A Landscape Strategy for Lancashire - Landscape Strategy
Glossary
Landscape Technical Terms
With an explanation of how the terms are being used in the context of the Landscape Assessment and Strategy.
Analysis - the process of breaking the landscape down, usually in descriptive terms, into its component parts in order to understand how it is made up.
Approach - the step-wise process by which a landscape assessment is undertaken.
Assessment - an umbrella term used to encompass all the many different ways of looking at, describing, analysing and evaluating landscape.
Character a distinct pattern or combination of elements that occurs consistently in a particular landscape.
Character Area - a unique geographic area with a consistent character and identity, which forms part of a landscape character type.
Character Type - a generic term for landscape with a consistent, homogeneous character. Landscape character types may occur in different parts of the county, but wherever they occur, they will share common combinations of geology, topography, vegetation or human influences.
Characteristic - an element that contributes to local distinctiveness (eg narrow winding lanes, vernacular building style).
Classification - a process of sorting the landscape into different types, each with a distinct, consistent and recognisable character.
Description - verbal description of what a landscape looks like. This is usually carried out in a systematic manner, but it may also include personal reactions to the landscape.
Element - a component part of the landscape (eg hedges, roads, woods).
Feature - a prominent, eye-catching element (eg wooded hilltop, church spire).
Landcover - combinations of land use and vegetation that cover the land surface.
Landform - combinations of slope and elevation that produce the shape and form of the land surface.
Landscape - the term refers primarily to the visual appearance of the land, including its shape, form and colours. However, the landscape is not a purely visual phenomenon; its character relies on a whole range of other dimensions, including geology, topography, soils, ecology, archaeology, landscape history, land use, architecture and cultural associations.
Other Technical Terms
Ancient woodland - woodland which has had a continuous woodland cover since at least 1600AD and has only been cleared for underwood or timber production. It is an extremely valuable ecological resource, with an exceptionally high diversity of flora and fauna.
Blanket bog upland peat bog formed under conditions of high rainfall. It drapes over the moorland plateaux and obscures most topographic features. Depending on management the vegetation can vary from wet sphagnum dominated communities to moorland grasses and ericaceous shrub communities.
Brownfield site - a development site which is re-using land previously developed.
Bryophytes plant species belonging to the division Bryophyta, comprising mosses and liverworts.
Cairn - a mound of rough stones built as a monument or landmark - the most common examples being clearance cairns , when stones were cleared from a field in preparation for cultivation, and funerary cairns covering graves or burial chambers.
Carr woodland marsh or fen woodland in waterlogged terrain. Characteristic trees include alders and willows.
Clough - a local north England term for a small, steep-sided valley.
Commoning the use of common land by persons holding a right of common.
Coppicing - the traditional method of woodland management in which trees are cut down to near the ground to encourage the production of long, straight shoots, which can subsequently be harvested.
Crenellated - a building with battlements or loopholes (narrow vertical slits in high walls).
Drumlin - a streamlined, elongated egg-shaped hillock of glacial drift formed under a moving glacier during the ice age. The long axis of the hillock is aligned parallel to the direction of the ice flow. Drumlins usually occur in swarms or fields.
Eutrophic - the state of a water body when it has an excess of nutrients usually derived from agricultural fertilisers. The process by which a water body becomes overloaded with nutrients is known as eutrophication and leads to a dense plant population, the decomposition of which kills animal life by depriving it of oxygen.
Flax retting pool - a shallow pool with water input and output in which bundles of flax were placed and weighted down (with rocks) for a few weeks. The vegetable matter on the outer stems of the flax rotted down in the water to release the fibres of linen, which could then be combed out in the water and recovered into linen thread. Flax retting pools often have rocks and preserved organic matter on the bottom.
Flush - an area of soil enriched by transported materials either dissolved minerals salts or rockparticles. Wet flushes are found surrounding springs and rivulets and appear as bright green, rushy areas on a hill slope.
Gill - local N England term for a rapidly flowing mountain stream.
Greenfield site - development site, usually on the fringes of a settlement, which has not previously been used for built development.
Horsiculture - term used to describe areas on the fringes of settlements which are dominated by horse paddocks, stable buildings and associated paraphernalia.
Hushing - a method for working quarries; the ponded waters from dammed streams were released in a torrent to scour away topsoil and loose rock and expose the high quality beds beneath. Such areas are visible today as a confusing tangle of dry watercourses, hollows and conical spoilheaps.
Laithe house - a North England term for a dwelling which incorporates a barn under the same roof.
Limestone pavement - a glacially planed and smoothed surface of bare limestone which has subsequently been dissected by vertical joints (grykes).
Lynchets - cultivation terraces dating from the Celtic period; they are often visible in upland areas, where they were abandoned at some early date when cultivation and settlement moved down into the heavier and more rewarding soils of the valleys.
Marl pit - small pit resulting from the extraction of marl (a calcareous clay or mudstone) which has often subsequently been filled with water to form a small field pond.
Mere - a natural lake.
Mill lodge - local term for a mill pool.
Mill race or mill leat - a narrow man-made channel used to divert water to power a water-mill.
Mosslands flat, low-lying, peatlands, derived from former bogs and mires, typically drained by a network of ditches and supporting intensive agriculture. Relict areas of former natural vegetation are rare.
Open-field system - an area of arable land with common rights after harvest or while fallow. The fields date from the medieval period and are usually without internal divisions (hedges, walls or fences).
Outcrop - the emergence of a stratum, vein or rock at the surface.
Oxbow lake - a crescent-shaped lake occurring on a river floodplain. It originated as a river meander, but has since been abandoned after there has been lateral erosion at the neck of the meander and the river has changed course.
Palaeo-environmental- ancient fossil environments, which are typically analysed through techniques such as pollen analysis and radio-carbon dating.
Pollarding- a traditional woodland management practice in which the branches of a tree are cut back every few years to encourage new long, straight shoots for harvesting. Differs from coppicing because the cuts are made at sufficient distance from the ground to prevent them from being eaten by animals.
Provenanced - obtained from place of origin.
Reef knoll - a dome-like mass of limestone which has grown upwards from a reef (line of rocks in the tidal zone of a coast) in order to keep pace with the deposition of surrounding sediments. The reef knoll may be exposed by denudation and, because of its poorly developed joint system and its shape, it tends to resist erosion and to form a cone-shaped hill.
Regolith - the layer of loose, broken, rocky material covering the surface of the bedrock. It includes all types of rock waste, together with superficial deposits of alluvium, peat, wind-blown sand and glacial drift.
Remediation - process by which a contaminated or damaged site is repaired and brought back into more general use.
Riparian habitat - riverbank habitat
Semi-natural vegetation - any type of natural vegetation which has been influenced by human activities, either directly or indirectly.
Scree - an accumulation of fragmented rock waste below a cliff or rock face, formed as a result of weathering. The rock waste typically forms a fan shaped scree slope with a concave slope. It is devoid of vegetation.
Tarn - local name for a small upland lake.
Vernacular buildings constructed in the local style, from local materials. Concerned with ordinary rather than monumental buildings.
Veteran tree - a tree which is of great age for its species and is of interest biologically, culturally or aesthetically.
Abbreviations
AONB - Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
BAP - Biodiversity Action Plan
BNFL - British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.
CCA - Countryside Character Area (refers to the broad landscape character areas described on the Countryside Agencys Character Map of England)
DETR - Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA))
EIA - Environmental Impact Assessment
EU - European Union
FRCA - Farming and Rural Conservation Agency
LNR - Local Nature Reserve
MAFF - Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA))
NGO - Non-Governmental Organisations
NNR - National Nature Reserve
PPG - Planning Policy Guidance (national)
RPG - Regional Planning Guidance
RSPB - Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
SMR - Sites and Monuments Record
SSSI - Site of Special Scientific Interest