Planning Rural Landscapes

Appealing to a broad audience, this book bridges different issues, from landscape to ecosystems, planning to implementation, and policies to local community willingness. This book outlines a methodology for defining green infrastructure (GI) in rural landscapes, showing how it underpins ecosystem services (ES) and aligns with various European Union (EU) directives. There are presented examples in Portuguese rural landscapes alongside international initiatives from several countries. Building on the concept of landscape as an open, autopoietic system with distinct resilience thresholds, the book demonstrates how GI serves as a versatile framework to support ES, implement nature-based solutions and the more recent Nature-Futures-Framework scenarios. Through real-world studies, the authors illustrate its flexibility and applicability across different scales and environments while respecting each location's unique characteristics. Written for planners, designers, policymakers, and academic institutions, this book offers a valuable resource for supporting sustainable land management, public policy formulation, planning, and innovative design practices, fostering informed debate on these topics and advancing eco-conscious initiatives for a sustainable future.

Natália Cunha, PhD in Landscape Architecture (ISA/ University of Lisbon) and MSc in Geographic Information Systems ( GIS) (IST Técnico/ University of Lisbon), she has been a researcher at LEAF - Instituto Superior de Agronomia since 2001. From 2004 to 2013, she worked as a teaching assistant at both ISA and IST and has published in peer-reviewed journals. She specialises in GIS-based landscape planning methodologies, contributing to several R&D projects related to green plans, ecological networks, GI land morphology, and flood risk mapping. Her postdoctoral research (CEEC/FCT, 2019-2024) focuses on integrating natural value protection into spatial planning. Recently, she co-coordinated LEAF/ISA project LandGi-nexus (2021- 2023). Manuela Magalhães, PhD in Landscape Architecture (ISA/ University of Lisbon). She founded and coordinated the Research Centre for Landscape Architecture (CEAP) in 2001. She was Deputy to the Secretary of State for the Environment and Head of the Landscape Planning Studies Division. As Professor at the School of Agronomy and Instituto Superior Técnico (UL), she has coordinated several Green Municipal Plans and research projects, including the National Ecological Network and the Potential Landscape Plan of Portugal. A founding member and General Secretary of the Portuguese Landscape Architect Association (APAP). In 2022, she was awarded the Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles-Environment and Landscape career prize.