How cultural heritage can support sustainable landscape development: The case of Třeboň Basin, Czech Republic

•We identified eight landscape narratives that co-exist in the Třeboň Basin.•A narrative review methodology exposed multiple cultural heritage (CH) values.•CH values are linked to multiple landscape functions and uses.•CH can support and enrich sustainable landscape development (SLD).•Three interrelated pre-conditions supporting CH for SLD emerge as critical. Sustainable landscape development (SLD) has received much attention worldwide as a concept, linking landscape and sustainability science in spatial planning, landscape design and management. Using the Třeboň Basin in the Czech Republic as a case study – a landscape characterised by an artificial system of 460 fishponds – we explore the relationship between cultural heritage (CH) and SLD and how CH contributes to landscape change for SLD. We applied a narrative review methodology acknowledging ‘diffraction’ as a way of conceptualising how multiple elements and ways of ordering co-exist, e.g. the Třeboň Basin social-ecological system. Using scientific and grey literature we examined eight narratives, spanning from CH/nature conservation, flood retention, recreation to fish/agricultural production. These narratives emerged from tracing the development of this landscape since human settlement. We found that the Třeboň Basin has largely survived as a CH landscape into the 21st century because of the established infrastructure that is linked to multiple functions, uses and values of the fishponds and surrounding landscape. These functions and uses create multiple narratives that co-exist in the Třeboň Basin and are underpinned by CH values contributing to SLD. Our study recognises three pre-conditions to this inclusivity for SLD outcomes: These are: (1) embracing multifunctionality, (2) taking a multi-level collaborative landscape governance approach, and (3) encouraging adaptive landscape planning and management. Meeting these pre-conditions can connect and support the meta goals of SLD through regional and local actions in the Třeboň Basin, and also in other global, complex and contested landscapes.