Landscape character

From the agricultural heartlands of the eastern coastal lowlands to the remote mountains of Wester Ross, Scotland has a great variety of landscapes underpinned by its geodiversity.

This variety results from the interaction over different timescales of both natural and human influences on the land. Landscape is about the relationship between people and place. It provides the setting for our day-to-day lives. It results from the way that different components of our environment - both natural (geology, soils, climate, flora and fauna) and cultural (the historical and current impact of land use, settlement, enclosure and other human interventions) - interact together and are perceived by us. People's perceptions turn land into the concept of landscape. Landscape character is the pattern that arises from particular combinations of the different components (Swanwick & Land Use Consultants, 2002, para 7.8).

For example, at a macro-scale, the character of the landscape of the North West Highlands reflects the underlying geology, perhaps more strikingly than in any other part of Scotland.

This is clearly seen in the present landscape expression of the main geological elements - Lewisian plateau surfaces, Torridonian Sandstone mountains and the Moine Thrust Zone.

The action of geological and geomorphological processes over long timescales, involving large-scale earth movements, weathering and erosion has emphasised the lines of geological weakness, giving a strong ‘grain’ to the landscape, seen for example in the orientation of the main sea lochs and the fjord-like coast. Weathering and erosion have also acted on the bedrock to shape the distinctive character of individual mountains. Successive Quaternary glaciations and post-glacial processes, including the formation of extensive peat

15 http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/highlights/scotlandInIAT.html

16 http://www.centralscotlandgreennetwork.org/

17 http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/278232/0083591.pdf

BOX 3.4 Extending the International Appalachian Trail to Scotland

On 5 June 2010, at the opening of the Appalachian Trail Museum in Pennsylvania, International Appalachian Trail (IAT) President Paul Wylezol, Appalachian Trail Conservancy Executive Director Dave Startzell and Pennsylvania Secretary of Conservation and Natural Resources John Quigley officially welcomed Scotland and the West Highland Way (WHW) as the first European Chapter of the IAT (Figure 3.11).

Figure 3.11 The extension of the Appalachian Trail to Scotland. (Photo: Paul Wylezol, IAT).

This official welcome came nearly a year to the day after the British Geological Survey (BGS) invited an IAT delegation from Maine and Newfoundland to visit Scotland. The visit was the first step in fulfilling an IAT vision to extend the existing 1350 miles of IAT trails in the USA and Canada with trails in Greenland, Scotland and other countries on the western seaboard of Europe and on through to Morocco.

As well as cultural links, Scotland shares an older geological heritage with this region, having once been close neighbours on ancient continents, shared in the building of the Caledonian – Appalachian mountain chain, and only (geologically) recently separated by the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The opening of the Atlantic Ocean separated the Appalachians from Scotland, but extending the IAT to Scotland restores some of these ancient links by celebrating our common geological heritage through long-distance walking routes. The WHW is only the beginning in Scotland – the Ayrshire Coastal Path, Loch Ryan Coastal Path and the Cape Wrath Trail (CWT) joined IAT Scotland in October 2010¹⁸, and trails in Shetland are likely to become part of the network in 2011. This could provide valuable tourism interest from the North American market. The WHW and the CWT would also link the Lochaber and North West Highlands Geoparks.

Linking-up with the renowned Appalachian Trail brand provides opportunities for friendly ties between Scotland and North America and will help renew and expand cultural links. IAT trails help expand local adventure tourism industries, and, in particular, to create employment and business opportunities in rural areas, including accommodation, transportation, guiding and interpretation, and retail sales, including local arts and crafts.

The existing North American IAT stretches from the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail at Mount Katahdin in the state of Maine to the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Quebec, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland/ Labrador. It connects two countries, five provinces, one state, and the English, French and Celtic cultures of North America.

18http://www.iatnl.ca/index.php/news/60/26/IAT-Welcomes-9-New-European-Chapters/

bogs, have left an equally distinctive imprint. All these patterns are well-illustrated on a geomorphological map of the area which shows a great diversity of landform types (Kirkbride et al., 2001).

There are also many close links between geology and biodiversity, expressed for example in the range of habitats present (a complex of wet heath, blanket mire and open water bodies on the ice-scoured Lewisian plateaux, grass and moss heaths on the drier Torridonian mountains and calcareous plant communities on the Durness Limestone). The human element in the landscape here is a relatively recent one, predominantly in the last 5000 years, but the impact on landscape character has been significant, especially in terms of patterns of landuse and settlement. This is evident when examining, for instance, the successive extent and patterns of past woodland clearance, plantation forestry and native woodland regeneration. North West Scotland therefore illustrates many fundamental interdependencies, both direct and indirect, between geodiversity, human activity and the landscape of today.

The closer integration of information about geology and geomorphology into the landscape character assessment process would help to develop a more holistic approach. In particular, this information should help to inform both the categorisation process and the analysis and explanation of individual character types. The Cairngorm National Park Authority have recognised the importance of this closer integration and recently commissioned a new Landscape Character Assessment of the Park in which geology and geomorphology played a fundamental part [Box 3.5].

BOX 3.5 Cairngorms National Park Landscape Character Assessment

In June 2009, the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) commissioned a Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) in partnership with the British Geological Survey (BGS).

The aims of this LCA were to:

• produce an accurate and detailed description of the landscape types (LCTs) and areas (LCAs) within the Cairngorms National Park (CNP) that encompass the many formative influences upon that landscape;

• make the description clear and understandable to a wide range of users; and

• be able to utilise the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) as a fundamental building block for all policy and activity of the CNPA and its partners in delivering the four aims of the National Park.

The CNPA commissioned landscape consultants to prepare the LCA and requested that they work closely with BGS to evaluate how BGS geological and geomorphological information could be incorporated usefully within the LCA. The CNPA also wished the consultants to utilise the Historic Landuse Assessment (HLA) from The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) within the LCA. The project was managed by the CNPA and overseen by a steering group with members drawn from CNPA (Chair), Aberdeenshire Council, Angus Council, BGS, Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS), Highland Council, John Muir Trust and RCAHMS.

To enable the landscape consultants to use geological and geomorphological information to underpin their assessment and description of landscape character areas, BGS provided bespoke bedrock (Figure 3.12) and superficial deposits/geomorphological (Figure 3.13) ‘character’ maps of the CNP. To show these in relation to the topography, these were draped over hill-shaded Digital Surface Models (DSMs) derived from NEXTMap Britain elevation data from Intermap Technologies and plotted at 1:50 000 scale. Descriptions were added to the maps. These were using during steering group field meetings to aid discussion of landscape character area boundaries.

Figure 3.12 Cairngorms National Park bedrock character. (Reproduced with the permission of the British Geological Survey ©NERC. All rights Reserved).

Figure 3.13 Cairngorms National Park superficial deposits and geomorphology. (Reproduced with the permission of the British Geological Survey ©NERC. All rights Reserved).