Introduction -- I. Principles and theoretical and methodological basis of landscape-ecological planning -- 1. Change or preservation of landscape structure? -- 2. Ecologisation of landscape management -- 3. Institutional instruments for integrated landscape management in Slovakia -- 4. Landscape as a geosystem -- II. Landscape-ecological planning LANDEP - a tool for the ecologisation of spatial planning processes -- 5. Ecologically optimal spatial organisation, utilisation and protection of the landscape -- 6. The LANDEP methodology -- 7. Conclusion: status, problems and application of the results of LANDEP.This book provides a comprehensive description of the landscape-ecological planning system LANDEP, and introduces the methodical procedure. LANDEP was developed at the Institute of Landscape Ecology of Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and has been applied in various planning processes at home and abroad. Despite the fact that the LANDEP methodology was defined in 1979, the methodological content, sequence of procedures and the application of concept in practice are still valid. The first two steps – analyses and syntheses – have the nature of fundamental research and result in the design and characteristics of complex landscape-ecological-spatial units. The final two steps – evaluations and proposals – address the needs of planning practice. The intermediate step – interpretations – has the character of applied research and forms the arguments and criteria for the assessment of landscape for its utilisation by humans.