Heritage is a complex concept, culturally constructed, and arbitrarily divided into natural and cultural components, though this distinction is often not beneficial for its conservation and management (e.g. World Heritage). The artificiality of this division clearly shows in the concepts of geological and cultural landscape. The geological landscape focuses on the physical aspects of a territory, such as the landforms and natural processes, where the cultural landscape is defined by the variety of cultural elements caused by short- or long-term anthropogenic activities. We observe and admire many landscapes that have been altered by humans – “cultural landscapes” – which in fact represent relationships between physical and anthropogenic components that interacted.

This panel explores the link between geodiversity – in particular landform geodiversity – and geoheritage, geological landscape and cultural landscape. We invite all interested in an open discussion and research exchange on the following themes: a) how to link geological environments, components, phenomena and processes with people, landscape and culture through a multi-disciplinary approach; b) how to value the combination of natural and cultural perceptions of landscapes with respect to implementation of geoheritage at different scales; and c) linkages between geodiversity, geoarcheology, geotourism and geoheritage.