EU: Sustainable Futures for Europe’s HERitage in CULtural LandscapES: Tools for Understanding, Managing, and Protecting Landscape Functions and Values (HERCULES)

The HERCULES project strives for the empowerment of public and private actors to protect, manage and plan for sustainable cultural landscapes at local, national and pan-European scales. HERCULES has the goal to increase understanding of drivers, patterns and social-ecological values of European cultural landscapes and to use this knowledge to develop, test and demonstrate strategies for their protection, management and planning. Key research aims art to
• Synthesise existing knowledge on the drivers, patterns and outcomes of persistence and change in European cultural landscapes
• Close knowledge gaps regarding the dynamics and social-ecological values of cultural landscapes
• Generate tools for landscape observation and modelling in order to understand values of and threats to cultural landscapes in Europe
• Develop a strong vision of pathways towards protecting heritage in cultural landscapes
• Provide policy makers and practitioners with a cutting-edge Knowledge Hub to guide decision-making for the benefit of cultural landscapes