Archiving the complex information systems of cultural landscapes for interdisciplinary permanent access – development of concepts

Abstract

European countries are characterised by valuable cultural landscapes that have gradually evolved through the interaction of people and the natural landscape, their survival being protected by traditional ways of land use. As the traditional forms of land use has changed, particularly over the past four decades, these valuable cultural landscapes are threatened and in places are facing extinction. Such landscapes often cannot compete with more urgent needs on the level of planning and the implementation of important infrastructural developments, together with the needs and requirements of modern agriculture. This contribution introduces the ad hoc concept of selective historic landscape characterisation programmes leading to the concept of systematically archiving the complex information systems of cultural landscapes for permanent interdisciplinary access prepared on the basis of empirical studies. Much of the data acquired is related directly to specific infrastructural projects and largely neglects the requirements for other similar projects that might arise in the future such as flood protection, climate change. It is considered that the interdisciplinary archiving of landscape elements and entire cultural landscapes is an opportunity to combine practice, through economic drivers, effects, and implications, with science through the development of an interdisciplinary approach to cultural landscapes.