Landscape Observatories and participation in landscape planning processes. An experimental method to include community evaluation

People’s involvement in landscape planning processes is no longer just an option, but methods have to be developed and tested so that expert and non-expert views may come together towards a definition of landscape backed by the wider participation of citizens as required by the ELC. Landscape Observatories supported by university research, developing as partly “informal” institutions, can “fill the gap” between expert and non-expert views, in the perspective of a more widely shared landscape vision and planning/ management tools.