Aims and scope
The Journal of Terraced Landscapes is the peer-reviewed research journal of the International Terraced Landscapes Alliance (ITLA). It publishes original research on terraced landscapes as places where people have shaped steep land into farmland, and on the knowledge, institutions and ways of life that keep them in use. Terraces are studied here as working systems, cultural heritage and living environments at the same time, and the journal welcomes work that connects these views.
Scope
Contributions so far have ranged from inventories of terraces in Peru, Galicia, Gran Canaria and Switzerland to studies of women's work on terraced islands and of local names for terrace parts in the Andes. Typical subjects include:
- Inventory and mapping: where terraces are, how many, in what condition; cartography, aerial photographs, remote sensing and GIS-based modelling.
- Agriculture and land management: crops, water and soil on terraces, steep-slope viticulture, land consolidation, abandonment and revival, policies and payments that support farming on terraces.
- Knowledge and culture: traditional and local knowledge, nomenclature, oral history, intercultural perspectives, the experience of women and of communities who build and keep terraces.
- Heritage and landscape: terraced landscapes as cultural and natural heritage, their protection, interpretation and place in regional and national planning.
- Architecture and design: dry-stone construction, rural design and the lessons terracing offers to architecture and landscape architecture.
- Change and resilience: climate, erosion, depopulation, tourism and new rural-urban relations, and how communities respond to them.
Studies from any region are welcome. Published work covers the Andes, the Canary Islands, the Iberian Peninsula, Madeira, Cyprus, the Alps, Central Europe and East Asia, and the journal is keen to extend this to regions that are less studied.
What we publish
- Research articles of about 5,000 words that set out a clear research problem, in the IMRAD structure (Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions).
- Short articles on a focused question, a regional situation or a method.
- Editorials that introduce each thematic issue.
Many issues follow a theme announced in a call for papers, for example inventories of terraced landscapes (1/1), women in terraced agriculture (1/2) and the transformation of terraced landscapes (2/1). Articles outside the current theme are also considered.
Approach
The journal is interdisciplinary: geography, agronomy, anthropology, archaeology, history, ecology, architecture and planning all have a place. It values research done together with the people who live on terraces, and writing that a farmer, a planner or a student from another field can follow. All research articles go through double-blind peer review by at least two reviewers (see the ethical principles).
Readers
Researchers, students, landscape and heritage professionals, planners, policy makers and members of the ITLA networks. Reports from projects and festivals appear in the International Terraced Landscapes Alliance Journal, artistic work in The Art of Terraced Landscapes.
