LANDSCAPE: WHERE GEOGRAPHY AND ECOLOGY CONVERGE

Abstract

The word landscape is old and popular. It has many senses from territory to scenery. Geography uses this concept since Humboldt, which pointed out its spatiality and its physical and cultural characteristics. The geographical approach of landscape concept emphasizes relationships between natural and cultural processes in a spatial portion. Depending on physical or cultural/symbolic approaches, one of both processes will prevail. In ecological approach, the main characteristics to define landscape are spatiality, heterogeneity and relationship between elements, including men or not. Here we propose a unified landscape concept defining it as a heterogeneous space portion where relationship between natural and cultural processes occur.