Valerio Gatta * and Edoardo Marcucci * * DIPES/CREI, University of Roma Tre
2405695 Marcucci Landscape History as a Planning Tool
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Transcript of 2405695 Marcucci Landscape History as a Planning Tool
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Landscape history as a planning tool
Daniel J. Marcucci*
103 Woodland Drive, York, PA 17403, USA
Received 5 February 1999; received in revised form 5 November 1999; accepted 14 January 2000
Abstract
Landscapes are constantly changing, both ecologically and culturally, and the vectors of change occur over many time
scales. In order to plan landscapes, they must be understood within their spatial and temporal contexts. This paper argues that
the inevitable dynamism in a landscape requires planning to explain and to deal with change. However, planning has been
slow to do this, in part because it is inadequately equipped to analyze both rapid change and gradual evolution. A landscape
history exposes the evolutionary patterns of a specific landscape by revealing its ecological stages, cultural periods, and
keystone processes. Such a history can be a valuable tool as it has the potential to improve description, prediction, and
prescription in landscape planning.
In proposing landscape history as a tool for planning, I specifically address four questions. Why is this tool needed in
landscape planning? What form should landscape history take? What are the obstacles to acquiring good landscape histories?
And, what are the potential benefits of using history in landscape planning? To illustrate this proposition, I draw from an
example of landscape history developed for Long Pond, Pennsylvania. # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Landscape history; Landscape change; Planning tools; Historiography; Keystone processes
1. The need for history in landscape planning
There is a landscape in the Pocono Mountains of
northeastern Pennsylvania that is unique in many
ways. This flat tableland of 100 km2 is known com-
monly as Long Pond. For one, the surficial geology is
unusual, being glacial till that predates the Wisconinan
ice mass. During this most recent ice age, Long Pond
persisted as peri-glacial tundra. Climatically, Long
Pond has two distinguishing statistics. Being the first
significant elevation west of the Atlantic coast, this
landscape receives the highest annual precipitation in
Pennsylvania. At the same time, it has the coolest high
temperatures during the summer. Such factors help
explain its perennial popularity as a mountain resort.
Biologically, Long Pond is distinguished by having
the highest known concentration of rare and endan-
gered species in Pennsylvania, with both boreal and
temperate species existing in association (Latham
et al., 1996).
Starting in 1860 and lasting for over 100 years, the
human population at Long Pond hovered around 200
to 300. The landscape and the culture were remote and
independent, with the main marketable resource being
the huckleberries and blueberries that covered the
* Tel.: 1-717-854-6259.E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]
(D.J. Marcucci)
Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
0169-2046/00/$20.00 # 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.PII: S 0 1 6 9 - 2 0 4 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 5 4 - 2
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landscape. To foster this crop, local residents burned
the landscape in rotation every 23 years. This prac-
tice persisted long after state efforts at preventing it.
During this time, a plant association known as the
Pocono till barrens dominated the landscape.
The last 50 years, however, have wrought rapid
changes on Long Pond. First, the ascendance of
commercial blueberry growing elsewhere brought
the demise of the wild huckleberry business here,
and with it the motivation for intentional burning.
Then in 1965, Interstate 80 opened, paving the way
for even greater change. Now part of the New York
City metropolitan area, Long Pond is situated in the
fastest growing region in Pennsylvania. Current land-
scape planning issues at Long Pond center on biolo-
gical conservation, exurban development, and tourist
and recreational appeal. The end of fires and the
increase of houses and buildings have resulted in
the Pocono till barrens being reduced to a fraction
of their former size.
What Long Pond shares with other landscapes
across Pennsylvania and across the Earth is that it
is changing. The persistent dynamism in nature and
the interventions of industrial humans mean that land-
scape change is inevitable, and in many cases rapid.
Thirty years ago, Eugene Odum wrote in his seminal
article on ecosystem development:
Society needs, and must find as quickly as
possible, a way to deal with the landscape as
a whole, so that manipulative skills (i.e. tech-
nology) will not run too far ahead of our under-
standing of the impact of change (Odum, 1969).
To deal with the landscape as a whole and to
understand change is a tall challenge for landscape
planning, but I argue, is a primary contribution we can
make towards sustaining landscapes that have long-
term viability for humans and non-humans alike. If
nothing else, the debates around sustainability indicate
that successful plans must work for this generation as
well as those long into the future. A landscape is a
contextual phenomenon, embedded in a world that is
both spatial and temporal, or, if you prefer, geogra-
phical and historical. Yet, while methods to study the
geographical attributes of landscapes are increasingly
understood, methods to know their temporal contexts
are not.
This article is not centrally about Long Pond; it is
about how we as planners can and should use land-
scape history as a planning tool to understand change
on our way towards dealing with the landscape as a
whole. As I will argue, the history of each landscape is
unique it is also complicated. Trivial history will
have limited veracity and little utility in planning.
Although the full history of Long Pond cannot be
reported in this space, highlights from it will be used to
illustrate the arguments (Marcucci, 1998).
1.1. Landscape as legacy
In landscape architecture and historic preservation,
there is some currency in referring to landscapes as
palimpsests, where ghosts of earlier times linger on the
medium. With an actual palimpsest, however, the
ghosts on the parchment are not connected in form
or content to the new figures that are drawn there; they
are only related coincidentally by occurring on the
same surface. Erased parchments are fungible and
interchangeable. However, landscapes are not fungi-
ble because each is a unique combination of physical,
cultural, and locational features. Furthermore, a chan-
ging landscape is very much a function of historic
conditions. A more accurate metaphor is to think of
landscapes as legacies. A landscape existing today
results from previous conditions and events in that
locale, and it follows that landscapes of the future will
be legacies of the elements and processes occurring
today.
The perspective on landscape change offered by the
experienceofasinglehumangenerationis toomyopic to
describe that landscape accurately. Such a short-term
view gives the impression of an unchanging environ-
ment, or at best, a brief slice of landscape development.
Without an accurate long-term history of the land-
scape and without an understanding of the processes
which are guiding its evolutionary path, we are unable
to envision future landscape changes. The long-term
patterns of change in a particular landscape will be
revealed by describing the landscapes seral stages
and cultural sequences, and determining the keystone
processes of landscape change. Keystone processes, as
will be explained later, are those formative processes
which influence the trajectory of landscape change.
As a legacy, each landscape has a unique story. The
goal of a properly formulated landscape history, or
68 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
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what might also be called a landscape biography, is to
explain the temporal context of the current landscape.
The proper form for this landscape history will be
discussed the following section. Suffice it to say now
that history here is used in the ecologists sense to refer
to past events that contributed to ecosystem develop-
ment not necessarily just human actions or
recorded events (Christensen, 1989).
1.2. Planning in time
As an activity, planning is imbued with time.
Through description, prediction, and prescription,
planners of landscapes intend to perpetuate environ-
ments that provide the materials for comfort and
sustenance for a still increasing human population
and to provide the milieu for a meaningful and inter-
esting life. Yet, these landscapes must also protect
biological diversity, functioning natural communities,
and, in the longest timeframe, genetic evolution.
Three temporal aspects of planning necessitate
history as a tool. First, landscape planning has both
short-term and long-term motivations. Second, the
creation of the current landscape is dependent on
values that people had and continue to have with respect
to their environment. Finally, planning itself, once
implemented, becomes another historical process on
the land and must be understood within its context.
At its core, landscape planning has both short-term
and long-term motivations (Marcucci, 1998). In 1986,
Tonn argued that the nature of environmental pro-
blems should compel us to undertake 500 year plan-
ning. His advice is well heeded for landscape
planning. The special challenge this poses to land-
scape planning is that it cannot ignore landscape
change or the processes which cause it.
The genius of the debate about sustainability is that
it forces a long-term vision of goals and outcomes.
The irony is that much of the literature strives to create
a perpetual cycle of resource use through maximized
efficiency and thereby disregards the temporal factor
altogether. Literature that focuses on this idealized
system misses the inevitability of environmental
change, random events in nature, and ongoing human
population growth. By heeding the advice for a 500
year outlook, landscape planning can capture the
critical genius of sustainability that long-term goals
will best preserve options for future generations.
One major cause of change in many landscapes is
humans. However, cultural systems themselves are in
flux. Values and activities of people change. This is
important to landscape change because there is a
feedback loop between culture and the physical land-
scape which manifests itself through time. Nassauer
(1995) notes that culture structures landscapes while
landscapes inculcate culture. This holistic view of
landscape describes an environment that is a legacy
not only of ecological conditions but also successive
values. Todays landscape is in part the result of
historical cultural values. It follows that future land-
scapes will reflect on our collective values and beliefs
about the environment as well. Planning a landscape
for human communities and environmental integrity,
therefore, requires a historical understanding of chan-
ging human culture.
Landscape planning is itself a social activity. Once
implemented, it becomes part of the historical pro-
cesses in a landscape (Hackett, 1971). There is no
certainty in environmental predictions. Similarly,
there is no certainty in the outcomes of planning
prescriptions. In order for long-term landscape plan-
ning to be effective, it will have to be ongoing. Thus,
planning will become one of the processes in the
bundle of keystone processes that determine a land-
scapes future. Many others, including market-driven
economic activity, will have a great impact also. The
temporal context of landscape planning itself is then
another reason to place the outcomes of planning in
historical perspective.
1.3. History in planning
The point then is, understanding landscapes as
dynamic legacies and planning as a temporal activity
should convince planners and citizens that history is an
important element in the planning process. As early as
1928, Benton MacKaye was urging regional planners
to undertake 100 century histories. He argued that the
environment is the product of history (MacKaye,
1962, p. 52). In chronicling the genesis and devel-
opment of New England, MacKaye provided such a
100 century review. This he broke into three periods:
primeval, colonial, and metropolitan. Sadly, his advice
went largely unheeded as physical planning in the
ensuing decades was directed towards maximizing
resource development and constructing highways.
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 69
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Planning during this period relied on short-term goals
and objectives that were largely socio-economic.
With the new environmentalism in planning that
began in the 1960s, awareness of landscapes as bio-
physical systems naturally led planners to the realiza-
tion that change and evolution was an ongoing issue.
Contemporary landscape planning theory contains a
group of literature that recognizes the inevitable
change of landscapes (McHarg, 1969; Hackett,
1971; Fabos, 1979; Laurie, 1986; Berger, 1987; Stokes
et al., 1989; Steiner, 1991). However, even when
history is called for, there is limited guidance on its
form or use in planning. The works generally call for
land-use history as a prelude to a planning process
which is largely one of suitability analysis and land-
use decision making, or for documentation of historic
resources.
The strongest call for planning with change comes
from the landscape planner, Brian Hackett (1971). He
argues that large-scale landscape change is precisely
the domain of the landscape planner who should be
engaged in sequential planning. Hackett identifies
studying landscape evolution as one of four operations
in his Landscape Planning Techniques: the major
task of this particular technique is to reconstruct the
various stages of the landscapes evolution and parti-
cularly those in the natural pre-humanized stages
(Hackett, 1971, p. 33).
Although there is precedence in theory for the use of
history, examples of planning that are attuned to
landscape evolution are rare in the United States.
Steiner (1991) cites two landscape plans from 1980.
One, the Pinelands in New Jersey, used a broad-view,
10,000 year history to understand the dynamics of the
current landscape. The other, the Makah Coastal Zone
in the Pacific Northwest, took a centuries-long look at
how the Makah people traditionally looked to the sea
for their livelihood.
Making the connection between 100 century his-
tories and 500 year plans requires a history that con-
forms to certain attributes of landscapes as evolving,
changing legacies. The seminal landscape scholar,
J.B. Jackson, feared that much of what was called
landscape history was little more than local history
with a spatial dimension thrown in for good measure.
He preferred instead the rare glimpses of the history
of the landscape itself, how it was formed, how it has
changed, and who it was who changed it (Jackson,
1984, p. xi). The question before us is: how do we
construct such a landscape history?
2. A form for landscape history
Landscape planners require a history that describes
and predicts the patterns and causes of evolution and
change. I argue that a such history has three essential
requirements. It covers a specific place or geography.
It describes a holistic system. And, it reveals the
keystone processes that shape the landscape over
multiple time frames. Adhering to these three condi-
tions yields a landscape history that chronicles suc-
cessive cultures, ecological stages, and keystone
processes.
2.1. Place history
All landscapes are local. By definition, landscape
history must be about a specific place. The theme of
geographical significance runs through the literature
on landscape history (Jackson, 1984; Crumley, 1994;
Flores, 1994) and landscape planning (Hackett, 1971;
Riley, 1995). The historical geography of a landscape
is significant in two ways. First, it should place the
landscape in regional context. Second, it recreates, to
the extent the data allow, the ecological stages of the
land.
By placing a landscape in regional context, land-
scape history addresses exogenous variables that
affect landscape change. The flow of energy, material,
and organisms, including people, into and out of a
landscape has a profound impact on its evolutionary
path.
History of the internal geography of a landscape is a
study of the sequence of land mosaics and possibly of
ecotopes themselves. It is in the area of spatial analysis
that landscape ecology is best developed and provides
important tools for landscape planning (Forman,
1995). These are the basic building blocks in under-
standing ecological and physical stages in a land-
scapes history.
2.2. Holism
In current landscape theory, there is considerable
consensus about conceiving landscapes holistically.
70 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
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That is to say, understanding the landscape as a whole
cannot be done merely by analyzing its elements. The
interaction of the elements must be considered, espe-
cially the interaction of natural and cultural ones. It
follows that landscape history must also take a holistic
view of a landscape, integrating natural and human
activity as parts of a single evolving system (Crumley,
1994; Flores, 1994; Patterson, 1994; Nassauer, 1995).
One implication of a holistic history is that cultural
systems themselves should be represented as sequen-
tial phenomena related to place. Each culture, or
cluster of cultures modifies a landscape that is the
legacy of previous cultures. Even within the historical
continuum of a single ethnic group, significant cultural
evolution occurs; but as argued earlier, over time,
landscapes inculcate culture (Nassauer, 1995). In this
way, landscapes embody the story of different but
sequential cultures occupying the same space, and
creating their own succession of places (Flores,
1994, p. 12). This essential interrelatedness can be
presumed throughout the history and prehistory of
humans in a landscape, which may easily represent
10,000 years (Hackett, 1971; Crumley, 1994).
At Long Pond, there have been several recognizable
cultural periods. Human presence at Long Pond dates
back at least 100 centuries to PaleoIndian culture.
This was followed by other Native American cultures
in succession: Archaic, Woodland, and Historic. Each
cultures impact on the landscape was different as they
possessed different technological skills with respect to
agricultural, hunting, and tool making. The last group
existed in the 17th and 18th centuries and was a
cultural system that was highly altered by contact
with European travellers and immigrants. Ultimately,
Indian cultural systems throughout the Pocono plateau
and ultimately Pennsylvania were overcome by Eur-
opean inroads. For a period of roughly 35 years,
between 1765 and 1800, Long Pond was largely
unpopulated as it was the setting for frontier strife
between warring groups.
Around 1800, permanent European settlement
began that initiated a distinct Long Ponder culture.
This group was organized around a subsistence econ-
omy based on mountain resources and income from
travellers and resorters. Long Ponder culture was
closely connected to the natural landscape. By
1965, a transition was begun for a Metropolitan
culture that is supplanting the Long Ponder culture.
No longer attached to the confines of the Long Pond
landscape, this group is connected to a regional iden-
tity and economy. The transition to the Metropolitan
culture is fueled by the tenfold increase in population
during this period.
The condition of holism for the landscape history of
Long Pond requires not only identification of succes-
sive cultures but also description of how each was
connected to its physical environment. This latter
requirement we will revisit in the discussion of key-
stone processes. One important ramification of this
condition to stress now is that natural resources and
the keystone processes that accompany their exploita-
tion must be identified as cultural phenomena. The
motivations for removal, conservation, or protection
of certain landscape elements cannot be understood
otherwise. A physical element may exist in a place for
centuries or eons without being a resource. It only
becomes one if the cultural system and the related
economy make it so.
In this way, the wild huckleberries at Long Pond,
that were an important landscape resource throughout
the Native American and Long Ponder periods, have
ceased to be a resource for the Metropolitan culture.
Many other resources have had similar cycles or have
been depleted completely so that they cease to be a
factor in the economy. Ice and lumber are two that had
major significance in the Poconos in the past. Fish and
game were, for many cultures, elements of subsistence
living. In modern times, they are part of the recrea-
tional resources of the mountain lands. The most
significant resource use impacting Long Pond today
and in the near future is water extraction. This is
because of the importance of this resource to the
regional metropolitan culture. The Bethlehem Water
Authority, the single largest landowner at Long Pond,
extracts water from the landscape for use in a distant
city.
2.3. Keystone processes
Landscape history needs to tell how and why the
landscape developed. This means it must explain the
genesis of a particular landscape, if appropriate, and
the long-term processes associated with change
through the sequence of landscape periods. Landscape
change occurs when over time, the flow of energy
and consequent movement of materials in a landscape
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 71
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results in a new structure and new functional char-
acteristics (Thorne, 1993, p. 25). Landscape change
can be wholesale or incremental. Wholesale change
occurs through wide-acting phenomena such as fire or
rapid suburbanization. Incremental changes, that is
ecotope by ecotope, cause landscape change when
they are persistent and the ecotopes are not resilient.
These incremental changes over space and time aggre-
gate into an overall pattern of change and evolution.
Not all processes acting through a landscape are
equally significant in their effects, especially with
respect to change. A history of landscape evolution
should focus on what I shall call keystone processes:
the ones that are influential in the evolutionary tra-
jectory of the landscape. An alteration or cessation of a
keystone process will result in a new trajectory. Other
processes may cause localized, usually short-lived
change but do not contribute to the overall pattern
of change.
Each landscape has a specific set of keystone pro-
cesses, a set that changes over time. The set of key-
stone processes influencing a landscape today is not
the same set existing 1000 or even 100 years ago.
There is no a priori means of identifying the keystone
processes of a particular landscape. Recognition of
keystone processes in particular periods can only
occur once the landscape history has commenced.
Furthermore, this recognition may depend upon view-
ing process at the proper scale. Pattern recognition
across time and space in ecology is dependent on scale
(Levin, 1992).
An initial enquiry into the history of a landscape
should take a multiple view of the temporal scale and
consider the full range of possible keystone processes.
In temperate and northern latitudes, a 10,000 year
perspective on the landscape will take us to a point
where global climatic conditions were significantly
different and humans were present in many land-
scapes. Besides this 100 century view, it is also
important to consider the millennial, centennial,
decennial, and annual scales, for in each, keystone
processes may occur that are not apparent from other
scales. Identifying processes at different scales will
also allow the planner to correlate them to the time
frames of planning interest. Fig. 1 shows the time
frames for select keystone processes to affect change.
There are five general categories of keystone pro-
cesses: geomorphological processes, climate change,
colonization patterns and growth of organisms, local
disturbances of individual ecosystems, and cultural
processes (Forman and Godron, 1986; Wilmanns-
Wells, personal communication; Nassauer, 1997).
Each category potentially contains a wide array of
actual keystone processes.
The first two are what Forman and Godron (1986)
call foundation variables. They tend to be long-term
natural processes occurring over thousands or millions
of years. Geomorphological processes refer to the
creation of landforms (Ritter, 1978). They involve
plate tectonics, erosion, deposition, and glaciation.
Climate is a crucial variable of landscape change
especially as it relates to cycles of glaciation and
the long-term migration of species. There is consider-
able scientific debate about the human role in climate
change through alteration of the atmosphere. Such a
phenomenon may require climate change to be con-
sidered as a short-term as well as a long-term process.
Processes in the third general category, colonization
patterns and growth of organisms, may occur over
long or short periods, and may be natural or anthro-
pogenic. Because the biology of a landscape is such an
important aspect of its ecology, the establishment of
life forms plays a critical role in landscape evolution.
The migration of plant species across a land area is a
complicated scenario studied by paleobotanists (Del-
court and Delcourt, 1987). Particularly, during major
climate change, vegetation populations undergo dra-
matic alterations in their ranges. Colonization patterns
of animal populations, especially in the case of large
herbivores, may have a significant impact on a land-
scapes sere. Humans have been responsible not only
for their own colonization of new landscapes, but also
for introducing many alien plant and animal species
(Crosby, 1986). Pathogens can virtually wipe out a
species across its range in less than a century.
The fourth category contains the keystone processes
that are the most difficult to predict. Again, they may
occur over long or short periods, and may be natural or
anthropogenic. Landscape disturbances is a broad
category that includes both random events and chronic
occurrences. Disturbances, which may be endogenous
or exogenous, can affect the direction and speed of
landscape change. On the other hand, many distur-
bances occur which do not affect landscape change
and, therefore, do not rise to the level of keystone
processes. The impacts of disturbance may be mini-
72 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
-
mal, limited only to an ecotope. Alternately, distur-
bance may be pervasive and chronic leading to an
entirely new landscape. Natural disturbance of entire
landscapes can be fire, volcanoes, and floods. Com-
plicating the role of disturbance in landscape change is
the class of human disturbances that are unprece-
dented, cause total landscape change in the space of
years, and remain unpredictable with respect to their
long-term outcomes or reversibility.
The fifth category of landscape-forming processes
is cultural. As landscapes are a holistic manifestation
of natural and human elements, it follows that cultural
processes can lead both to physical change or to
change in the cultural system itself. We can think
of cultural systems as composed of culture, society,
and economy. Culture refers to the beliefs and values
of the people in a region. Often, the overall culture is a
plurality of beliefs coming from differing groups that
are related solely by geographical proximity. Society
refers to the relationships and interactions of indivi-
duals to individuals, groups to groups, and individuals
to groups. Economy refers to the connection between
individuals or groups and resources. Conceiving a
cultural system this way is useful for analyzing its
relationship to the landscape. As this is a growing area
of landscape investigation, a definitive list of land-
scape-forming cultural processes is not possible. How-
ever, a working listing can be speculated. This list
includes perpetuation and change of values, political
and legal control of land, settlement patterns, technol-
ogy advances, and economic activity.
2.4. The resulting landscape history
Once the conditions for landscape history are satis-
fied, how do we organize the information? The pur-
pose is to describe the generation of landscape periods
based on the ecological stages, cultural periods, and
Fig. 1. Length of time for select keystone processes to affect landscape change.
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 73
-
keystone processes. Each landscape period represents
a changed landscape with respect to its structural and
functional characteristics.
A timeline is a useful graphic device that allows
historical information to be layered. Thus, landscape
periods, ecological stages, cultural periods, and key-
stone processes can be viewed contemporaneously.
Such a timeline should have a logarithmic time scale,
giving greater weight to the events of this century, but
going back to the period of glacial retreat over 10,000
years ago.
As an example, the timeline for Long Pond is given
in Fig. 2. There have been five distinct landscape
periods at Long Pond: Glacial Recovery, Woodland
Adaptation, Frontier, Mountain Livelihood, and
Metropolitanization. For each period, the history
describes, the ecological communities on the land,
the cultural groups occupying and using the land, and
the processes maintaining or changing the land. In this
landscape, where anthropogenic fire played a large
role, there was close correlation between cultural
periods and keystone processes. The historical record
of the last 200 years was significant enough to describe
causal relationships.
3. Difficulties in landscape history research
A history that attempts to explain a landscapes
evolution by describing its seral stages and cultural
sequences, and by determining the causes of landscape
change will not be easy to write. The two main
problems are: landscape history is unconventional
and not standardized; and the data requirements are
hard to satisfy.
3.1. Lack of conventions
Landscapes are complex systems for which deci-
sions must be made with imperfect knowledge. Land-
Fig. 2. Timeline of landscape periods, ecological stages, cultural periods, and keystone processes at Long Pond.
74 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
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scape planning requires tools which synthesize con-
ventional methods and use both qualitative and quan-
titative data. Landscape history in the form described
in the previous section is one such tool.
However, this landscape history is unconventional.
Although some examples from environmental history
(Christensen, 1989; Flores, 1994; Whitney, 1994) and
historical ecology (Crumley, 1994) are consistent with
a landscape approach, it is not a purely conventional
ecological inquiry nor is it precisely public or envir-
onmental history. Ecological science and environmen-
tal history might both review an individual landscape
history as inadequately rigorous (Ingerson, 1994).
Nonetheless, planners are compelled to facilitate deci-
sions even in the face of imperfect knowledge. There-
fore, landscape history will have to synthesize its own
conventions, keeping in mind the ultimate utility for
landscape planning.
Flores (1994) challenges his fellow environmental
historians to recognize the persistent dynamism in
landscapes. This, he says, is required if they make
any claim to apprehending reality. He argues that in its
efforts to cover vast regions, like the arid west, what is
missed in much environmental history is the historical
reality of place. Because of his appreciation of eco-
logical and cultural processes of change and their
connection to place, Flores advocates for what he
calls a bioregional history, which is virtually synon-
ymous with landscape history as defined here. Accord-
ing to Flores, a good bioregional history is place
specific, temporally deep, and examines environmen-
tal change across sequential cultures.
Whitney (1994, p. 4) notes the difficulty of meeting
the rigorous ecologists demand for quantification or
statistically verifiable change. The story of environ-
mental change and causal agents has several charac-
teristics which render a strictly scientific analysis
impossible. One, environmental issues generally have
quantitative components that are hard to determine.
Two, environmental changes are rather complex,
resulting from an interaction of a variety of forces.
Positive and negative feedbacks may be hard to dis-
cern. Three, simultaneous occurrence of two events
does not establish cause and effect.
Landscape history that is developed within the
framework of landscape ecological theory is likely
to overcome some of these objections since landscape
ecology is that form of ecology which is credited with
bringing ecology and history together (Cronon, 1990).
Haber (1990) notes that landscape ecologists are
beginning to expand their paradigm: Natural history,
so long neglected or even despised as being unscien-
tific, is gaining a new scientific importance. The form
for landscape history proposed in the previous section
is devised to articulate a convention that will be
adequately rigorous for planning.
3.2. Obscure data
The other significant problem confronting the
researcher of landscape history is that the necessary
data may not exist, be unavailable, or be difficult to
locate (Hackett, 1971; Stirling, 1990; Whitney, 1994;
Marcucci, 1998). All historical research is part detec-
tive work, but the writer of landscape histories is
especially burdened to search a myriad of sources
to glean pertinent information. This results largely
because landscape is an unconventional and relatively
new research topic there are no standard or cen-
tralized repositories of the necessary information.
Further complicating the task, many landscapes that
are valued for their biology and other natural features
have been historically remote. As was true at Long
Pond, this remoteness is often the single most impor-
tant factor perpetuating both rare natural ecosystems
and distinctive local culture. This remoteness also
leads to a paucity of historic data (Stirling, 1990;
Marcucci, 1998). In dealing with incomplete or incon-
sistent data, landscape historians are advised to build
redundancy into their research with multiple lines of
inquiry (Whitney, 1994). Evidence for landscape his-
tory can be found in two broad categories: documen-
tary evidence and field evidence (Whitney, 1994;
Marcucci, 1998).
Documentary evidence includes both primary and
secondary data. This data may come in the form of
written documents, such as journals, notebooks, cor-
respondence, guidebooks, deeds and contracts, his-
tories, and periodicals. Alternately, documentary
evidence can be found in drawings and paintings,
photographs, maps, census statistics, insurance and
tax records, and historical scientific data. Documen-
tary evidence is particularly useful to the landscape
historian for the more recent historic periods.
The documentary evidence for Long Ponds history
came in many forms at a variety of locations. Both the
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 75
-
county and the state historical society contained cor-
respondence and maps that related to the condition of
the land during the 19th century. The archives of the
Pocono Forestry Association contained photographs,
correspondence, and records concerning 20th century
fire prevention. These were supplemented by fire
records of the Bureau of Forestry. Long Pond has
had a long tradition of inspiring natural history. The
results of these early scientific investigations were
located in local and research libraries. Also in libraries
were drawings, maps, books, and articles documenting
past landscapes and especially the huckleberry busi-
ness. Private family records added to this line of
inquiry. The county planning commission provided
census data for the study area.
Once found, historical documents must be scruti-
nized for accuracy. In many sources, references to
landscape elements and descriptions are incidental
and careless. Travellers descriptions are often unspe-
cific or inaccurate with respect to vegetation. Colonial
land surveys, often the earliest comprehensive record
of a landscape, may be poor indicators of species
distribution and other natural features because of
fraud, timing of survey, misidentification of trees,
sampling bias in the types of land, and bias in tree
selection (Wilkinson, 1958; Whitney, 1994; Price,
1995; Dando, 1996). Another common source, 19th
century county histories, concentrated on biography,
towns, catastrophes, and manufacturing. Often inclu-
sion of ones family in such a history was guaranteed
by an advance purchase.
Field evidence is valuable for understanding both
historic and prehistoric periods, as well as the
contemporary landscape. Field evidence includes eco-
logical data, archeological data, and anthropological
data, especially oral histories. There is a strong histor-
ical element to much standard ecological research, and
ecological reports can yield good historical data.
Fortunately, the Pocono history covered an area which
has long attracted scientific interest. Recent ecological
studies have been prompted by a compelling need for
biological conservation (Thompson, 1995; Latham
et al., 1996). In establishing long-term vegetational
history, paleobotanical studies are crucial. Similarly,
archeological investigation is historical in nature.
Where they have occurred, archeologists findings
are important sources for landscape historians. How-
ever, not all landscapes under investigation will have
been the subject of direct scientific research. If they
have not occurred within a given study area, then spec-
ulation based on analogous landscapes may be the best
that can be offered until such studies are undertaken.
One form of field evidence that was especially
important to the 20th century history of Long Pond
was oral history. Since Long Ponder culture was closely
connected to the land and persisted through several
generations of a small cluster of families, residents
of Long Pond had a deep understanding of their land-
scape. Furthermore, they provided me as a researcher
with a rich understanding of the people and the place.
First person memories went back to the 1920s, with
local stories going back decades before that.
Even as the techniques of landscape historical
research become more sophisticated, individual land-
scapes will have distinct data requirements and unique
sources. In this respect, each is a puzzle not only to
its specific history but also to its research protocol.
Nonetheless, it is a puzzle whose pieces do exist in
libraries and archives, in scientific labs, and on the
land itself.
4. Realizing the potential benefits of landscapehistory as a planning tool
In its motivations, landscape planning seeks to
improve human conditions and environmental com-
munities. In its methods, landscape planning involves
description, prediction, and prescription of conditions
in the landscape (Tomlin, 1990). Landscape planning,
which implicitly includes management, is best under-
taken as an ongoing and iterative process.
Four phases in the landscape planning process can
be generalized from various landscape planning tech-
niques (McHarg, 1969; Hackett, 1971; Laurie, 1986;
Steiner, 1991). They are: inventory of the ecological
and cultural systems; identification of issues, pro-
blems, and desired outcomes; plan making, including
analysis, forecasting, scenario writing, and decision
making; and implementation, including physical inter-
vention, institutional design, monitoring, and evalua-
tion. These four are not discrete, sequential activities,
but rather clusters of iterative, interactive activities
which may be going on simultaneously.
I argue that landscape history has the potential to
improve planning in the inventory, issue identification,
76 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
-
and plan making phases. The example of Long Pond
indicates some of the ways in which the history is
useful. In proposing landscape history as a planning
tool, I also hypothesize additional beneficial out-
comes. Very possibly, there will be other benefits of
this tool that I do not anticipate. Only when a body of
applied landscape histories has been accumulated and
analyzed will we have a full picture of their utility.
4.1. Enhancing the inventory
The purpose of the inventory phase is to describe the
landscape accurately. History is valuable to this phase
of planning because it expands landscape description
by revealing ecological stages, cultural periods, and
keystone processes. The history explains how new
landscapes are legacies of earlier ones. If we accept
that landscapes are dynamic phenomena, then his-
tories are useful and essential in describing them.
The history is especially valuable because it expli-
citly describes the nature/culture interaction through
time. Although holism is espoused in landscape the-
ory, we do not always realize it well in planning where
an initiative often focusses on either conservation or
development. By its very design, the form of history
proposed here chronicles these important interactions
for a particular landscape. Therefore, citizens and
planners have a means of conceptualizing the land-
scape as a whole.
Better description by itself is of little value if it is not
disseminated to citizens and incorporated throughout
the planning process. Involving citizens yields an
indirect benefit of landscape history. Most landscape
planning stresses the importance of citizen, or stake-
holder, involvement throughout the process. Initiating
historical inquiry at the very beginning provides a
means of engaging citizens in landscape planning. It
also allows citizens to be experts. Long-time residents
will be key informants to the history, especially with
respect to the recent past. Citizens of Long Pond were
eager to participate with histories of their communities
and local landscapes. Furthermore, they are a vested
audience for the completed history. In general, histor-
ical research can be a nonconfrontational way of
initiating citizen interest in planning. Of course, it
must be noted that once attached to policy decisions
the history may be scrutinized differently (Mandel-
baum, 1985).
4.2. Improving issue identification
One of the important ways that improved descrip-
tion is valuable to planning is that it provides a valid
context in which to identify issues, problems, and
desired outcomes. This would not occur without spe-
cific historical enquiry because the knowledge pre-
sented through landscape history is not intuitive or
automatic. The expert planner from out of town would
not know the dynamics of change or recognize land-
scape legacies merely from a survey of current con-
ditions. Even citizens, who are intimately familiar
with a landscape and its workings, will not necessarily
understand the consequences of common events.
There are three distinct benefits to this phase of
planning resulting from a better substantiated plan-
ning context.
First, by describing the cultural system, history
provides a context for contemporary issues and pro-
blems. History explains the beliefs and values of the
local culture, especially with respect to land. Under-
standing the source of conflicting beliefs and values is
necessary to identify areas of common interest. Thus,
a planner confronted with the need for conflict resolu-
tion will find this useful.
The process of framing and reframing issues is an
important activity in planning (Schon and Rein, 1994;
Hamin, in press). Through landscape history, the
issues, problems, and outcomes for a specific land-
scape can be reframed in a valid historical context.
Enriching the popular perception of a changing land-
scape has the potential to alter the political willingness
of a society for collective action directed at planning
and managing the common landscape. Ultimately, this
change of perception may result in a change of
attitudes towards the land. Perhaps most importantly,
the landscape history will change attitudes by educat-
ing people about the impact of human actions on the
land and about the significance of place to the local
culture. At Long Pond, as in other similar landscapes,
the issue of controlled burning had been set only in the
context of the last 30 years, thereby missing entirely
the historical authenticity of frequent fires.
Second, the goal of landscape history is to present a
long view. Continuing this long view into the future
forces consideration of potential issues and problems
that are essential to long-term landscape sustainability.
A 100 century history of a landscape makes the
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 77
-
conceptual leap to a 500 year plan easier. Plans made
today will not contain detailed prescriptions for 500
years hence, but they can sustain environmental
options (Tonn, 1986). Moreover, a landscape history
that chronicles previous landscape periods provides
ideas for future and alternative landscapes.
Third, by revealing keystone processes, history
allows connections to be made to agents of change
that come from outside of the landscape. Examples of
imported issues that might not be immediately appar-
ent are acid rain, global warming, intercity highway
construction, water authority projects in distant cities,
or state or federal policy decisions.
4.3. Influencing plan making
Plan making is a wide array of activities that lead to
decisions. It includes analysis, scenario writing, and
forecasting. This phase builds on the two previous
phases in the planning process, inventory and issue
identification. Plan making involves descriptive, pre-
dictive, and prescriptive techniques in envisioning and
deciding upon future landscapes. Landscape history
improves plan making merely because it improves
description in the earlier planning phases. Landscape
history can directly improve predictive and prescrip-
tive techniques as well.
History is valuable because it has the potential to
improve the predictive scenarios of landscape plan-
ning. This derives from more accurate descriptions.
By improving prediction, I do not mean to suggest that
history is deterministic. Prediction does not imply
certainty, but rather it presents a probability of poten-
tial outcomes. History shows that the actual course of a
landscape is determined by thousands of events,
actions, and decisions.
One form of predictive scenarios is to build geo-
graphic models to extrapolate the current trajectory of
a landscape. These models are built on algorithms
where the future outcome is a function of keystone
processes, time-series of ecotope conditions, assump-
tions about landscape function, and hypothetical inter-
ventions. Such models are a valuable use of historical
information that is spatial and quantitative.
Another way of building predictive scenarios which
is cruder, but quicker, and therefore, more easily
employed, uses qualitative historical information. It
involves comparing a landscape with other similar
landscapes. When planning draws on analogous case
studies to help predict the future of a landscape, the
object is to search for cases which share key features.
Typically, size, rates of growth, economy, or proximity
to urban centers are the studied characteristics. In
searching for analogies, it is best to not only compare
the structure and function of the landscapes, but also
the history of change, especially with respect to the
keystone processes. The most useful comparisons will
be made when similar processes and similar patterns
of evolution are found. This is especially critical when
it comes to cultural processes. As a growing body of
landscape histories develops, predictive analogies will
become more possible.
Many general patterns of landscape change have
been identified, and no doubt many more remain to be
found. Forman (1995) notes six widespread causes of
land transformation which have a variety of recogniz-
able mosaic sequence patterns: deforestation, subur-
banization, corridor construction, desertification,
agricultural intensification, and reforestation.
Patterns of change can be dominated by natural
processes. The shifting mosaic in forested ecosystems
is one such theorized pattern. Climate change and
species migration cause other patterns of change.
Many of the most important patterns for landscape
planning will have human-caused keystone processes.
For example, commercial forestry has been a domi-
nant keystone process in the mountain districts of
Pennsylvania for over 100 years. Coal mining has
had an even longer history in defining and creating
landscapes. In this century, industrial agriculture has
dominated the limestone valleys in the state leading to
a particular way of organizing the landscape. Prior to
this, low technology agriculture was a keystone pro-
cesses dating back a thousand years on some Penn-
sylvania landscapes.
A pattern of urbanization is identified by Forman
and Godron (1986) as the Landscape Modification
Gradient and by Rodiek (1988) as the Landscape
Development Continuum. It describes a linear pro-
cess of human induced land-use change. Five distinct
phases along the continuum are: natural, managed,
cultivated, suburban, and urban. This model describes
many landscapes histories, but urbanization comes in
many patterns and is not necessarily so sequential. On
the southern Pocono plateau, for example, suburba-
nization is occurring directly in pine barrens where
78 D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781
-
anthropogenic fire practices were only recently aban-
doned (Latham et al., 1996; Marcucci, 1998). The
landscape history of Long Pond shows rapid change
from natural and semi-managed ecotopes into subur-
ban ones. Knowing the historical patterns of change in
many landscapes and the underlying keystone pro-
cesses will greatly facilitate comparative studies of
landscapes. As the body of landscape histories grows,
its value to planning will increase.
Prescriptive scenarios are directed towards problem
solving (Tomlin, 1990). History complements the total
planning process. As such, history alone does not yield
prescription, but is part of a process that leads to
prescriptions. By improving the landscape inventory
and the context for discussing issues, problems, and
outcomes, history indirectly improves prescription.
A history is closely connected to prescription when
the keystone processes themselves become the object
of planning and management decisions. Through a
planning process which includes history, potential
landscape change can be determined to be desirable
or undesirable. Landscape intervention is then direc-
ted at creating, suppressing, or altering potential
change by manipulating keystone processes. The con-
nected processes of fire suppression and afforestation
is one clear example of how knowing keystone pro-
cesses is connected to planning prescriptions. Mana-
ging this keystone process is crucial for biological
conservation efforts at Long Pond. Without it the
Pocono till barrens are doomed. The history also
shows how fire suppression is connected to other
keystone processes in the current landscape period.
Many different keystone processes are potentially the
direct object of planning prescriptions. These key-
stone processes will be revealed to planners through
landscape history.
5. The outlook for landscape planning
I agree with the prospect and potential for landscape
history that J.B. Jackson expressed 15 years ago.
I admit that I hold the peculiar belief that the
value of history is what it teaches us about the
future. But I think that I am on firm ground when
I say that most of this landscape history deals
with an infinitely small fraction of the landscape
whether of the 18th or 19th century. The
reason is simple: the origin and history of only a
very few spaces, very few structures are on
record. . . I believe that with the use of modernarcheological techniques, with the use of aerial
photography, above all with the use of more
imagination, more speculation we could immen-
sely expand our knowledge of the landscape of
the past (Jackson, 1984, p. xi).
I am optimistic about the outlook for landscape
history. Landscape-scale planning is, I believe, of vital
importance given the current conditions of the envir-
onment and humanity. We need to move quickly from
scattered examples of planning landscapes as a whole
to widespread application across many contiguous
ones.
Landscape history will be essential in this effort
because of the inherent dynamism in nature, the flux of
cultural systems, and the resulting patterns of change
in landscapes. As a relatively new tool in our planning
methods, writing and using history will continue to be
refined. I have discussed some concerns about devel-
oping landscape history. Others have not been dis-
cussed but can be anticipated. For example, how much
will it cost to prepare landscape histories and who will
do it? Should there be professional historians working
closely with planners?
Planning without landscape history has little pro-
spect of engendering realistic long-term planning. We
cannot sustain our environmental options without
knowledge of keystone processes and patterns of
change over multiple temporal scales. Planning would
even suffer in the short term as our ability to under-
stand the current landscape as a legacy of previous
ones is compromised.
By using landscape history as a planning tool, we as
planners can describe a landscape more accurately and
engage in meaningful exchanges with citizens. In turn,
this will lead to more effective and complete prescrip-
tions. Ultimately, our intentions are to plan landscapes
that will be valued legacies to future generations.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the comments
on early versions of this research by C. Dana Tomlin
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 79
-
and Christa Wilmanns-Wells of the University of
Pennsylvania and James F. Thorne of The Nature
Conservancy. The article benefitted from detailed
comments from Elisabeth M. Hamin of Iowa State
University and two anonymous reviewers from Land-
scape and Urban Planning.
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Daniel J. Marcucci is a landscape planner teaching environmental
studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He holds a Master
of Landscape Architecture and a Ph.D. in City and Regional
Planning, both from the University of Pennsylvania. His research
centers on the importance of dynamic landscapes and the human
and natural factors that change them.
D.J. Marcucci / Landscape and Urban Planning 49 (2000) 6781 81