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H2020Doctoral network2019–2023

TerraNova · The European Landscape Learning Initiative: Past and Future Environments and Energy Regimes shaping Policy Tools

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2019-04-01 → 2023-09-30
EU contribution
€4,082,398
Participants
23
Scheme
MSCA-ITN

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

The European Landscape Learning Initiative: Past and Future Environments and EnergyRegimes shaping Policy Tools

Landscapes provide essential services to humanity including water, food, energy, and clean air. But more than being simple providers of natural resources, landscapes have immeasurable value as cultural, scientific, educational, recreational, and spiritual resources. Despite their importance to humanity, many landscapes and terrestrial ecosystems are presently threatened by a combination of proximal impacts such as deforestation, land degradation, uncontrolled (sub)-urbanization, and human induced global change. TERRANOVA aims at improving our diachronic long-term understanding of landscape histories and land use strategies in Europe over a deep time perspective. Regional and continental syntheses will be used to anchor a new generation of landscape and climate change models which include the effects of past human actions and generate scenarios for future landscape management and rewilding. TERRANOVA represents a strong interdisciplinary and intersectoral co-production of knowledge, collaboration, innovative teaching, and supervision and working experience with multiple data types in the research programme. TERRANOVA contributes to identifying major previous shifts in resource use and energy regimes and provide options and scenarios for the future transition to a low carbon society. There is consensus that the intensity of management and impacts of land management on natural systems today is unprecedented. This leads on to consideration of themes of sustainability and societal impact upon landscapes in the 21st century. From this view TERRANOVA considers the knowledge of past energy regimes, their transitions and landscape interactions as essential components in understanding the present transition to a low carbon society. Guiding this final reporting marks the endwork of TERRANOVA researchers to contribute to this urgent need for landscape transformation, most notably on the road to 2030.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Terra Nova: The New Learning Initiative between Humanities and Science: Mapping Past Environments and Energy Regimes, Rethinking Human Environment Interaction and Designing Land Management Tools for Policy. This project aims at improving our diachronic long term understanding of landscape histories and land use strategies in Europe in the Holocene and Anthropocene. Previously identified socio-cultural transitions and the effects of natural forcings will be critically assessed in a new intellectual interdisciplinary arena created by the Terra Nova project. Regional and continental syntheses will be used to anchor a new generation of landscape and climate change models which include the effects of past human actions and generate scenarios for landscape management and rewilding.Ultimately this project will contribute to identifying major previous shifts in resource use and energy regimes and provide options for the future transition to a low carbon society.Can we identify a balance between natural and cultural landscapes changing over space and time? Can we establish a natural reference for ‘European landscapes’ to evaluate current and future measures of landscape planning, ecosystem restoration and rewilding? Or are both systems so intertwined that the separation of the human from the natural is complex and scale and time dependant? Some researchers mark the industrial revolution as the start of the Anthropocene, others argue that long ago humans in Europe had a larger influence than natural processes upon the landscape. Notwithstanding these differences, there is consensus that the intensity of management and impacts of land management on natural systems today is unprecedented. This leads on to consideration of themes of sustainability and societal impact upon landscapes in the 21st century. From this perspective knowledge of past energy regimes and landscape interactions are essential components in understanding the present transition to a low carbon society.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • STICHTING VU · AmsterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
  • AARHUS UNIVERSITET · Aarhus CDenmark
  • ACADEMIA ROMANA FILIALA IASI · IasiRomania
  • ASOCIACION ESPANOLA PARA EL ESTUDIO DEL CUATERNARIO · MadridSpain
  • ASOCIATIA WWF ROMANIA · BUCURESTIRomania
  • Asociatia de Geografie Aplicata Geoconcept · SuceavaRomania
  • CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisFrance
  • EUROPEAN LANDOWNERS ORGANIZATION · Bruxelles / BrusselBelgium
  • FILMUNIVERSITAT BABELSBERG KONRAD WOLF · Potsdam BabelsbergGermany
  • FREIE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN · BerlinGermany
  • LINNEUNIVERSITETET · VaxjoSweden
  • Landscape Research & ManagementUnited Kingdom
  • MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITAT HALLE-WITTENBERG · HalleGermany
  • STICHTING REWILDING EUROPE · Heilig LandstichtingNetherlands
  • TALLINN UNIVERSITY · TallinnEstonia
  • UICN, BUREAU DE REPRESENTATION AUPRES DE L'UNION EUROPEENNE AISBL · Bruxelles / BrusselBelgium
  • UNIVERSIDADE DE EVORA · Uniao das Freguesias de EvoraPortugal
  • UNIVERSITATEA STEFAN CEL MARE DIN SUCEAVA · SUCEAVARomania
  • UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · LeidenNetherlands
  • UNIVERSITETET I SOROST-NORGE · HortenNorway
  • UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH · PlymouthUnited Kingdom
  • UPPSALA UNIVERSITET · UppsalaSweden
  • WILD BUSINESS LTD · LondonUnited Kingdom

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union