Back from landscape science to landscape ecology? Miloslav Lapka1,3, Eva Cudlínová1,2, Jan Vávra1,3
1 Institute of Systems Biology and Ecology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i., Na Sádkách 7, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
2 Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia, Studentská 13, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
3 Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, Celetná 20, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic
Introduction Landscape ecology presents itself as an interdisciplinary science, which links natural sciences with human disciplines and concerns human activity in landscape (www.landscape-ecology.org). Is it reality or just a proclamation? What shows analysis of leading journals?
MethodologyWe reviewed 1620 abstracts of scientific articles published in two journals : Landscape Ecology (LE) and Landscape and Urban Planning (LUP) in years 1999-2008. This number means all articles from the decade available through Web of Science (LE) and Science Direct (LUP). Articles were divided into 3 groups according to the position of human (Social, Natural & Technical management and Natural). All abstracts were read, not just checked according to keywords, in Social group all full version of articles were reviewed. Result
sSocial
• human system is an object of research
NT management• for human, but human system is not research object
Natural• human system is not an object of reserach
Fig. 2 LE summary (1999-2008)
Fig. 3 LUP summary (1999-2008)
Fig. 3 LE per years Fig. 4 LUP per years
LE LUP
Social 37 337
NT mngmt 81 282
Natural 572 311
Total 690 930
Tab. 1 Articles in both journals
Discussion and conclusionWhile some other studies and reviews are focused on more criterias, i.e. Wiens (1992), Hobbs (1997) and Andersen (2008), we focused mainly on social system in landscape as primary research object, which requires connection with social sciences. From this point of view we can note that LUP has evidently better proportional concern on social aspects of landscape than LE, even higher than Antrop’s study shows (2001). Landscape Ecology, the house journal of IALE, doesn’t meet its proclamated role to be bridge between nature and culture, between science and humanities. Analysis of our total sample of abstracts and articles shows Andersen’s (2008) conclusion about articles focusing on sociology in LE like overemphasized, maybe due to random sampling of 50 cases and classification of papers belonging to Social system following her very broad definition as „some aspect of sociology“.
Results show that real cooperation with social sciences (Golley, 1996), integrating humans into landscape ecology (Wu and Hobbs, 2002) and concept of Total Human Ecosystem (Naveh, 2000) are more proclamations and wishes than a real way of thinking among the group of landscape ecologists presenting their papers in the elite house journal of IALE. It looks like reductionism towards landscape science bears fruit. Isn´t it the right time for return to landscape ecology? Thank you for your attentionReferencesAndersen B., J. (2008), Research in the journal Landscape Ecology, 1987-2005. Landscape Ecology 23: 129-134
Antrop, M. (2001), The language of landscape ecologists and planners. A comparative content analysis of concepts used in landscape ecology. Landscape and Urban Planning 55: 163-173
Golley, F., B. (1996), A state of transition. Landscape Ecology 11: 321-323
Hobbs, R. (1997), Future landscapes and future of landscape ecology. Landscape and Urban Planning 37: 1-9
Naveh, Z. (2000), What is holistic landscape ecology? A conceptual introduction. Landscape and Urban Planning 50: 7-26
Wiens, J., A. (1992), What is landscape ecology, really? Landscape Ecology 7: 149-150
Wu, J., Hobbs, R. (2002), Key issues and research priorities in landscape ecology: An idiosyncratic synthesis. Landscape Ecology 17: 355-365
[email protected] [email protected]@usbe.cas.cz
Landscape Ecology Social
5%
NT mngmt
12%
Natural83%
Landscape and Urban Planning
Social37%
NT mngmt30%
Natural33%
Landscape ecology
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Natural
NT mngmt
Social
Landscape and Urban Planning
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
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2008
Natural
NT mngmt
Social