Landscape ecological concepts in planning: review of recent developments

Landscape ecology as an interdisciplinary science has great potential to inform landscape planning, an integrated, collaborative practice on a regional scale. It is commonly assumed that landscape ecological concepts play a key role in this quest. The aim of the paper is to identify landscape ecological concepts that are currently receiving attention in the scientific literature, analyze the prevalence of these concepts and understand how these concepts can inform the steps of the planning processes, from goal establishment to monitoring. We analyzed all empirical and overview papers that have been published in four key academic journals in the field of landscape ecology and landscape planning in the years 2015–2019 (n = 1918). Title, abstract and keywords of all papers were read in order to identify landscape ecological concepts. A keyword search was applied to identify the use of these and previously mentioned concepts in common steps of the planning cycle. The concepts Structure, Function, Change, Scale, Landscape as human experience, Land use, Landscape and ecosystem services, Green infrastructure, and Landscape resilience were prominently represented in the analyzed literature. Landscape ecological concepts were most often mentioned in context of the landscape analysis steps and least in context of goal establishment and monitoring. The current literature spots landscape ecological concepts with great potential to support landscape planning. However, future studies need to address directly how these concepts can inform all steps in the planning process.