Re-connecting landscape : roles for spatial planning

The thesis sets out the candidate’s contribution to the field of landscape planning in relation to themes such as sustainability, multifunctionality and resilience. It contextualises the candidate’s work in terms of the literature linking spatial planning, natural resource management and sustainable development, and shows how these have, most recently, led to a concern for ‘re-connection’. It then considers more specifically the influence of ten published outputs concerning interventions on behalf of the cultural landscape. Substantially, the candidate’s contribution is viewed as a way of ‘designing with nature’, within the legacy of Ian McHarg. The first part of the thesis explains how the candidate contributed broadly to a gradual acceptance of natural resource management as a legitimate concern for spatial planning, and how this was subsequently re-interpreted within a discourse of sustainable development. A set of ten published outputs is then critically reviewed in terms of: a synoptic overview; a contribution to the theory of landscape planning; an exploration of aspects of practical implementation; and a consideration of future prospects for promoting social-environmental resilience through the medium of multifunctional landscape. The thesis concludes by anticipating further development of the themes of multifunctionality, sustainability, resilience and re-connection within a ‘Neo-McHargian’ context.