The Landscape Monitoring Switzerland programme (LABES) uses a range of indicators to survey changes in the landscape and their perception by the population. The new results of LABES show that the Swiss landscape continuously loses in quality. Improvements are observed but only in a limited way . Further efforts are required to ensure good landscape quality.

The landscape is in a state of constant change. Ever since humans have engaged in agriculture and used natural resources for commercial and industrial production, their activities have been the main source of impacts on the landscape. In its current form, the landscape is mainly shaped by the rapid economic development of the post-war period.

The Federal Office for the Environment FOEN has been monitoring landscape quality in Switzerland since 2007 through the Landscape Monitoring Switzerland programme, LABES. In doing this it fulfils an obligation defined in the Federal Act on the Protection of Nature and Cultural Heritage NCHA: this requires that the Confederation and cantons keep the authorities and the public informed about the state of nature and the landscape in Switzerland. The FOEN published the first series of LABES indicators in 2010. This was followed three years later by a publication on indicators for the perception of the landscape by the population. The current report, which was compiled in 2017, presents the latest data and links the physical-material aspects of the landscape with their perception by people.