In this study, the word ecology is used to refer to the relationships of living things with one another and with their environments. The word landscape refers to those ecological relationships that occur between people and their environment. The phrase natural landscape refers to ecologies independent of human interference or influence. The term cultural landscape refers here to the combination of cultural and natural factors that forms unique ecologies of people and place. This definition acknowledges the role that culture plays in linking human and natural worlds.

Cultural landscapes can be as large as river valleys and as small as farmsteads. But whether situated in a single locale or spread over a wide areas, each reflects unique relationships between natural conditions and cultural activities. Cultural landscapes are transformed over time, with only fragments of earlier cultural landscapes surviving in later periods. These fragments become components of later ecologies, whether as relics or reusable resources. Well preserved fragments of cultural landscapes of the past - usually linked with significant people or events - may gain importance far beyond their specific cultural landscape.

Natural resources, too, survive as remnants of past cultural landscapes. This study employs the terms geology, water, climate, plants, and animals to describe these natural resources. Geology includes rocks, minerals, and soils. Water includes both salt and fresh waters. Climate includes the atmosphere and weather. Plants includes water and land plants and relatives such as fungi and microscopic phytoplankton. And finally, animals includes microscopic zooplankton; larger invertebrates, such as worms, shellfish, mollusks, and crustaceans; insects, fishes; reptiles and amphibians; birds; and mammals.