The three main research objectives that contribute to the overall aim of this ITN are:
- To reconstruct the deep history of Europe’s cultural landscapes and corresponding changes in coupled human-nature interactions within subsequent human energy regimes and their transitions.
- To rethink the outcomes of human environmental interactions over the past three energy regimes on the present-day landscape in Europe, in order to inform future energy transitions from a long-term environmental and social perspective.
- To design landscape management strategies,
i) to provide scientific guidance on threats and opportunities for natural and cultural values of Europe’s landscapes;
ii) to define criteria for assisted restoration of ecosystems of former (abandoned) agricultural areas;
iii) to generate future scenarios for cultural landscape change, with integrated landscape, cultural heritage and biodiversity models, to inform current planning initiatives, e.g. for the transition to a low-carbon society.
