What Is Landscape-Level Planning?

Many Needs

• Land, water, wildlife and people are affected by change in the landscape. The scope of landscape-level planning allows it to investigate complex relationships within a system and how they might respond to change. Issues such as threatened or endangered species, wildfire fuel management, recreation, wildlife habitat, water quality and ecosystem health can be assessed simultaneously.

Understanding the Landscape

• Landscape-level planning is used for land-management plans of large areas. The goal is to protect elements essential to ecological integrity and guide development away from where it will be damaged.

Benefits

• Research at landscape level enables a better understanding of the effect change has on an ecosystem, and that aids decisions that respond to multiple needs for a healthy environment. Traditional planning usually focuses on a project-by-project basis, which doesn't account for cumulative effects of change on an ecosystem.