The present chaotic transformation from the industrial to the global information society is accelerating the ecological,
social and economic unsustainability. The rapidly growing unsustainable, fossil energy powered urbanindustrial
technosphere and their detrimental impacts on nature and human well-being are threatening the solar
energy powered natural and seminatural biosphere landscapes and their vital ecosystem services. A sustainability
revolution is therefore urgently needed, requiring a shift from the „fossil age“ to the „solar age“ of a new world

Inadequacies in the indication of cultural ecosystem services (CES) are a hindrance in assessing their
comprehensive impacts on human wellbeing. Similarly, uncertainties about the quantity and quality of
CES, in real time and space, have hampered the ability of resource managers to precisely take responsive
management actions. The aim of the study is to demonstrate, how CES indicators can be identified and
qualified in order to link CES to human wellbeing, and to integrate them into the ‘ecosystem services cascade’

The paper presents empirical studies on the appreciation of nature and landscape in the Eastern Ore Mountains (Saxony, Germany) by tourism service providers (TSP) and visitors. Attractive landscape and experience of nature are the most important reasons to visit this region and to spend leisure time there. Particularly mountain meadows, raised bogs and mixed forests are highly appreciated. Deforestation, industrial development and the decline of biodiversity would reduce attractiveness for visitors.

During the symposium “Ecosystem Services at the Landscape Scale” from the EU-IALE conference 2009, several
challenges for future research on approaches to use the concept of ecosystem services at the landscape scale were
identified, focussing on the need for integration. Three main research directions were discussed, (i) the definition
of the potentials and limitations of the ecosystem service approach for landscape analysis, (ii) the identification of

E nvironmental planning is an instrument for the operationalisation of the precautionary principle in environmental law and, to this end, must rely on maps depicting the spatial patterns of ecological attributes of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and of environmental change effects, respectively. In this context, different mapping techniques are presented by example of three case studies covering terrestrial, coastal and marine environments. The first case study was selected to demonstrate how to compute an ecological land classification of Germany by means of CART.

In this paper, 1) a delineation of main theoretical, methodological and applicative issues of landscape ecology, 2) a comparison between landscape and ecosystem ecology, 3) a critical overview of actual limits of landscape ecology, are depicted.

The upper treeline of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) is renowned as a sensitive indicator of climate change and variability. By use of megafossil tree remains, preserved exposed on the ground surface, treeline shift over the past millennium was investigated at multiple sites along the Scandes in northern Sweden. Difference in thermal level between the present and the Medieval period, about AD 1000-1200, is a central, although controversial, aspect concerning the detection and attribution of anthropogenic climate warming.

European landscapes have featured considerable changes towards intensification and marginalisation.
These major trends are expected to continue in the future. Besides, the cultivation of bioenergy crops has
become an important factor in agricultural land use. A thorough understanding of land-use processes for
management purposes is needed. In this study, the spatial and temporal pattern of agricultural land use
and land-use change was classified at the scale of municipalities from 2005 to 2010. The study region was

The ecosystems of our intensively used European landscapes produce a variety of natural goods and services for the benefit
of humankind, and secure the basics and quality of life. Because these ecosystems are still undergoing fundamental changes,
the interest of the society is to know more about future developments and their ecological impacts. To describe and analyze
these changes, scenarios can be developed and an assessment of the ecological changes can be carried out subsequently. In the

Long-term field studies in the scope of a multidisciplinary project in southern Ecuador revealed extraordinary high species
numbers of many organismic groups. This article discusses reasons for the outstanding vascular plant diversity using a
hierarchical scale-oriented top-down approach (Grüninger 2005), from the global scale to the local microscale. The global
scale explains general (paleo-) ecological factors valid for most parts of the humid tropics, addressing various hypotheses

Within the framework of the project „Flood Prevention and Nature Conservation in the Weisseritz area“ („HochNatur“),
a method including landscape metrics was developed and applied to assess and to compare different land
use scenarios with regard to flood prevention and nature conservation. For the analysis, two sub-catchments strongly
differing in land use within the Weisseritz catchment (Eastern Erzgebirge, Saxony, Germany) were selected. The

Long-term erosion forecast can completely misinterpret in extreme events in plain regions. Flow paths are well
represented in the plain using digital elevation models in the 1-m grid (DEM1). The scale of the erosion process
models and the elevation models is comparable. With it instruments are available to improve the erosion simulation.
Simulations, based on (R)USLE family and bigger grid width, are relevant for regional overviews, to the clarification
of small scale relevant linear erosion forms, however, unsuitably.