What happens to land when humans retreat from it?

Floods, fires, drought…  changes in landscape and climate mean people and even whole communities are having to relocate more and more.

These ‘planned retreats’ bring a lot of social and cultural dislocation when people leave somewhere they’ve lived and worked for many generations.

And it raises the question, what does or should happen to the landscape afterwards?

Professor Iain White is part of a team that recently researched planned retreats around the world, looking at just that.

He’s Professor of Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, and joined us on the Thursday Daily.

 

Like to read more?

Article in The Conversation: As more communities have to consider relocation, we explore what happens to the land after people leave

Research paper in Springer Nature: Beyond retreat: Land–seascape legacies of change and continuation