ABSTRACT
This is a scene-setting chapter that describes the character-based methods used for understanding and managing landscapes in the United Kingdom (UK). As other chapters in the book serve to demonstrate, these approaches have been adopted in various modified forms in many other countries. In the UK, these methods have become mature and well established – and arguably might be considered ready for renewal or improvement. The chapter summarises the origins and evolution of both the Landscape Character Assessment method and the parallel method of Historic Landscape Characterisation – the two approaches that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. It examines the relationships between the two, and especially whether they can be considered to be complementary or competitive as they sit alongside each other. The chapter also considers some of the challenges that are still outstanding and especially those with special relevance to alternative, perhaps competing, approaches that are emerging.
