The mobility in Portugal and landscape values OPE 18, ONLINE MAGAZINE "RIVERS" - ISSUE NR10

The mobility in Portugal began with the presentation of students' work about landscape values and impacts coming from human activity. During the afternoon the students' group was employed in the walk activity around the Almonda River and the visits to the Paul Boquilobo Natural Reserve and UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Paúl do Boquilobo Biosphere Reserve in Central Portugal consists of a natural freshwater wetland surrounded by marshes, which lie in a bend of the Almonda River.

The day after, we visited the monastery of Alcobaca and Nazarè, a small town in front of Atlantic Ocean.

The once-fishing village of Nazaré, a very popular beach resort in Portugal, became a worldwide phenomenon after the McNamara effect. On November 1st 2011, the Hawaiian surfer Garrett McNamara surfed a 78-foot (23,77-meter) wave during the ZON North Canyon Show in Praia do Norte beach, in Nazaré! Since then, Nazaré - or as the surfers call it, "Naza" - has caught the world's attention. But Nazaré is more than its incredibly big waves. It is a deeply fascinating destination with countless secrets to unveil.

The visit continued to Tomar, Costancia and Almourol near the Tagus River. Moreover, we visited the Alviela Science Center and the river Almond and Alviela.

The village of Tomar, (too-mar), a historical gem in Central Portugal sits along the banks of the Nabão River, in one of the most fertile regions in the country. Visitors are first greeted by Mouchão Park, a quaint green space highlighted by a wooden waterwheel, covered with dangling willow branches from nearby trees.

Tagus River, Portuguese Rio Tejo, Spanish Río Tajo, the longest waterway of the Iberian Peninsula. It rises in the Sierra de Albarracín of eastern Spain, at a point about 90 miles (150 km) from the Mediterranean coast, and flows westward across Spain and Portugal for 626 miles (1,007 km) to empty into the Atlantic Ocean near Lisbon.

Located in the River Zêzere, in a zone of great beauty, Castelo de Bode Dam has one of the largest reservoirs in Portugal. It extends across a total distance of 60 kms, spanning the municipalities of Tomar, Abrantes, Sardoal and Ferreira do Zêzere. Surrounded by leafy vegetation, especially pine trees, the reservoir offers ideal conditions for practising nautical sports or leisure activities in contact with nature. Anyone who wants a more detailed experience of this huge lake may go on a boat trip to visit spectacular landscapes within the reservoir - such as the Island of Lombo, a small patch of land that contains an inn that is ideal for spending a few days in complete tranquillity.

Landscape results

Understanding of landscape values is an essential means to support sustainable land use and spatial planning by citizen participation. Landscapes are manifestations of biophysical, cultural, and economic processes, facing constant change. These changes represent the many ways in which people interact with their environments. Landscapes have both material and immaterial dimensions: they provide us with a range of goods and services, but also form an important part of our identity, contributing to our natural and cultural heritage. Urban residents, tourists, rural country dwellers, farmers and fishermen all have different wants and needs from the landscape, leading to a diverse range of landscape values. This diversity of demands, perceptions, and uses of landscapes raises challenging questions about how to best design, plan, and manage resilient landscapes that are resistant to shocks and adaptive to changes in society and the environment. To cater for the diverse nature of people-environment interactions, we develop and employ new integrative methods to study landscape values, including in-depth case-study research, landscape modeling, participatory mapping, and meta-studies.

Our approach characterizes itself by being: Dynamic: We treat landscapes as dynamic systems, studying how landscape values both affect and are affected by land use change Spatially explicit: We study values in a spatially explicit manner and at different scales, which advances our understanding of interactions between biophysical and social landscape attributes and helps to identify priority areas containing specific landscape characteristics and functions. Policy relevant: We develop instruments that help landscape practitioners to take stock of the wide range of landscape values, which is essential to garner public support for planned changes in the landscape

Appreciate