What are the main approaches to landscape ecology?

Modern approaches to landscape ecology have evolved out of two schools of thought that differ with the part of the world in which landscape ecology is being practised or studied.

The oldest approach is known as the European school with its main emphasis on typology, classification and the built environment.

The other main approach is the American school of thought which has only been around for about 15 years. It is concerned with natural systems and the use of modelling techniques for landscape analyses.

This means that while European landscape ecologists are largely trying to integrate socio-economic data into landscape systems, North American landscape ecologists are concerned with technology and developing spatial analysis models.

Farina (1993) thought that this split in the discipline could be a problem. He thought that for the discipline to be really effective in terms of addressing world environmental and ecological problems both approaches needed to be integrated. Australian landscape ecologists like Hobbs and Saunders (of the Kellerberrin case study) have been trying to do this.