The countryside of Europe is undergoing many social, economic and environmental changes as a result of depopulation and agricultural land abandonment. This trend, driven in part by the wide disparity of income levels between rural and urban inhabitants, is particularly evident in the Central and Eastern European countries such as Latvia, which joined the EU in 2004 and in 2007. Research was undertaken in Latvia in 2003, the year before it joined the EU, to explore this trend, as manifested in the relationship of people to the countryside, using focus groups and a questionnaire survey. The results showed that, although Latvians retain a strong regard for their traditional countryside landscape, numerous socioeconomic barriers exist, especially the lack of services, which are some of the drivers of outmigration from the countryside to towns or to other countries. Unless these drivers are addressed in rural socioeconomic policy the remaining people, many of whom belong to the older generation, are likely to become increasingly marginalised while the countryside will continue to be abandoned and the cultural landscape will deteriorate further.

Concern about changing cultural landscapes has increased recently, with the advent of the European Landscape Convention placing signatory countries in a position of having to develop action for protecting and managing cultural landscapes. In countries of the former Soviet Union the landscape underwent many changes as a result of agricultural collectivisation and its aftermath. This situation has been analysed for six sample rural municipalities (pagasts) in Latvia, one of the three former Soviet countries to join the European Union (EU), using maps from the period 1901 to 1927 (to represent the 'traditional landscape') and 1997 orthophotographs updated to 2000 (to represent the 'post-Soviet landscape'), abandoned agricultural land to 2007 to show the continuing aftermath of the Soviet system and field assessment of their character. It was found that all sampled pagasts had experienced significant landscape change during the Soviet times that replaced the pre-Soviet, traditional character with a new 'ideological landscape'. The implications for the protection and conservation of such landscapes created by a previous foreign occupying power are many, raising questions of what landscapes or elements to conserve under the requirements of the Convention.

Abstract:At the end of the 20 th century, following the collapse of centralised planned economy of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of collective type of agriculture and the restoration of lands to their pre-war owners, Latvia experienced widespread abandonment of agricultural lands and their gradual re-colonisation by woodland. It has been assumed that following the accession by Latvia to the European Union in 2004 and the incorporation of the agricultural system into the Common Agricultural Policy would stop or reverse the process of land abandonment. The conclusion from examining five geographically diverse rural municipalities is that so far the single area payments have had little effect on hilly mosaic type landscape structure, or on the process of land abandonment.Key words: Agricultural land, agri-environment schemes; European Union (EU) single area payment (SAP), landscape structure, land use changes, EU less favoured area payment (LFAP)Abstrakts: EIROPAS SAVIENĪBAS VIENOTO PLATĪBU MAKSĀJUMU UN ATBALSTĀMO REĢIONU MAKSĀJUMU IETEKME UZ LATVIJAS AINAVAS RAKSTU UN STRUKTŪRU. 20. gs beigās ar centralizētās plānošanas sistēmas sabrukumu un kolektīvo saimniecību likvidāciju un zemes privatizāciju, daudzviet Latvijā lauksaimniecības zemes tika atstātas atmatā un tās pakāpeniski aizauga ar krūmiem un kokiem. Domāja, ka Latvijai iestājoties Eiropas Savienībā un ar iesaistīšanos kopējā lauksaimniecības politikā, samazināsies lauksaimniecības zemju pamešana. Minētā procesa apturēšana sevišķi svarīga ir mozaīkveida ainavās paugurainēs, kur atklātās pļavas un ganības ir nozīmīgs kultūrainavas elements un nodrošina tās bioloģisko daudzveidību. Pētījumā Eiropas Savienības atbalsta maksājumu ietekme uz ainavas rakstu un struktūru tika pētīta piecās ģeogrāfiskā un ainavas ziņā atšķirīgās pašvaldībās. Kā indikatori lauksaimniecības politikas ietekmei uz ainavu tika izmantoti vienotie platību maksājumi un atbalstāmo reģionu maksājumi.

The collectivisation of agriculture and the development and application of land improvement “melioration” programmes and technologies, as well as the construction of kolkhoz centres during the Soviet era in Latvia was extensive and has a legacy on the post-Soviet landscape and agricultural economy. A study of a number of rural municipalities in different landscape types, through the comparison of maps from the early 20th century with those from around 2000, and one example with maps from the 1960s and 1990s, together with field work, revealed the degree of change that had taken place. In particular, there was a significant increase in forest – despite the kolkhoz system being targeted at increasing agricultural outputs, a reduction in the number of farmsteads – in some places this was a result of land battles in the Second World war – and a concentration of residences in villages and widespread drainage of marshes, wetlands and wetter forest. Village centres with concentrations of blocks of flats, storage sheds and industrial units were developed. After 1991 and the restitution of land to the original owners or their descendants, large numbers of kolkhoz agricultural buildings, old estate buildings and some residential blocks became redundant and abandoned. Some of the farmland was also abandoned. The sampled areas show different amounts of landscape change and all showed large numbers of ruined buildings scattered around the area. The question of what to do with these, many of which are robbed of anything useful, vandalised and possibly causing pollution remains open, even after 25 or more years.

Visual pollution caused by insufficiently considered usage of outdoor signage in urban areas can negatively influence the visual quality of public outdoor space. Like other urban areas, Riga is exposed to the risk of this type of visual pollution. As Old Riga is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List, it is important to keep it clean from such contamination. So far, no in-depth research on visual pollution in Old Riga has been carried out. Therefore, the aim of our study was to explore and assess the occurrence and impact of outdoor signage in the main shopping streetscapes of Old Riga. The study was based on spatial preference and observation, street colour photomontages, on sociological investigation methods and on analysis of regulatory and planning documents. The studies showed that the existing outdoor signage on the facades of the buildings of Old Riga causes visual pollution, which, in its turn, negatively affects the appearance of historical monuments and buildings and lowers the visual quality of public outdoor space. The development of appropriate design guidelines or a design code containing specifications for outdoor signage, windows, facades and their elements and design would promote the development of aesthetically consistent, expressive and high-quality urban space.