This book, a compendium of 28 papers selected from two recent conferences on the topic, focuses on aspects of rural landscape, broadly related to issues of language, representation and power. These are issues that have not been addressed on a pan-European landscape level before.The aim is to offer a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of historical and contemporary processes in European landscapes.

These are the final results and reflections of the project MEA-Scope. This project with the full title “Micro-economic instruments for impact assessment of multifunctional agriculture to implement the model of European Agriculture” was a pioneering project. It was among the first which were funded in the new activity Scientific Support to Policies of the th 6 Research Framework Programme. Policy decisions – especially at the European level – are never easy. What policy-makers decide will potentially affect the lives of millions of people for many years. This makes reaching informed decisions crucial, and scientific research can help illuminate their policy choices. MEA-Scope was one of two projects which addressed the research p- orities for European Rural areas which were identified in an EC workshop on Multifunctionality in Agriculture in 2001. Scientific Support to Policies in the Research Framework Programme is facing the challenge to identify in the discussions between policy makers and the research community those topics which can be addressed in a m- term strategic research programme. When the research topic was published Multifunctionality of Agriculture was among the concepts with many - search questions open. It was considered that positivistic approaches into technology aspects of agriculture, forestry and other rural activities based on natural resources and land use are needed, as well as more normative research with regard to trade, food quality and safety, animal welfare, en- ronment, rural development and cultural issues.

Rural regions in Europe are evolving under powerful boundary conditions such as globalisation, socio-cultural transformations and climate change, which in turn increases natural hazards. The regional land use and the evolvement of landscapes is increasingly shaped trends and drivers like infrastructural, energy or housing needs, globalised agricultural markets, and consumption habits. To face these challenges and to balance competitiveness with social cohesion, the "InnoLand research and development network" induces and accompanies promising land use innovations at the landscape scale in 10 European rural regions. Based on a common conceptual approach among the InnoLand partners, the development and implementation of new competitive strategies is conducted as a science-practice dialogue with strong commitment to the regional policy design for rural development. With this book, the network partners provide an overview and a comparative analysis of selected experimental regional approaches and give examples for the successful tackling of future opportunities and threats.

The distribution and re-distribution of people across the landscape has signi cant implications for ecological, economic and social dynamics. Movement of people to urban centres (mostly from rural landscapes, especially in the developing world) is a major global phenomenon. This can result in the de-population of rural landscapes. Conversely, population growth and a changing demographic pro le have been id- ti ed for particular rural landscapes with notable examples from North America, Europe and Australia. Yet we know little of the factors that drive demographic changes in rural landscapes and even less about the implications of these changes. This book examines broad and local-scale patterns of demographic change in rural landscapes, identi es some of the drivers of these changes using Australian case studies or comparisons between Australian and international contexts, and outlines the implications of changes for society and the environment. This book makes a valuable contribution to the literature because it adopts an integrated and interdisciplinary approach by explicitly linking demographic change with environmental, land-use, social and economic factors. This integrated approach was achieved by encouraging interaction among authors writing on similar topics to ensure coherency and complementarity among chapters, and cross-pollination of ideas and perspectives. Chapters are presented as interactive and re ective d- cussions that address the ndings of other contributors; yet, each chapter contains enough background to stand alone as a unique contribution.

From the acclaimed landscape historian and geographer, a comprehensive handbook to understanding the elements that make up the rural landscape. Selected by Choice Magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title In this book, John Fraser Hart offers a comprehensive handbook to understanding the elements that make up the rural landscape—those regions that lie at or beyond the fringes of modern metropolitan life. Though the last two centuries have seen an inversion in the portion of people living on farms to those in cities, the land still beckons, whether traversed in a car or train, scanned from far above, or as the locus of our food supply or leisure. The Rural Landscape provides a deceptively simple method for approaching the often complex and variegated shape of the land. Hart divides it into its mineral, vegetable, and animal components and shows how each are interdependent, using examples from across Europe and America. Looking at the land forms of southern England, for instance, he comments on the use of hedgerows to divide fields, the mineral or geomorphological features of the land determining where hedgerows will grow in service of the human animal's needs. Hart reveals the impact on the land of human culture and the basic imperative of making a living as well as the evolution of technical skills toward that end (as seen in the advance of barbed wire as a function of modern transportation). Hart describes with equal clarity the erosion of land to form river basins and the workings of a coal mine. He charts shifting patterns of crop rotation, from the medieval rota of food (wheat or rye), feed (barley or oats), and fallow (to restore the land) to modern two-crop cycle of corn and soybeans, made possible by fertilizers and pesticides. He comments on traditions of land division (it is almost impossible to find a straight line on a map of Europe) and inventories a variety of farm structures (from hop yards and oast houses to the use of dikes for irrigation). He identifies the relict features of the landscape—from low earthen terraces once used in the southern United States to prevent erosion to old bank buildings that have become taverns and barns turned into human homes. Carrying the story of the rural landscape into our frantic era, he describes the "bow wave"where city life meets rural agriculture and plots the effect of recreation and its structures on the look of the land.

This book examines how rural Europe as a hybrid social and natural environment emerged as a key site of local, national and international governance in the interwar years. The post-war need to secure and intensify food production, to protect contested border areas, to improve rural infrastructure and the economic viability of rural regions and to politically integrate rural populations, gave rise to a variety of schemes aimed at modernizing agriculture and remaking rural society. The volume examines discourses, institutions and practices of rural governance from a transnational perspective, revealing striking commonalities across national and political boundaries. From the village town hall to the headquarters of international organizations, local authorities, government officials and politicians, scientific experts and farmers engaged in debates about the social, political and economic future of rural communities. They sought to respond to both real and imagined concerns over poverty and decline, backwardness and insufficient control, by conceptualizing planning and engineering models that would help foster an ideal rural community and develop an efficient agricultural sector. By examining some of these local, national and international schemes and policies, this volume highlights the hitherto under-researched interaction between policymakers, experts and rural inhabitants in the European countryside of the 1920s and '30s.

This edited volume highlights the geographies of six European Mediterranean countries: France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Greece. The book provides a balanced overview on what the geographers of these six countries have investigated and reflected in recent decades. This thematically arranged book takes into account the national differences of the authors, but also highlights the main contributions of Mediterranean geographies on a global scale. It reinforces a perception of common problems and debates in Southern Europe. This book appeals to the institutionalized geographical community of Mediterranean countries but also to a global audience of scholars of geography, territorial and spatial studies, social sciences and history.

Lush and green, the beauty of Ireland's landscape is legendary. "The Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape" has harnessed the expertise of dozens of specialists to produce an exciting and pioneering study which aims to increase understanding and appreciation for the landscape as an important element of Irish national heritage, and to provide a much needed basis for an understanding of landscape conservation and planning. Essentially cartographic in approach, the Atlas is supplemented by diagrams, photographs, paintings, and explanatory text. Regional case studies, covering the whole of Ireland from north to south, are included, along with historical background. The impact of human civilization upon Ireland's geography and environment is well documented, and the contributors to the Atlas deal with contemporary changes in the landscape resulting from developments in Irish agriculture, forestry, bog exploitation, tourism, housing, urban expansion, and other forces. "The Atlas of the Rural Irish Landscape" is a book which aims to educate and inform the general reader and student about the relationship between human activity and the landscape. It is a richly illustrated, beautifully written, and immensely authoritative work that will be the guide to Ireland's geography for many years to come.

Examines the interaction of the economic, political and social change processes within Europe which are bringing about fundamental transformations in rural areas. The authors expand on this view of rural Europe, and place its significance within the broader field of rural studies.