Using and shaping the land: a long-term perspective

This paper forms the introduction to a special issue of Land Use Policy bas ed upon a selection of papers presented at the "Using and Shaping the Land" symposium that took place at the conference "Nature, Society and History: Long-Term Dynamics of Social Metabolism" in autumn 1999 in Vienna. This int roductory paper offers a framework and an analysis of the following questio ns: What is the relationship between land use and social metabolism - i.e., socio-economic material and energy flows? How may specific environmental t ransformations be apprehended, and what have been the dynamics of change ov er the long haul? Lastly, how does land-use and land-cover change. as ident ified in the papers, relate to global change? The paper offers an ecumenica l view of land-use change, and points towards a broader framework for analy sis. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.