Why are Cultural Landscapes of Various Values? Thinking About Heritage Landscape Evaluation and Monitoring Tools

The aim of this paper is to contribute towards the successful management of heritage landscapes. Many cultural landscapes represent high heritage value and should be classified as heritage landscapes; therefore, special tools should be considered to be used in managing them. These landscapes should be evaluated according to heritage science criteria and good practice guidelines should be established. Several useful heritage landscape evaluation criteria were identified and characterised, and their relative importance was analysed, enabling the establishment of a heritage value hierarchy by means of a weighted linear combination. This is significant in the context of land management measures for countryside valorization promoting rural development. However, this approach also requires awareness of the link between the present cultural landscape and the history of the people that have interacted with the area involved. This is also important for the establishment of a priority ranking system for monitoring criteria indicators. A method for doing this is also proposed by the authors.