influenced by the work of Ian McHarg on Environmental impact assessment. In Germany, the Federal Nature Conservation Act requires the preparation of landscape plans. For the Europe Union as a whole, the European Landscape Convention has wide-ranging implications for the design and planning of relationships between development and the landscape. In Asia, major development projects are taking place and illustrating the need for good landscape planning. The Three Gorges Dam, for example, will have extensive impacts on the landscape. They have been planned to a degree but future monitoring of the project is likely to show that better landscape planning and design would have been possible. Methodology The conventional planning process is a linear progression of activities. The common steps are: Identification of problems and opportunities. Establishment of goals. Inventory and analysis of the biophysical environment. Human community inventory and analysis. Development of concepts and the selection of options. Adoption of a plan. Community involvement and education. Detailed design. Plan implementation. Plan administration. Landscape planning not always means an ecological planning method, for that it must be considered that "planning is a process that uses the scientific and technical information for considering and reaching consensus on a range of choices. Ecology is the study of the relationship of all living things, including people, to their biological and physical environments. Ecological planning then may be defined as the use of biophysical and sociocultural information to suggest opportunities and constraints for decision making about the use of landscape". (Steiner, 1991) While the common steps are listed above, the process of Landscape planning is adaptable to many situations and is useful in many ways depending on the goals for which it is used. Impacts & Implications Results of proper implementations of landscape planning practices are not only limited to more functional landscapes. It can also influence for the better many aspects of the environment and community in which it is used to its potential. While the chief purpose of landscape planning is for ecological reasons it can impact so much more when used effectively as a tool. Ecology Landscape planning is mainly used for ecological purposes and functions best when the result of the planning process is the least amount of interruption of ecological factors from before the implementation ever went into place. In this practice landscape planning can be used to not only maintain the status of the existing environment, but also