HERCULES: studying long-term changes in Europe’s landscapes

Abstract

This paper presents the outlines of a new EU-funded research program for the long-term history, present-day management and further development of the European landscapes, including their natural and cultural heritage: HERCULES. One of the subprojects of this program (Work Package 2) links archaeological, historical and historical ecological data to the analysis of geo-information in order to develop models of long-term landscape change in three carefully chosen study regions in the Netherlands, Sweden and Estonia. This is framed theoretically by integrating insights from landscape biography, historical ecology and complex systems theory. The linking and analysis of data will be done using a Spatial Data Infrastructure and by means of dynamic modelling