The Agricultural Landscape for Recreation

Abstract

Food production is not the only use of our agricultural landscape. The landscape also fulfils basic human needs for recreation outside the urban fringe. This chapter describes a study of how certain qualities in the rural and semi-urban landscape correspond to well-being. The study covers Skane, the southernmost region in Sweden as well as the most productive agricultural region. Large datasets on the environment – land use, land cover, environmental qualities, impacts, etc. – were associated with results from a major public health survey. The results were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (Bjork et al., 2008). The chapter explains in more detail the method used to assess environmental qualities using Geographical Information System (GIS), and the relevance of these qualities for well-being and health promotion.