in fact, an attempt to ameliorate its more harmful consequences. With this in mind, the train entered his discourse both in it’s literally and literal forms. First, as a narrative device present in most of his travel books. Second, as an element to be taking into account when designing suburbs. Here, he would find interesting spatial solutions when combining the railroad with his residential enclaves. Lastly, the sum of both gave a new figurative meaning to the train, which is, in fact, one of the more innovative contribution of this paper. From various unpublished manuscript, I contend that in Olmsted’s imaginary the railroad was displaced from a qualitative discussion of landscape to a perceptive one.