Faced with high population density, close proximity of urban areas and urban-rural linkages, rural areas in the Netherlands have witnessed a gradual disappearance of characteristically rural landscapes and a deterioration of biodiversity. Future developments will increase pressures on rural land use, making a policy framework to address these challenges only more pertinent.

This comprehensive review of rural policy in the Netherlands examines the character of rural areas in the Netherlands and how they have evolved.  It then examines rural policies and their decentralisation, rural land use planning, and landscape and nature policies. The final chapters discusses how to  strengthen rural policies in the Netherlands.  The book includes a series of recommendations.