ABSTRACT
In the course of its development, the word ‘landscape’ evolved to hold multiple meanings accumulated by disciplines that came to use the word. In art, the visual meaning prevails, equating ‘landscape’ with countryside and natural scenery. In geography ‘landscape’ relates to the tangible character of place as shaped by people in a specific time and region. In science, ‘landscape’ is the outer expression of ‘ecosystems’, a holistic entity that embraces physical setting and its inhabitants, embracing visible outward expression and invisible natural and human processes that regulate and sustain it (Makhzoumi, 2002). The layered meanings of ‘landscape’ preclude a universal definition but encourage use of the concept across disciplines and also in bridging theory and practice within the same discipline.
