By the late twentieth century, idyllic depictions of eighteenth-century manorial landscapes had become artistic expressions of dislocation. Western agricultural paradigms had shifted, as had the relationship between art and agriculture. The Cultivated Landscape uses over seventy illustrations to look at the development of Western agriculture from feudal times to the present.

Paul Shepheard explains how every architectural move that man makes is set in a landscape. He draws on examples of fortified settlements in Norman England that reflect occupation and the New World's grid-layout cities reflecting reason.

Most of the papers of this book were presented in the "IGU-LUCC 2003 Moscow Workshop on Global and Regional Land Use/Cover Changes" and at International Conference "Society and Environment Interaction Under Global and Regional Changes" which was held in Barnaul (Altai), Russia in summer 2003.

This book contains selected papers resulting from the 2020 International Conference on Road and Traffic Engineering (CRTE 2020) covering Road Engineering and Traffic Engineering, aiming to provide an academic and technical communication platform for scholars and engineers engaged in scientific research and engineering practice in the field of Road Engineering and Materials, Traffic Engineering and Management and Transportation Engineering. By sharing the research status of scientific research achievements and cutting-edge technologies, it helps scholars and engineers all over the world to comprehend the academic development trends and broaden research ideas. So as to strengthen international academic research, academic topics exchange and discussion, and promote the industrialization cooperation of academic achievements.

This volume deals with land degradation, which is occurring in almost all terrestrial biomes and agro-ecologies, in both low and high income countries and is stretching to about 30% of the total global land area. About three billion people reside in these degraded lands. However, the impact of land degradation is especially severe on livelihoods of the poor who heavily depend on natural resources. The annual global cost of land degradation due to land use and cover change (LUCC) and lower cropland and rangeland productivity is estimated to be about 300 billion USD. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for the largest share (22%) of the total global cost of land degradation. Only about 38% of the cost of land degradation due to LUCC - which accounts for 78% of the US$300 billion loss – is borne by land users and the remaining share (62%) is borne by consumers of ecosystem services off the farm. The results in this volume indicate that reversing land degradation trends makes both economic sense, and has multiple social and environmental benefits. On average, one US dollar investment into restoration of degraded land returns five US dollars. The findings of the country case studies call for increased investments into the rehabilitation and restoration of degraded lands, including through such institutional and policy measures as strengthening community participation for sustainable land management, enhancing government effectiveness and rule of law, improving access to markets and rural services, and securing land tenure. The assessment in this volume has been conducted at a time when there is an elevated interest in private land investments and when global efforts to achieve sustainable development objectives have intensified. In this regard, the results of this volume can contribute significantly to the ongoing policy debate and efforts to design strategies for achieving sustainable development goals and related efforts to address land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

Silvia Aru, Fabio Parascandolo, Marcello Tanca, Luca Vargiu ForewordFabio Parascandolo Crisis of landscapes, landscapes of the crisis: notes for a socio-ecological approachAnna Maria Colavitti The crisis of the landscape, the crisis of the norms for the landscape, the planning of the landscape between uncertainty and second thoughts. A few basic issuesBenedetta Castiglioni “Institutional” vs “everyday” landscape as conflicting concepts in opinions and practices. Reflections and perspectives from a case study in Northeastern ItalyPaolo D’Angelo Agriculture and landscape. From cultivated fields to the wilderness, and backSilvia Aru The smart city: urban landscapes in the current crisisFederica Pau Sardinian rebirth landscapes. An aesthetician’s outlookMarcello Tanca Cagliari’s urban landscape: a commons?Serge Latouche Degrowth as a territorial-landscape project