Guidance Landscape diversity

Index section Landscape diversity

• Small landscape elements
• Animals in the "green and blue arteries"
• The built-up area
• Subsection Openness of the landscape

Introduction

One of the ways the diversity of landscape types is expressed is in the huge variation in distinguishing features or characteristics: the occurrence of small landscape elements such as dikes, lines of trees, hedges and wooded banks, ditches and brooks, their associated wildlife, and the degree of openness of the landscape. This variation is visible - and often audible.

In the government's memorandum "Nature for People, People for Nature" the dikes, hedges and wooded banks are referred to as the green arteries and the ditches and brooks as the blue arteries; together they form a fine-meshed network between the fields.

Much has changed over the decades, especially in the built-up area, and thus the differences in the characteristic openness of Dutch landscapes have also changed.

References

• LNV (1992). Nota Landschap. Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij. SDU. Den Haag.
• LNV (2001). Natuur voor mensen, mensen voor natuur. Nota natuur, bos en landschap in de 21e eeuw. Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuurbeheer en Visserij. Den Haag.