Governance Instruments for Landscape Policy Under the European Landscape Convention: A PRISMA Systematic Review of Spain and Italy (2020–2025)

This systematic review aims to characterize recent research on implementing the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in Spain and Italy, and synthesize governance instruments for incorporating landscape into spatial planning. Following PRISMA 2020 reporting guidelines, it examines peer-reviewed literature published in 2020–2025 using multilingual searches, explicit ELC-engagement criteria, Quality Assessment with Diverse Studies (QuADS) appraisal of reporting completeness, full-text thematic synthesis, and exploratory keyword co-occurrence analysis. The 24 included studies were organized into four non-exclusive research lines and five instrument families: legal and public-policy instruments; institutional arrangements and observatories; planning instruments; participatory instruments; and knowledge and technology tools. Planning (18/24 studies) and knowledge-related instruments (17/24) were the most represented categories. The methodological contribution lies in study-level traceability linking thematic research lines, instrument families, and reported evidence, distinguishing identification and reported application from demonstrated effects. Case studies document tensions in municipal uptake and administrative coordination. The small, eligibility-bounded corpus limits generalization and does not support a comprehensive assessment of national implementation or instrument effectiveness. The review forms part of a broader research agenda on landscape governance instruments for Colombian territorial planning. The review excluded Latin American records under the ELC-engagement criterion, precluding conclusions about practices in that region. The synthesis serves as a starting point for future research into the integration of landscape into spatial planning, particularly in the Colombian Caribbean, drawing on the European Landscape Convention as one of several possible points of reference.