The urgent need for a sustainable environment has resulted in the increased recognition of the field of landscape ecology amongst policy makers working in the area of nature conservation, restoration and territorial planning. Nonetheless, the question of what is precisely meant by the term 'landscape ecology' is still unresolved. Is it, for example, an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the environment at a landscape scale? Or perhaps at the level of biological organisation? Still further, has the inseparability of landscape and culture affected the scope of 'landscape ecology'? No doubt, a proper foundation of the discipline must first be cemented. This book then develops such a foundation. In doing so it provides all the diverse applications of the discipline with a solid framework and proposes an effective diagnostic methodology to investigate the ecological state and the pathologies of the landscape.

1 The Landscape as a Specific Living Entity

2 Some Concepts on a General Living Systems Theory
3 Landscape Structure
4 Landscape Dynamic
5 Landscape Transformation and Pathology
6 Theoretical Influence of Landscape Ecology
7 Landscape Analysis
8 Landscape Components Evaluation
9 Landscape Criteria of Evaluation and Diagnosis
10 Landscape Ecology and Sustainability
11 Landscape Ecology and Conservation Biology
12 Environmental Design and Territorial Planning
13 Examples of Application
References.