Methodology of landscape science and landscape-geographic scientific method

Abstract

In 60-80-ies of XX century it became obvious that a scientific explanation in geography relies on a complex system of methods, from materialist dialectics and scientific methods to highly specialized working methods: visual and laboratory, field and cameral treatment. However, the question of possibility and necessity of scientific geographical method was open. Meanwhile, in these years of intensive geographic search the contours of the landscape-geographical, or geosystem method was spontaneously arising in the theoretical and applied researches. This method was aimed on studying the complex regularities of interaction of society and the geographical environment. The essence of this method is based on the recognition of the necessity of accounting for spatial (geographic) factors, together with historical data in explaining social phenomena. The basis of the method is the concept of the landscape structure of the territory as a set of geosystems (landscapes in the broadest sense). Thus geosystem of one or another level is an operational spatial unit of the study. The research process is a series of consecutive operations from the inventory of geosystems to theoretical or practical conclusions. Landscape-geographical method has for a long time been used unconsciously or in a hidden form without a proper name. Its application has allowed to establish the landscape types of settlement on the Earth, to approach the definition of the ecological potential and ecological capacity of the landscape, to assess the food-resource potential of landscapes, etc. In the future we can expect significant results in the field of assessment of sustainability of landscapes to anthropogenic impacts, landscape and geographical forecasting and modeling.