Economy, Demographic Changes and Morphological Transformation of the Agri-Cultural Landscape of Lesvos, Greece

Abstract

The cultural landscape is a concept that best depicts society and economic changes in an area. Cultural landscapes include more than just morphological characteristics of an area and act as symbolic tanks. The study of the cultural landscape and its transformations in morphological, economic, ecological and symbolic terms can thus provide a comprehensive picture of the social, ecological and productive changes in an area. Such a study can be used for understanding the major driving forces behind the dynamics of the changes and investigate future trends. In this paper the study of the changes of the landscape of Lesvos, a Greek island, is attempted on two levels: an economic level, which refers to land use changes linked to demographic changes and the transformations in landscape characteristics and images that these changes bring; and an ecological level that refers to the ecological consequences of the changes. The time span refers to the 18th to 20th centuries when major changes (local, regional and global) took place. Data come from a variety of published and unpublished local sources. Results indicate that economic and political changes brought forward major demographic changes and transformed the landscape significantly, particularly affecting ‘traditional’ elements in a typical Mediterranean development.

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