Landscape and sustainability in golf courses in the Algarve region, Portugal 1 . ANDRÉ BOTEQUILHA-LEITÃO 1,2 , CARLA ANTUNES 1 and ANA SILVA 3 1 Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, UAlg 2 CVRM – Geosystems Center, IST, Technical University of Lisbon – research pole at UAlg; 3 University of Algarve (UAlg), Campus of Gambelas, 8005-139 FARO PORTUGAL aleitao@ualg.pt; http://sites.google.com/site/abotequilhaleitao/ Abstract The main goal of the present study is to contribute for the improvement of landscape sustainability of the golf activity, focusing on the Algarve region, Portugal. Although the economical dimension of sustainability is arguably assured its landscape, ecological and territorial dimensions are not entirely. In Portugal, and particularly in the Algarve, tourism plays a key role for its economy. Golf is one of the touristic activities by excellence in the region of Algarve. Golf players have increasing demands on the quality of their experience, including environmental and landscape dimensions. This study provides a brief theoretical introduction focusing on the role of golf courses in landscape sustainability from both a landscape ecological and cultural viewpoints. A practical application study was developed approaching from a broad perspective the 39 golf courses existent in the Algarve. From these a sample of 13 courses was selected based on several criteria, in order to estimate their performance focusing on its biophysical, ecological, cultural and scenic components, both within the courses and its relationships with the surrounding landscape. The courses were also selected according to the construction date (1966-2009) in order to assess if its performance would improve with different designs throughout these past 43 years. Finally it was also surveyed which courses have implemented an environmental management program. The main issue identified occurs in the biophysical/ecological dimension. Golf course’s performance show that some criteria did not change across time, but others evolved positively. As far as the application of environmental management programs, there is no apparent distinction between golf courses that have this kind of system and those who don’t. This study allowed providing a set of recommendations and contributions for the improvement of golf courses, namely its landscape ecological and cultural sustainability. Key-words: golf course; sustainability; landscape evaluation; landscape integration; landscape ecology; land use; scenic value; Algarve region. 1 Published in the Proceedings of the 5th WSEAS International Conference on Landscape Architecture (LA’12). May 2-4. Red Amphitheatre, Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve, Gambelas, Faro, Portugal.