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Ager : Latin word for the agrarian trilogy designating farming, cropland.

Agrarian trilogy : Archetypal organization of the European countryside: "Regularly cultivated space (ager), space for pasturing (saltus) with its moors, prairies and clearings, etc., and finally the forest space (silva)" (Berque). The heart of this is occupied by the building (domus) and gardens (hortus), to yield the classic sequence, domus – hortus – ager – saltus – silva, in which the principal registers of the landscape motivation are represented.

Artialization : "An artistic process that transforms and beautifies nature, either directly (in situ) or indirectly (in visu), using models" (Roger). Artialization is the process by which land is transformed into landscape. This takes place mainly through means of graphic representations, that is, artialization "in visu", and concrete transformation programmes, that is, artialization "in situ". Syn. of Aestheticization.

Biocenosis : Totality of living entities populating a given ecosystem. The term plant associations is used for plants, animal association or zoocenosis for animals, and insect association or entomocenosis for insects (Fischesser).

Biotope : Territory occupied by a biocenosis. The set of relatively constant physical, chemical and climatic factors that constitute the environment of a biocenosis. It is the non-living component of an ecosystem that contains sufficient resources to ensure the growth and maintenance of life (Fischesser).

Combat zone : Uppermost band of forest growth in the mountains, where scrub trees wage a desperate battle for survival. In the Northern Alps, this is situated between about 2,000 and 2,200 meters.

Continuities : Forms that sequences of natural and spatial motifs take in space and time. These sequences form, inter alia, open agricultural continuities, in comparison with which natural motifs form existing or potential closed natural continuities.

Coteau : Slope of a plateau or other relief of moderate height, such as a range of hills, often forming the side of a valley. This term will be restricted here to reliefs on hills as distinguished from mountain slopes, adrets or ubacs, in valleys that are higher than 900 meters. This is a strong eco-symbolic landscape motif, both for its value as a natural continuity and for its symbolism.

Creative conservation : "Production of a territory by means of a landscape programme" (Donadieu). "The conservation of concrete elements in a landscape for historic, ecological, economic, symbolic or aesthetic reasons, and the creation of innovative forms corresponding to the new and old functions and uses of the land" (Donadieu).

Domus : Latin word designating the building, the home.

Dupont amendment : Name given to Article L 111 1-4 of the French Code of Urbanism, stipulating that nothing is to be built on a strip 75 to 100 m wide along major roadways, in accordance with their official road status.

Garden belt : Traditional zone of transition between the city and the open agricultural continuities of the countryside, today frequently neglected or invaded by urban sprawl into the countryside.

Hortus : Latin word in the agrarian trilogy designating gardens.

Land : "A land is not from the outset a landscape ... turning one into the other involves a process of art" (Roger). See "Artialization".

Landscape contextualization : Integration of a current or projected landscape motif in a way that is continuous with its context as defined by the local landscape framework. Synonym: Landscape integration.

Landscape framework : The set of motifs whose sequence forms the stable structure of a landscape.

Landscape heritage scheme : Scheme on which the landscapes inherited by our culture are composed. This is expressed in the typical sequence: silva – saltus – ager – hortus – domus – hortus – ager – saltus – silva, in which the core building, the domus, is surrounded by a first ring of fruit and vegetable gardens and orchards, the hortus, and the three others in the agrarian trilogy, the cropland (ager), pastureland (saltus) and forest (silva). Variations on this scheme take place through the amplification, disappearance or permutation of one or another motif, to give rise to different landscape models.

Motif : Landscape element arousing an emotion by its ecosymbolic value. In French, and for our purposes here, the term "motif" includes the meanings of both artistic pattern and of motivation, or reason to act. More specific to landscape than the terms landscape element or component. See Landscape motivation.

Natural framework : The whole of the natural continuities in a landscape or set of landscapes, for instance, a river basin.

Natural motif : Motif associated with the natural environment. It is one of the three registers of relief, water and spontaneous vegetation. It can remain untouched or be transformed by human intervention and lose its initial nature to take on a second nature, as in the case of forests, the bed of an embanked river, a reclaimed swampland, etc.

Periurban agriculture : Sometimes also called urban agriculture, this terms designates the various forms of agriculture envisageable around modern metropolises which replace the garden belt that once separated cities from the countryside. It includes family gardens, allotments, model farms, riding clubs, etc.

Periurbanization : Urbanization or urban integration of the countryside into a radius that can reach 30 to 40 km around established urban areas. See Suburbanization and Rurbanization.

Riverain : Stand of trees running along a waterway.

Rurbanization : One type of periurbanization, involving the urbanization of rural towns beyond suburban limits. This involves daily commutes by people who have kept their jobs in the cities.

Saltus : Latin word from the agrarian trilogy designating pastureland, as distinct from cropland (ager) and forests (silva). This distinction is neither absolute nor permanent, as cropland has historically been open to common pasturing and the forest to the traditional right of glandée, the use of communal woodland.

Sequences : Necessary and expected relationships between the structural motifs of a landscape: the stream "calls forth" the bank, the bank the riverain, the riverain the prairie, the prairie the wooded hillock, etc.

Silva : Latin word in the agrarian trilogy designating forests.

Spatial motif : Motif due to human development. This involves one of the three registers of building, land use and road and utility networks. These motifs are sometimes compared with transplants that are conducted with greater or less success onto the natural environment, which is hence given a second nature, characteristic of any culture.

Suburbanization : One type of periurburnization, involving dense urbanization where suburbs are extended in a continuous unbroken fashion.