Preface

Landscape planning is generally described as a multi-disciplinary field that incorporates several branches of knowledge, considering at the same time science, technology, and art. In this scenario, each and every single landscape and planning specialist should be perceived as someone who is able to promote the definition of land use, thus enabling landscape alter‐ ations that should ensure sustainable development, while protecting the environment, pre‐ serving natural and cultural assets, and improving people's quality of life. Unfortunately, sometimes this is not true.

In this regard, the transformation of landscapes worldwide has raised global concerns, in‐ creasing the need to rethink landscape planning and protect the environment. This is especial‐ ly true for previously developed areas that are now abandoned or underused. Instead of consuming green lands, the brown and grey lands need to be redeveloped and given new life, achieving a more sustainable urban setting. In this sense, although landscape reclamation plays a very important role for societal development, the continuous use of green fields con‐ tinues to have deep economic, social, and ecological impacts that require special attention. The new environmental paradigms associated with globalization, progressive climate change, and increasing food production needs will intensify the entropy and the instability in most of the existing natural land. This reality creates the perfect momentum to assess these issues.

The present book aims to highlight the opportunities and challenges associated with the de‐ velopment of new sustainable landscapes, considering current and future challenges related to land use change, planning, and development, considering not only the different sustaina‐ bility pillars, but also the impacts these changes might have in each one of them.

This book covers a wide range of research domains and issues associated with land use change and redevelopment such as public involvement, landscape quality assessment, land use resilience, land policies, urban planning, and landscape reclamation, among others. The book covers a wide range of topics related to land use change and planning, assessing the impact of contemporary needs and constraints and landscape management strategies both on planning, ecosystem, and landscape design.

As a landscape architect and agronomic engineer with research interests deeply related to the field of sustainability, landscape planning and design, my main investigation goals are directly connected to fitting design to the needs and desires of contemporary life, addressing in equal measure society, the natural landscape, heritage and culture, and economic issues. I believe landscape planning is increasingly missing a vision towards future planning proc‐ esses that differ from many contemporaries in its philosophical grounding in the social as well as creative matrices, calling for a comprehensive view of the different components of landscape design, acknowledging the need for an interrelated analysis of the ecological, cul‐ tural and socioeconomic issues in planning and design processes.

**Section 1**

**Introduction**

**Section 1**
