Analysis of territory diversity and of its evolution. Tools and methods of the National Forest Inventory (France)

The landscape concept, such as it is conceived today, can not be reduced to the study of only the physical elements of the countryside and to traces of human activity. In addition to this is a subjective element represented by the perspective that the observer overlooks the environment which surrounds him. The landscape is consequently at the same time a physical object and the view observed by the observer over the countryside is to some extent “physical space and mental representation” [8]. The landscape, which calls upon a visual perception of reality, is the place in which several overlapping components [16], centred around two poles, interact: a concrete space developed by man and an observer with his actual experiences and his cultural and emotional references.