Sociocultural indicators in ecological studies at the landscape scale: a field under construction

Abstract

The science of landscape ecology aims to study quantitative variables to modelling relationships between ecological processes in ecosystems and the effect of human disturbances. The landscape, however, is a holistic system in which nature and culture co-evolve. Hence, management interventions designed to support sustainability and the conservation of landscapes are the result of human decision-makers, who have different values and worldviews and who may affect the management decisions. Despite their importance, the social and cultural dimensions of landscapes have not been adequately studied or considered an important theme in landscape ecology or management, mainly because of the difficulty of quantifying them. In this sense, an important step is to establish quantifiable sociocultural indicators that reflect these values in metrics that facilitate their introduction in the landscape ecology models or management. In this sense, the main objective of this study is, through a systematic literature review in Google Scholar, to propose a set of quantitative indicators for measure tangible and intangible values of landscape, highlighting the importance of social participation to obtain them within communities. This study also explore the importance of social and cultural values for landscape analysis, and discusses the opportunities for and limitations to develop quantifiable indicators for these values. Of the 66 articles found, 16 presented 29 sociocultural quantitative indicators to be measured in the landscape (18 tangible and 11 intangible).