Landscape ecology and landscape approaches in the Iberian context: challenges, opportunities, and future prospects

The Iberian Peninsula is a regional context where interconnections between the ecological and socio-cultural values of landscapes are especially tight and complex. In the Iberian Peninsula, the natural, cultural, and socio-political heterogeneities encountered across a long human and culturally valuable history have resulted in a rich and diverse set of landscapes. At the same time, such a landscape richness is in contrast with a particularly vulnerable situation in the face of climate change and intensification of human land use. Landscape ecology and landscape approaches bear the potential to help tackle a complex set of social-ecological challenges. Thus, this Collection includes 28 papers to provide an overview of landscape approaches and landscape ecological concepts, methods, and tools to address urgent territorial and social-ecological challenges. These contributions help advance our understanding of the multiple social-ecological processes on a range of spatial and temporal scales, shedding light on multiplicity of methods and approaches, and potential solutions. Ultimately, we expect that the many positive lessons and hurdles identified in this collection will inspire studies around the world to promote landscape ecology approaches for sustaining territorial futures.

The Iberian peninsula as a hotspot for landscape studies

The Iberian Peninsula is an ecologically and socio-culturally complex regional landscape due to its long and rich human history (Gómez-Sal 2017), which is well documented for the Mediterranean macro-region as a whole (Blondel 2006; Muñoz-Rojas et al. 2019). The tightness of these interconnections in the Iberian Peninsula is largely influenced by its position between the Mediterranean and Atlantic macro-regional biomes. Furthermore, due to its extension, topographic heterogeneity, and the resulting degree of isolation from the sea of the inland areas, the Iberian Peninsula also includes some landscapes with continental and Euro Siberian bio-climatic types. In the Iberian context, the natural, cultural, and socio-political heterogeneities encountered across history have resulted in a rich and diverse set of landscapes (Fig. 1), which face the challenge of their dynamic protection and sustainable management which has been recently exacerbated by climate change (Muñoz-Rojas et al. 2019). This is especially worrisome in view of the potential “sahelization” of the Mediterranean (Malek & Verburg 2017; Debolini et al. 2018).

Fig. 1

Map depicting how the bio-climatic macro-regions and degrees of permanent vegetation are scattered across the Iberian Peninsula, and the resulting heterogeneous mosaic of landscape units. Along with such a heterogeneity, the map is also indicative of the character of Iberia as a transition or ecotone among the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Alpine/Euro-Siberian bio-climatic macro-regions. Created from EEA (2018), ESACCI (2018), and Ruiz Franco (2010)

Landscapes, as coupled social-ecological systems (Matthews & Selman 2006; Pedroli et al. 2006; Pinto-Correia & Kristensen 2013, Kienast et al. 2021), are the main source of the multiple services, values and benefits derived from the complex interactions between societies and their natural and cultural environments. In this sense, we can consider the landscape as the vehicle through which humans can potentially benefit from ecosystem services (ES). Under this premise, landscape ecology and integrated landscape approaches (Sayer et al. 2013, 2017; Freeman et al. 2015; Arts et al. 2017; Bürgi et al. 2017; Angelstam et al. 2019; Reed et al. 2021) have the potential to provide the main theoretical basis for devising integrated territorial programs and plans that can prove effective in raising the sustainability standards of human activities across scales from the farm to the regions, with landscapes acting as key liaison scale.

This Collection provides an overview of landscape approaches and landscape ecological approaches, methods and tools considered in their role as key assets to address urgent territorial and social-ecological challenges, and of the role that these ideas, approaches and methods play in the context of the Iberian Peninsula. Such challenges may include pervasive “wicked” challenges (Duckett et al. 2016) that are particularly salient in this geographic context, including:

• Wildfires (Rescia et al. 2023; Petratou et al. 2023; Pulido et al. 2023),

• Soil erosion (Rodríguez-Sousa et al. 2023), land aridification and desertification (Zavala et al. 2023; Rebollo et al. 2024), and forest decline and fragmentation (Rodes-Blanco et al. 2023),

• Conflicts and synergies between biodiversity conservation and food security (Serrano-Zulueta et al. 2023; Linck et al. 2023), between rewilding and enabling more sustainable human land use (Velamazán et al. 2023; Rincón-Madroñero et al. 2024), between clean energy production and the preservation of the landscape character (López-Martínez 2023), and between built infrastructures and landscape connectivity (Valerio et al. 2023),

• Rural land abandonment (Errea et al. 2023) and urban–rural conflicts over land use (Herrero-Jáuregui & Concepción 2023; Arnaiz-Schmitz et al. 2023),

• The need for space for green infrastructures (Ortega et al. 2023; Azcárate & Hevia 2023; Balsas 2023), for the conservation of cultural rural landscapes (Seijo et al. 2023; Villodre et al. 2023), for more cost-effective agricultural and forestry public policies (Viegas et al. 2023), including the embeddedness of public values onto decision-making (Holm Sørensen et al. 2023), and for organic farming management alternatives (Salat-Moltó et al. 2023),

• Facilitating effective ecological succession, and unveiling the complex underpinning ecological processes (Lopezosa et al. 2023; Enríquez de Salamanca 2023), including also the key role in sustainable landscape management to be played by landscape multi-functionality (Pardo et al. 2023),

• Dealing with water scarcity and sustainable management of wetlands and groundwater reserves (Muñoz-Reinoso 2023).

These are all challenges that need to be urgently tackled to address and amplify UN Sustainable Development Goals 2: Zero Hunger, 6: Clean Water and Sanitation, 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, 13: Climate Action, 15: Life on Earth, and 17: Partnerships for the Goals. As documented across the 28 papers published in this Collection (https://link.springer.com/collections/gcfbgdeeca), they are all challenges that are innovatively addressed in this Special Issue. To achieve these objectives, the following priorities were established for this Collection: (1) To advance theoretical and operational discussions on the role of landscape approaches in better understanding and potentially resolving landscape conflicts of relevance in the Iberian context; (2) To exemplify, through Iberian case studies at different scales, the potential for operationalization of landscape ecology concepts, models, methods and metrics in science, practice, and governance; (3) To provide overviews of the current status of landscape approaches and landscape ecology (science and practice), and where their main gaps and opportunities in Iberia lie, both from scientific, policy or management perspectives.

Furthermore, when considered altogether as a whole, this Collection addresses the following questions that were originally presented as challenges to the authors:

• I. What innovative novel landscape approaches are being applied in the Iberian context to help resolve key landscape and land use conflicts?

• II. What landscape ecological studies are there that provide empirical evidence about innovative options to tackle social-ecological challenges across scales?

• III. What is the overall picture in science, practice, and policies? And how can it be improved?

• IV. What are the key lessons that may be extracted from the overall picture in Iberian that may help advance landscape ecological approaches in similarly complex and transitional contexts worldwide (and vice-versa)?

Landscape topics addressed in this collection

Table 1 illustrates the alignment between each of the 28 papers published with each of the 4 questions initially posed, demonstrating how research on complex landscape dynamics and challenges most often sits at the interface between apparently independent, or rather complementary, research questions, helping simultaneously tackle many of them. This inherent complexity in landscape ecology, where social and ecological, and theoretical and applied, aspects of reality are strongly interconnected, and where multiple spatial and temporal scales are strongly interdependent fits well with what Wu defined as landscape sustainability science (Wu 2013, 2021; Dong et al. 2021). Consequently, Table 1 also contains information about the landscape types and the temporal and spatial scales addressed in each of these papers, the location of which within the Iberian context can be checked in Fig. 2. All authors hereby cover a wide range of scales, approaches and locations that allow to reinforce the strong richness and heterogeneity of landscapes and the related challenges arising.

Table 1 Research priorities addressed by the authors in this Special Issue, including also the spatial and timescales at which the studies were conducted

Fig. 2

Map depicting the location and spatial scale/outreach of the research published in the 28 papers included in this Collection. Created from EEA (2018)

In a way, the idea that stems is that of the Iberian Peninsula as a “micro-continent” where a complex range of social-ecological processes and dynamics are in place that to a certain extent might contribute to consider it as a real-world lab with data that can then potentially be applied across many other contexts. This ultimately helps validate our original hypothesis that examining landscape ecological processes and dynamics was a worthy motive of research expanding the mere geographical limits of this regional context.

Overall, the contents and focus of the 28 papers published in this Collection allowed us to focus our discussion on Iberian landscape approaches around the following themes:

• A. An open landscape, cultural aspects, and socio-ecosystems: innovative landscape approaches that are being applied in the Iberian context to help resolve key conflicts related to landscape and land use.

• B. Conditions, understanding the landscape, causes and effects of a heterogeneous land use mosaic in the landscape: the key lessons learned from the picture in the Iberian Peninsula that can help advance ecological approaches to landscape in similarly complex and transitional contexts around the world.

• C. Landscape dynamics, including threats and opportunities: empirical evidence on new landscape dynamics and options addressing social-ecological and management challenges at different scales.

• D. Landscape restoration/Searching for future landscapes: empirical cases and technical analysis, aimed at finding solutions and improving current management tools.

• E. Joint reflections, themes, and topics. Further issues arising. Main features of the current Iberian landscape.

Cultural aspects and socio-ecosystems of an open landscape

The historical distribution of settlements in the Iberian Peninsula reached almost the entire territory, impacting a wide range of ecosystems, and resulting in a very rich palimpsest of cultural landscapes. As an objective fact supporting this situation, Spain is nowadays the country with the largest number of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in the world, a total of 53, three of them being transboundary reserves shared with Portugal and one being an intercontinental reserve at both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar, shared with Morocco. This legacy of cultural landscapes is currently threatened by agricultural intensification in the most productive areas, and by rural abandonment, which is especially important in the continental climate zones of the inner parts of the peninsula. In the latter areas, coinciding with the presence of high plateaus and mountains, extensive livestock farming was historically central, largely based on transhumance, of varying extension, which allowed the productive pastures to be used in summer. Rural abandonment together with the expansion of reforestation is currently leading to a lack of an integrated management, which increases its exposure to natural phenomena with catastrophic effects. Several studies in this Collection stress the need to regain a management based on mosaics. Others recognize the role of herbivory in the maintenance of open landscapes, especially silvopastoral landscapes, which are of great importance in traditional use systems.

Seijo et al. (2023) explores the cultural dimension of the fir tree landscape on both sides of the strait separating Europe from Africa, now designated as an intercontinental protected area. They suggest the need to turn community (local use) and national (nature conservation) interests compatible to maintain cultural landscapes, learning from the indigenous local knowledge (ILK) in the two analyzed situations. The results suggest the need to consider a more flexible integration of ILK and stakeholder interests in conservation policies that prove effective for protecting these ecosystems. The authors suggest that a greater understanding of ILK should guide future forest restoration and conservation plans following a broader integrated social-ecological approach. The latter should emphasize the complex interconnections and interdependencies between the protection of biodiversity, human well-being, continuous ecosystem services provision, economic prosperity, as well as territorial resilience.

The paper by Villodre et al. (2023) also analyzes landscape conservation across the natural parks located north of the strait, in the region of Andalusia. Applying a social-ecological approach, they evaluate the effectiveness of the conservation strategies in place under the Natural Park category in the protection and maintenance of rural cultural landscapes. The complexity of the social-ecological interactions inherent to historic rural landscapes and the ecosystem services they provide grant them a high natural, cultural and heritage value. The results obtained at different spatial scales show that the protection of rural cultural landscapes through the establishment of a network of NPs have not prevented the loss of multifunctionality and resilience of these cultural landscapes. In the study area studied by these authors, landscape degradation has been mainly characterized by the decline of traditional agricultural systems of high natural value and the consequent forest expansion and passive rewilding processes which is exacerbated by land abandonment. Paradoxically, efforts to preserve rural landscapes through the declaration of protected natural areas (PAs) may jeopardize their future due to a reductionist approach of a land management focused on naturalness and wilderness. However, the consideration of the cultural character of the rural landscape is necessary to promote its management and conservation from a holistic social-ecological perspective.

Seijo et al. (2023) and Villodre et al. (2023) state that the maintenance of the diversity of traditional land uses and practices is probably a better strategic approach for managing areas with a long history of human influence rather than the straight application of naturalness criteria. Therefore, it is important not only to establish extensive PA networks, but also to adapt their regulatory schemes to the characteristics and history of the territories to be protected. We believe that these important conclusions are applicable to most Iberian landscapes, as well as to a good number of situations worldwide. This is specially the case if the aim is to conserve humanized landscapes that are rich in biodiversity, but also bear cultural and landscape values. For example, in a recent work by Velado-Alonso et al. (2022) the connections and interdependencies between natural and domesticated biodiversity in Spain were clearly demonstrated, the latter being represented in this study by the richness of local livestock breeds.

In the context of Mediterranean climate, the cork oak landscapes, located mainly in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, with some Atlantic climate influence, is one of the most valuable Iberian cultural landscapes, and it is almost endemic to the Iberian context. It is a silvopastoral system known as montado in Portugal and as dehesa in Spain. Holm Sørensen et al. (2023) analyze values associated to cork oak landscapes located in the Ribatejo, Alentejo, and Algarve regions of central and south Portugal. They combined value chain analysis with plural valuation to reveal the values perceived by all value chain actors. The results show the disparity in the perception of the ecosystem health between the actors involved in the industrial transformation of cork and in cork oak landscape management. This imbalance fosters the necessity to find a common management ideal for cork production promoting multifunctional landscapes. The result emphasizes the need to seek a greater integration of the different interests that converge around the landscape being value chain analysis very helpful. Indeed, this is a very paradigmatic example of a highly productive multifunctional cultural landscape, with possibilities of being profitable with little support. The authors highlight the relevance of considering plural values when planning and implementing sustainable landscape management strategies related to ensure a sustainable future for this social-ecological system.

Same latitude (38–40 º N) but further east, in the Extremadura region (Spain), in a mountainous area characterized by moisture reaching from the Atlantic—the Sierra de Gata, which is part of the Iberian Central Range, just on the border with Portugal—Pulido et al. (2023) evaluate the experience gained through the “mosaic project”, i.e. a management model whose objective is to reduce fire hazards. The model results in “Fire-Smart Territories” (FST) by reducing combustible biomass, through implementing prevention measures planned actions, widely discussed and consensual, in agreement with the key territorial actors and networks. Their experience shows that this intervention strategy has a clear potential for large-scale fuel reduction. Spontaneous landscape changes take decades whilst planned changes can accelerate the process, which will however remain gradual due to the complexity of the social-ecological systems involved. However, the full realization of this potential will largely depend on legal/administrative reforms that can adapt existing regulations to the needs of those landscapes at elevated risk of wildfires. These landscapes are subject to the dynamics of depopulation, and in many cases deal with forest stands resulting from reforestation, excessively dense and close to collapse, resulting from inadequate human management. Therefore, the authors suggest that the harmonization of public and private efforts at regional and local levels would accelerate the transition to FST. In addition, they call for the need for a highly planned public intervention, underpinned by an integrated landscape approach aimed at generating fire-adapted territories, open landscapes, that can be maintained over time. They raise the issue regarding the management of the current homogeneous and closed forests with the associated mega-risks.

The contribution of Rescia et al. (2023) extends the issue of resilient landscapes throughout Spain and proposes an index for their quantification, using the set of plots of the Spanish Landscape Monitoring System (SISPARES) located in rural landscapes. The SISPARES plots were the result of a multifactorial ecological territorial model based on the ideas of Robert (Bob) Bunce (Gonzaléz-Avila et al. 2020). So, this work is an excellent occasion to recall the support and impulse that Bob Bunce, as president of IALE Europe, dedicated to landscape ecology in the Iberian context. Based upon this framework, Rescia et al. (2023) evaluate the relationship between the spatial structure of Spanish rural landscapes and the historical wildfire frequency by means of landscape metrics and a spatial resilience index applied to ecoregions. Some landscape metrics were positively correlated with wildfire frequency for forest plantations and scrublands, whilst correlation was found to be negative for dehesas and crops. Spatial resilience to wildfires and large wildfires was found to be lower in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, and for large wildfires, results were low also in the Mediterranean east coast and central region. The spatial structure of Spanish rural landscapes showed significant differences in the frequency of fires, being the Northern Atlantic coast (Fig. 1), the ecoregion suffering more fires, mostly small fires. This ecoregion is characterized by heterogeneous agricultural areas, forest plantations, scrublands, a high diversity of land uses, and a relatively high density of roads that could promote wildfire spread. The pattern of large wildfires is different, as they are positively related to shrubland abundance, and although they occurred more in norwest, other ecoregions also show incidence of them. The authors suggest that the resilience indicators could be used as early warning tools for fires and would play an important role in the design of management and prevention policies for Spanish rural landscapes.

Following up with the regional assessment of landscape dynamics, it became also apparent through-out this Collection how continental mountain areas and inland plateaus include the landscapes most strongly affected by rural abandonment in Spain, resulting in a huge area that has received the name of “the empty Spain”, because of policies that favored migration to cities in the coastal periphery (e.g. Barcelona, Bilbao, Málaga, etc.) and to inland large cities or conurbations (e.g. Madrid, Valladolid, Zaragoza, etc.). Errea et al. (2023) analyze changes in land use and land cover and landscape structure occurred in a valley of the Central Pyrenees between 1956 and 2017 and provide a complete discussion on the implications for land management within a multidisciplinary context. A remarkable result is that in the first decades after abandonment the fragmentation and heterogeneity of the mountain landscapes increased, but subsequently landscape homogenization took place, being dominated by forests. Therefore, actions aimed at improving biodiversity and the provision of multiple ecosystem services should be carried out during the early stages after agricultural abandonment. Future scenarios envisage that revegetation processes will continue and different approaches to reach sustainability are discussed, i.e. rewilding versus a proactive management. Future landscape policies will need to work in close alignment and coordination to promote mosaic landscapes which provide opportunities for various uses and functions, combining economically productive areas (extensive livestock, tourism, leisure) with others intended to provide ecosystem services.

The analysis of contributions dealing with the cultural aspects that are set at the core of Iberian landscapes, has allowed us to perform a panoramic, integrated tour. In this Collection, the main focus is on the problems posed by the viability of heterogeneous and complex landscapes to face current challenges: natural risks, demographic challenges, etc. Figure 3 graphically depicts the main terms and concepts discussed by the authors addressing openness, cultural and social-ecological aspects of Iberian landscapes.

Fig. 3

Word cloud showing the main concepts and terms discussed in the papers in this Collection addressing open and cultural landscapes and their complex nature as socio-ecosystems

The emergence of large urban areas (as is the case of the city of Madrid and its periphery), has facilitated researchers to gather useful information on urbanization gradients and transitions between urban and rural systems. Focusing precisely on how the thresholds of social-ecological resilience are modified, Arnaiz-Schmitz et al. (2023) propose a methodological approach based on Bayesian Networks for the analysis along an urban–rural gradient in the region of Madrid. Applying an integrative method to model the landscape-socioeconomic interactions, they detected the threshold values (tipping points) of the socioeconomic indicators at which the sylvo-pastoral landscapes, once common in the Madrid region, have been transformed over time. They conclude that the social-ecological resilience of the rural landscapes in the area is threatened by the drastic and rapid land use and socioeconomic changes that have occurred in the last decades, mainly due to the strong influence of the processes of metropolization and urban expansion. According to these authors, the two socioeconomic indicators that significantly contribute to the resilience of these landscapes are both the maintenance of traditional livestock, supported by the traditional knowledge of local people, and rural cohesion, favored by improved mobility and interconnections between neighboring municipalities through transport networks.

Understanding the landscape: Conditions, causes, and effects of a heterogeneous land use mosaic

With the main objective to restore regulating services through landscape management, the debate on rewilding naturally arises, especially in landscapes whose baseline stability (shape, resilience, integrity) is associated with strong human intervention (i.e. humanized landscapes) (Gómez-Sal 2017). To assess the current importance of herbivory managed by humans, Serrano-Zulueta et al. (2023) estimated herbivory baselines in Spain and applied their models to manage the allocation of possible environmental impacts as well as emissions from grazing livestock. The authors used the Net Primary Productivity (NPP) and ungulate abundances in several protected areas in Spain as proxies for wild herbivory and ecological baselines, respectively. Although there is a relationship between NPP and ungulate biomass and enteric CH4 emissions, unexpectedly, ungulate biomass is far below the estimated baselines and the carrying capacity. They conclude that obstacles to migration within protected areas should be removed and competition with traditional pastoralism should be avoided because it has led wild grazers to the point of extinction. Therefore, herbivory management should incorporate a more significant proportion of grazing animals (i.e. today mainly represented by cattle) as a complement to including wild ungulates.

The comparison between domestic and wild ungulates appears in the work of Velamazán et al. (2023). These authors attempt to disentangle the relative importance and potential interaction of abiotic (seasonality), biotic (herbivory) and anthropogenic (ungulate management) factors to affect micro- to meso-scale vegetation patterns by calculating the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of multi-temporal and fine-scale UAV images and applying landscape metrics. Both wild ungulates and livestock differ in their seasonal effects on vegetation structure and functioning, suggesting different mediation mechanisms to maintain vegetation processes in long-term grazing systems. This result highlights the need to preserve specific interactions between ungulates and vegetation for habitat conservation. For example, transhumant grazing to avoid grassland encroachment or management of wild ungulates to decrease excessive shrublands biomass, when the biome originally evolved with the presence of medium-sized herbivores. The authors underline the utility of fine-scale information provided by UAVs to detect ephemeral landscape features (e.g. herbaceous cover and primary productivity) counting with both wild ungulates and livestock.

Long-term vegetation responses to climate may depend on the distinctive roles of rewilding and traditional grazing systems. In ecosystems shaped and designed by human uses, not only the herbivory load, in particular local breeds, but also the temporal patterns of grazing/browsing, are key factors in updating ecosystem management. The paper of Rincón-Madroñero et al. (2024) analyzes the response of vegetation to grazing management in semi-arid Mediterranean mountain areas of the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, an area where altitudinal transhumance (transterminance) is still practiced. They analyze the different roles of domestic and wild herbivores in defining climate-vegetation interactions, by using satellite images to generate a NDVI time series from satellite images. The results highlight the distinctive roles of herbivores in defining Mediterranean landscapes' adaptability to climate, through passive rewilding (wild ungulates) or traditional livestock use (and transhumance practices for domestic ungulates). Therefore, according to the authors maintaining both ecosystems (scrubland and mountain pastures used in transhumance) can enhance landscape heterogeneity and ecological sustainability in the face of climatic changes.

Pardo et al. (2023) defend ecological intensification in the management of Iberian wood-pastures (dehesa, montado), in contrast to conventional management methods, not oriented to the conservation and recovery of the productive capacity of these agroecosystems. Wood pastures constitute important habitats for flower-visiting insects, thus supporting essential ecosystem services. However, dehesas have been experiencing increasing degradation either by farming intensification or abandonment. The authors collected data from several dehesas on pollinators, flower cover, botanical composition, and also landscape diversity. Results showed that non-conventional management including rotational grazing (short periods for grazing combined with long periods of resting), legume-enriched grazing (pastures sown with a mixture of leguminous species for more than ten years), and the abandonment enhanced pollinator abundance. In addition, ecological intensification practices showed a positive impact also on pollinator richness. Flower cover, together with plant diversity, and landscape composition were important drivers of pollinator diversity metrics, with different results among pollinator groups.

The study by Lopezosa et al. (2023) aims at understanding how Mediterranean landscape characteristics and land use affect the diversity of birds and plants and ecosystem functioning. The authors studied changes in Mediterranean landscapes at small and large scales, together with birds and plants diversity and composition, and a set of measurements of ecosystem functions. They found contrasting responses of biodiversity and ecosystem functions to landscape characteristics, being plants more affected by characteristics at local scale and birds by landscape characteristics. Their conclusion was that these different characteristics of the mosaic of uses in a Mediterranean environment may interact strongly and that the benefits of local management may be further exacerbated if applied in larger habitat remnants or in more heterogeneous landscapes.

The importance of landscape structure is also explored by Linck et al. (2023) in their study on the relationship between environmental characteristics with the presence and structure of a mesocarnivore community. Camera trap sampling points, occupancy, activity, and co-occurrence analysis were used. Their results indicate that increasing homogenization of Mediterranean landscapes in north-central Portugal -mainly due to forestry and agriculture intensification, land abandonment, and shrub encroachment-, hinders the co-occurrence of mesocarnivores in space and time. The authors suggest that human activities may buffer or strengthen the effects of mesocarnivore interactions. The study advocate the adoption of conservation and management measures to promote heterogeneous and connected landscapes.

With the aim of evaluating the effects of organic management, the work of Salat-Moltó et al. (2023) analyzes a gradient of organic farming aggregation and of percentage of arable land in a Mediterranean environment in Catalonia (northeastern of the Iberian Peninsula). The effects of agricultural management, i.e. organic and conventional agriculture, on cereal aphids and their parasitoids were studied at two scales, field and landscape. The authors found that a coordinated application of organic farming at the landscape level seems to be a much better strategy to improve biological control of aphids than focusing on individual field management. Such a coordinated landscape management should also include the conservation of existing non-crop habitat patches given that they provide other resources to the parasitoids (e.g. alternative hosts, refuges, overwintering site and nectar for adults) than those in cereal crops.

The historical effect of human uses on the landscape is studied in an integrated manner by Enríquez-de-Salamanca (2023) focusing on the causes of vegetation synanthropisation and the role of protected areas to preserve vegetation with low synanthropisation. The author proposed a global synanthropisation index which considers flora and vegetation, and used anthropisation indicators for the analysis of a large area in central Spain. Agriculture was found to have an important impact on in vegetation although urban sprawl and infrastructures catch more attention. However, vegetation with low synanthropisation is a unique environmental asset that should be incorporated into a challenging network of protected areas. The method would make it possible to evaluate the evolution of vegetation cover in relation to human management, as an indicator of sustainability and should be considered in land use planning and environmental assessments.

Figure 4 graphically depicts the main terms and concepts discussed by the authors addressing the conditions, causes and effects of change in Iberian landscapes.

Fig. 4

Word cloud showing the main concepts and terms discussed in the papers in this Collection addressing the underlying drivers and effects of change in Iberian landscapes

Landscape dynamics: current trends, patterns, and threats and opportunities

We have been able to characterize the landscape of the Iberian Peninsula as an open landscape, in some cases, with a scattered tree cover, either as a part of sylvo-pastoral systems or for fruit or fodder production. In other cases, the landscape adopts mosaic characteristics, i.e. a mixture of agricultural plots, remnants of forest areas and grazed areas, with the extensive network of cattle trails (a historical drover roads network) and the anthropogenic steppes standing out -due to their originality- as an internal frame (Gómez Sal et al. 2017). In regions with an Atlantic climate, the landscape mosaic is enriched with meadows, orchards, and grazed mountain pastures and scrublands, resulting in a compartmentalized territory, in which the variety of livestock breeds, crops and local traditions is also outstanding. The extension and number of protected areas with biosphere reserve status, 12 in Portugal and 53 in Spain, clearly reflect the importance of the humanized character (agrarian socio-ecosystems) of a large part of the Iberian territory. Several threats have been tackled in this Collection such as water overexploitation, wildfires, land abandonment and depopulation, expansion of high-impact uses (e.g. energy, intensive agriculture).

The most strictly protected areas (e.g. 16 national parks in Spain) cover special territories that are representative of the diversity of less human-modified landscapes. Most of them are located in mountainous areas of different character, whilst others include wetlands with a special significance due to the regular long dry season that is characteristic of the Mediterranean climate. Among the latter, the Doñana National Park is especially relevant because it is a key stopover site being fundamental to keep connectivity step for bird migration between Africa and Europe. Muñoz-Reinoso (2023), using the patch dynamic theory, analyzes the changes that have threaten the conservation of this relevant ecosystem for 50 years and determines different types of transition patterns, whose importance is then hierarchically assessed. He concludes that the main threat has been the extraction of groundwater for intensive agriculture and urban uses, consistent with the demographic pressure affecting the peripheral and coastal areas of most of the peninsula. The author proposes that the restoration of Doñana's groundwater dependent ecosystems should be managed within a broader approach, considering a wider spatial and temporal perspective.

Another important threat affecting Iberian landscapes is the lack of conservation management strategies in place for the extensive reforestation for timber exploitation that took place along the last century. Although the European Union (EU) adopted a forest strategy for 2030, it remains as a national responsibility. In this context, Viegas et al. (2023) analyze the danger of large fires in Portugal and elaborate on the effect of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), one of the funding sources for forest management, on the prevalence of fires in Portugal and why it does not help protect against forest fires. Crossing the EU support distribution pattern and the location of forests, the authors found that the former is concentrated in areas where forests cover a small part of the territory and prevalence of forest fires is lower. The result is inequity between regions and between holdings. In addition, there is no link with the rural development strategies that should be directed to a smaller scale farming as well, and that should be more efficient in fostering a more strongly populated rural environment characterized by a set of diverse and sustainable uses. The defense of forests, particularly of native ones, requires having a sound knowledge of the territory, with special attention to agricultural land where forests cover the largest areas of Portugal. And to reduce the risk and prevalence of forest fires, it is necessary to promote a more active management of forest areas comprising a higher support to vulnerable rural and marginal territories, empowering local populations and promoting rural development. Another recommendation is the creation of an agri-environmental schemes (second EU pillar) targeting native forest in smallholdings, like those which exist for cork oaks—Quercus suber (see Holm Sørensen et al. 2023 in Sect. “Cultural aspects and socio-ecosystems of an open landscape”). These agri-environmental schemes would be justified by the environmental services they provided, and would require specific commitments from landowners, ideally in association with technical advice services, necessary to be developed primarily by entities promoting aggregate (grouped) management.

Parallel to the rural abandonment affecting many agricultural cultural landscapes, a trend towards agricultural intensification is taking place in other parts of the Iberian territory. Rodriguez-Sousa et al. (2023) analyze the impacts of agricultural intensification of olive groves in southern Portugal (Alentejo) on soil erosion and farm sustainability, comparing erosion values from a theoretical model with empirical values measured in the field for several tree densities under different soil management. The study highlights that it is essential to consider soil management impacts on erosion, an aspect that influences farm sustainability, irrespective of crop density. The study shows an overestimation of soil erosion model results for any kind of management. Tree density played a secondary role. So the type of the farming systems, including strategies in place for soil management and also for crop production, should be considered as the key factors to move towards more sustainable approaches. According to these authors, sustainability objectives should be reviewed in this case, as estimated erosion in ecologically managed olive plantations, which are defined by higher soil fertility and lower soil erosion, turns out to be occasionally similar to those encountered in highly intensive, intensive and extensive olive orchards. Besides, improving the functionality and productivity could be other targets for a proper management of these farming systems.

Another type of possible impacts of human land use on the landscape, lately prevalent in the Iberian context, derives from the competition that is taking place between high impact uses related to energy (especially from renewable sources) and uses targeting biodiversity preservation (including landscape and agrodiversity). López-Martínez (2023) addresses this problem by analyzing the social perception of wind turbines in Mediterranean landscapes in Spain. The study investigates how landscape preferences vary considering the visual effects of wind turbines on the landscape scenic values, and the sociodemographic characteristics of local inhabitants and other stakeholders that may condition their perception of these new landscape elements. The author conducted online surveys and found that vegetation has a positive effect on the appreciation of the scenic beauty of rural landscapes. In the Mediterranean context, coniferous forests were more highly valued by respondents as a natural element than agricultural areas. On the other hand, survey respondents did not perceive wind turbines as having a negative impact on scenic beauty in all cases. In fact, in the most deteriorated landscapes, the location of wind turbines was generally valued as a positive element that slightly improves their scenic beauty. The results show a trend between socio-demographic factors (educational level, age, sex) and the perception of wind turbines, which should be investigated in more detail, especially for land use planning purposes.

The (bi-)polarity existing in the territory between urban and rural areas, a problem that has increased along the past few decades, is beginning to be dampened in some places. Herrero-Jauregui and Concepción (2023) analyze the effects of the counter-urbanization process (i.e. the return to the countryside) on landscapes and the ecosystem services they provide by means of a systematic literature review. The authors consider that to offer scientifically based guidelines to preserve or promote multifunctional landscapes minimizing the negative impacts of rural immigration, it is crucial to understand this process, including its drivers and consequences on landscapes. They highlight that the movement of people and economic activity out from the cities and urban areas may reverse the processes of land abandonment and land use intensification that currently affect Mediterranean countries because of net of socioeconomic linkages along rural–urban gradients. Therefore, to find a balance between socioeconomic growth and environmental protection is a key in promoting sustainability and multifunctionality in rural areas.

Last, Rebollo et al. (2024) quantify the spatial patterns of tree damage and mortality across Mediterranean forests in the Iberian Peninsula. The authors examined the effects of stand structure, water availability and climate, and looked for responses on how the spatial patterns and relationships with underlying drivers change over time. To achieve this, they used the Spanish Forest Inventory data to quantify the effect of stand structure and climate on tree damage and mortality by fitting hurdle-gamma models. In addition, cross-correlograms allowed them to analyze their spatial dependence and to check whether underlying drivers change over time. Resulting from this, they found a higher and stronger positive autocorrelation in tree damage than for mortality being stronger for the former variable. Water availability was the most important variable to explain the spatial patterns of tree damage and mortality. In addition, the spatial dependence of tree damage and mortality with the underlying drivers is changing over time, particularly due to drought intensity. These results suggest that the combined effect of intense competition and drought that is envisaged across major climate and land use change scenarios could favor more extensive die-off and tree mortality events, providing key information for identifying vulnerable areas and the planning of adaptation measures.

Figure 5 graphically depicts the main terms and concepts discussed by the authors addressing the dynamic changes, including drivers and conditions, of Iberian landscapes.

Fig. 5

Word cloud showing the main concepts and terms discussed in the papers in this Collection addressing the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of Iberian landscapes

Understanding and shaping future landscapes

The characteristics of the landscapes synthesized, along with the trends of change identified so far, place us in a favorable position to appreciate some of the key challenges related to the restoration of valuable ecosystems and landscapes that have been analyzed in this Collection.

Several contributions of this Collection have already shown the extensive space occupied in the Iberian Peninsula by reforested landscapes, and the dangers posed in many cases by abandonment processes, which leads to an urgent need for devising more novel management approaches. The work of Rodes-Blanco et al. (2023) points in this direction, proposing a novel method to characterize canopy gap patterns and dynamism in Mediterranean forests in the surroundings of Madrid using airborne LiDAR data. They point out to the significant differences between coniferous and broadleaf forests regarding both the characteristics of the gaps and the distribution frequency of their sizes. The diverse forests studied (i.e. broadleaved, coniferous and mixed forests) show a great dynamism in relation to canopy changes, a high spatial heterogeneity in gap dynamics, with high opening and closing rates, and ultimately result in a net forest gain. This contribution raises the interest of automated monitoring of hotspots of gap dynamics and net changes, which are directly helpful to more accurately understand changes in landscape mosaics and to prioritize forest management and restoration strategies.

The idea of managing forest landscapes to become fire-resistant is also present in the work by Petratou et al. (2023) who develop a framework of decision-making criteria to apply mulching for mitigating risk in fire-prone landscapes given that is a very effective technique to reduce soil erosion after a fire. The authors interviewed several experts in post-fire management and carried out a literature review to establish the criteria useful to create several scenarios to protect either the soil, water bodies or road networks. However, implementation has proved a challenge to these authors, mainly due to financial costs and public approval. This work, based on the experience obtained in the Algarve region (southwest Portugal) provides a guide of recommendations to select “how” and “where” the technique should be used in which the social context should be considered.

Zavala et al. (2023) present a smart strategy based on landscape-scale models to decide on management alternatives in socio-ecosystems in Iberian central plains, above 800 m m.a.s.l. This is a region precisely where, due to the restrictive conditions of soil fertility and harsh climate, low farming productivity is further compromised by climate change. The authors highlight the importance of landscape level approximations to devise sustainable alternatives and in particular, the need of developing tools for forest planning at broad scales that allow to assess trade-offs and budgets of ecosystem services under different management and climatic scenarios. The study is illustrated by a case study addressing traditional management of pine forests (Pinus pinaster) based on shelterwood method along with thinning, and two alternative and contrasting scenarios depending on the objective, i.e. either preserve forest biomass or maintain biomass production. However, the traditional model needs to be corrected nowadays due to the imperatives of climate change. For any policy scenario, the management strategy (i.e. modulation of harvest size and harvest/mortality rate) results in a very long-term forest structure that will promote different forest functions and biodiversity, although the range of possibilities for the biomass production scenario is more restricted.

This approach represents an important management support tool potentially useful for deciding alternatives in socio-ecosystems with a long history of human intervention and is in line with previous studies which analyzed changes and adaptations in areas where the effects of climate change are particularly pronounced. These studies would allow placing the Iberian socio-ecosystems in a good position to study the effects of mitigation and adaptation in response to global changes. As an example, Castro et al. (2022) studied the adaptation of traditional livestock systems in northwestern Portugal, on the edge of the Iberian plateau, where popular knowledge places the transition between the “Terra quente” and the “Terra fria” (hot vs. cold land).

In the context of temperate forests, Ortega et al. (2023) propose a methodology to identify and prioritize target hotspots for landscape restoration in a biosphere reserve protected area located in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. The area was covered by Atlantic mixed forests but currently it is very fragmented mostly due to exotic forest plantations which now represent about 50% of the territory. The authors combined a double approach to identify elements that could be integrated in a green infrastructure: movement of key species and provision of ecosystem services. They identified large native forests remnants (core areas) that should be connected to allow the movement of three species. Besides, they also calculated a multifunctional index based on several ecosystem services to identify multifunctional areas and, finally, they performed a connectivity analysis using the least-cost path method and the circuit theory. The result is that several exotic plantations that should change into native forest were spotted. This method is intended to prioritize management actions to improve ES provision and biodiversity based on scientific evidence.

The idea of ecological restoration applied to semi-natural infrastructures that are a part of the inner frame of Iberian landscapes also applies to the large network of drover roads (DRs) in Spain. These drove roads set a landscape heritage of public property of exceptional social value, whose role in conservation is especially important in the continental Mediterranean regions. The study by Azcárate and Hevia (2023) explore the ecological condition of the drove road network in the region of Madrid (central Spain) by means of a descriptive study carried out in a GIS together with fieldwork. Several criteria regarding animal movement but also to keep landscapes connectivity and support natural areas were considered. The authors conclude that despite concerns over the state of conservation of the network (DRs) integrity, it is restorable in many areas. They point particularly at restoring intensified and simplified landscapes matrices, where the DRs network plays a more decisive role, and considering livestock management reintroduction. The latter not only suits the traditional use of DRs but would be a very effective tool to restore DR habitats because of its effects on several processes that are essential to maintain grassland quality and biodiversity.

Connectivity is a key function that would potentially be facilitated by green infrastructure networks, the absence of which is a cause of high wildlife mortality. Road impacts on biodiversity are increasing worldwide. Valerio et al. (2023) provide novel insights for multi-taxa ecological responses and roadkill evaluations based on a survey conducted in southern Portugal. Their objective is to identify road locations that may have an impact on multiple taxonomic groups and to incorporate this information into roadkill mitigation plans. The authors propose a method using a wide variety of remotely sensed data and calculated several habitat metrics that were integrated in species distribution models (SDMs) for habitat suitability and functional connectivity analyzes. The result locates the best road units for supporting landscape resilience and multifunctionality over the long-term, demonstrating that spatial prioritization in roadkill patterns of species with different traits is possible. These findings offer versatility of alternatives to use during the mitigation planning phase and to value opportunity costs based on their potential for different taxa.

The network of DRs can be considered as a part of a wide network of greenways that is characteristic of the Iberian Peninsula. The greenway planning movement behind this was especially promoted by Julius Fábos (1932–2022), professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (USA). Considering that greenways represent an important component of planning strategies in landscape ecology, Balsas (2023) presents an essay that aims to pay tribute to this important figure in greenway and landscape planning, with the objective of motivating a new generation of greenway scholars in the Iberian Peninsula and beyond. According to Balsas, the planning of greenways from a landscape perspective offers a tool to connect countries and societies through natural corridors that benefit ecology, economies and society. He also believes that Julius Fabos' work can be considered as percussive to many of today's distinguished American landscape ecologists.

Figure 6 graphically depicts the main terms and concepts discussed by the authors addressing plausible future trends in Iberian landscapes.

Fig. 6

Word cloud showing the main concepts and terms discussed in the papers in this Collection addressing the foreseeable future trajectories of change and dynamics in Iberian landscapes

Joint reflections, themes and topics, and future pathways

The Iberian Peninsula brings together a set of features and dynamics of special interest to study patterns and processes suitable for landscape ecology, and to foster the implementation of landscape approaches. This is due to the confluence of distinctive climatic, ecological and cultural characteristics that occur within this context. From the perspective of climate and topography, the different variants of the Mediterranean region are present in the Iberian Peninsula, including the most original, almost exclusive to this territory, the Mediterranean climate of a sharp continental character, and semi-arid which shapes landscapes that are unique in Europe. In contrast, the Atlantic regions, in the north and northwestern part, include the uniqueness of the mountains. In no other country of Europe, the Atlantic Mountain environment, acting as a barrier, has such a large extension.

The low agricultural and phenological productivity of the inner plateaus during most of the year (winter and summer) are the main drivers behind the long historical movements of livestock, connecting areas of complementary productivity, often located more than 700 km apart. To sustain such movement there was the Spanish network of drover roads, with a great territorial development and a large amount of surface being used for that purpose (about 125,000 km and 450.000 ha, i.e., 1% of the territory of Spain). Likewise, the harsh continental climate in the central plateau and inner regions partly explains the current processes of depopulation in these regions, which has taken place since the middle of the last century, tending to concentrate people in large cities and gravitate towards the coastal periphery of the country.

The main bio-physical determinants are equivalent in both Iberian countries (Portugal and Spain) although the response to them (and the resulting landscape) show nuances that enrich the heterogeneity of situations encountered and allow lessons to be drawn from the studies carried out on both sides of this old administrative boundary. Organized in a north–south direction, it separates similar territories along more than 800 km, the oldest permanent national border in Europe.

In the vast Iberian Mediterranean domain, the humanized landscape was historically an open landscape, although with differential features across the different regions. For instance, in the southwest of the peninsula, the relative absence of frost and a clear contrast between well-defined rainy and mild seasons and long and extremely warm and dry periods, has shaped a landscape with scattered trees and pastures, occasionally also including crops, a resulting landscape (Spanish dehesas and Portuguese montados) that evokes the wooded savannah, although in these temperate biogeographical conditions the dominant trees belong to genus Quercus. In contrast, in the higher central/northern areas, the result was a pseudo-steppe with open cereal fields, outstanding areas for the presence of steppe bird species. The transformation of the primordial ecosystems into these latter configurations, also including specialized crops such as olive groves, vineyards, and carob groves, was named as the “frutalization” of the Mediterranean forests by Fernando González Bernáldez (1995), a process affecting not only the species but also entire landscapes.

In the Atlantic and mountain areas, the mosaics of livestock rearing areas (meadows, hedgerows) intertwined with crops in small plots, orchards and remains of the original forests having strategic functions are more frequent. The diversity and richness of local solutions with influence on the landscape are remarkable and greatly determined by land compartmentalization. As a consequence of all these conditions, the nature of the original Iberian landscapes can be considered as the result of influences that combine nomadism, subtropical systems (sylvo-pastoral systems and orchards) and more archetypical temperate landscapes (mosaics, hedgerows, vegetable gardens). All this should be considered within a geopolitical context at the interface between Europe and Africa, therefore resulting in challenges for developing countries.

Based on this, but also on the cases gathered in this Collection, we can underline the following as the most salient perspectives and conflicts of Iberian landscapes today:

• The urgency for finding a novel pattern of management and governance for securing the legacy from monospecific reforestation which took place throughout the last century has been highlighted. A new model for landscape multifunctionality is needed, for which a managed and mosaic landscape is often invoked, with solutions partially inspired by traditional farming systems.

• Avoiding the danger of mega-fires, building fire-resistant landscapes by reducing combustible biomass needs to be considered as another important goal, including a prominent and updated role of herbivory, for both strategic and productive purposes.

• Recognizing the role of domesticated biodiversity (both at the landscape and local scales) and its relationship with nature conservation (wild biodiversity). The increasing loss of the human trace and memory in some territories does not justify the option of a committed rewilding in a context of humanized nature. The objectives of protected areas and their evaluation must incorporate the cultural traits that resulted in their current values.

• The recent displacement of the population to the periphery of the peninsula, accompanied by tourism and infrastructures development (including new irrigation areas), represents a threat to nature and landscape protected and designated areas related to water (marshes, estuaries, etc.). A more effective land use planning system is urgently needed to avoid these conflicts.

• The growing contrast between the rural and urban domains gives rise to a polarized territory, with large cities and strongly urban areas at one end and protected natural landscapes and ecosystems at the other. In between both, there is a large rural/natural space, with a poorly defined purpose, in which multiple conflicts arise among energy uses (especially renewable), intensive agriculture and livestock farming, and management goals based on biodiversity (landscape and agrobiodiversity).

• It is urgent to devise novel and sustainable management alternatives for these landscape challenges, and to promote environmental planning that is guided by landscape ecology and landscape sustainability science principles and implemented through landscape approaches.