Understanding Landscape Change: From AI and Archives to Oral Histories and Beyond
Friday 12 December 2025
9:00–10:30 am UK time
Online via Zoom
Free for LRG members
Overview
Landscapes are changing at an unprecedented pace. Climate change, urbanisation, depopulation, conflict and displacement, and the actions of more-than-human actors are reshaping environments and adding complexity to how we understand them. Responding to these changes requires deep, nuanced, and cross-disciplinary approaches.
This year’s Research Showcase brings together four scholars whose work spans digital heritage, spatial technologies, oral histories, legal geography, and decolonial approaches. The session will explore how emerging and established methods can help us interpret landscape change, uncover patterns, and broaden understandings across diverse contexts.
Hosts
Landscape Research Group Trustee and Associate Editor
Lecturer in Urban Design and Planning Department
Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
Sarah M Lawton
Director of Communications and Membership
Landscape Research Group
Speakers
Joy Burgess
Lecturer in Landscape Studies, University of Liverpool, UK
History of women and professionalisation in landscape architecture; oral histories and archival research
Presentation title: Recovering Lost Voices: Oral Histories in the Making and Remaking of Landscapes
Joy Burgess is a Lecturer in Landscape Studies at the University of Liverpool. Her work focuses on the history of women and the professionalisation of landscape architecture, drawing on oral histories, archival collections and feminist methodologies. Her research highlights overlooked contributors to the field and examines how professional identity, memory and landscape practice intersect.
Dr Aicha Chahbi
AGEOS, Tunisia
Geospatial analysis, participatory mapping and applied landscape assessment
Presentation title: Machine Learning Driven Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing for Landscape Change Detection: Automated Early Classification of Cereal Covers in Central Tunisia
Dr Aïcha Chahbi Bellakanji specialises in advanced remote sensing, GIS and machine learning applied to agricultural and environmental challenges. Her research focuses on early and automated mapping of land use and crop dynamics, particularly in cereal systems, to assess rapid landscape change and climate-related risks such as drought and heatwaves. She is experienced in integrating multi-source spatial data to support planning, risk assessment and evidence-based land management.
Dr Yang Chen
Associate Professor and Deputy Director of Academic Affairs, Tongji University, China
Digital heritage landscapes, spatial pattern recognition technologies, AI and World Heritage interpretation
Presentation title: Digital Perception and Innovative Conservation of Heritage Landscapes: Theory, Technology, and People
Dr Yang Chen is Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Tongji University. His research centres on the conservation and planning of cultural landscape heritage, with particular expertise in digital and intelligent conservation technologies. He has led national-level research projects, contributed to digital conservation planning for World Heritage sites and major cultural landscapes, and published widely on digital heritage interpretation. He is an expert member of several ICOMOS scientific committees and an editorial board member for the Journal of Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development.
Dr Sonya Cotton
ERC project PROPERTY[IN]JUSTICE, South Africa
Legal geography and anthropology, TWAIL, decolonisation, and legal personhood
Presentation title: Landscape needs international law. International law needs landscape. Reflections on law’s (mis)recognition of communities.
Dr Sonya Cotton is a socio-legal researcher whose work examines how international law frames land, personhood and collective identity. Her doctoral research explored how legal concepts of property and placelessness shape spatial injustice in post-apartheid southern Africa. She now works on the ERC “Centring Care in International Law” project at Dublin City University, using feminist care ethics to rethink international law’s role in enabling pluralistic, place-based forms of collective life.
Each speaker will present for 10–15 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion.
How to join
Please register for a ticket below and we will send a zoom invitation out prior to the event.