European landscapes are a key natural and cultural resources and the result of a long history of human management, associated with traditional land use practices. Due to the high natural and cultural richness of European landscapes, different policies have been established to regulate landscape conservation.
The first step for landscape conservation is identification and classification landscapes for protection, management, and planning. Here, the development of remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems have become key tools for landscape mapping. These methods have allowed the creation of a wide range of cartography and landscape databases for studies at landscape level. Despite European efforts at protection and conservation, cultural European landscapes are faced with many impacts and these are addressed in this lecture.
