Recent landscape changes, increasingly shaped by human impacts, represent a snapshot in the Quaternary history of our planet – a crucial bridge between the past and the future. Initially driven by climate change, today’s environment is heavily influenced by anthropogenic pressures. Innovative stratigraphic tools for data and proxies, improved stratigraphic correlation methods, advanced methods for modelling landscape changes are essential tools for addressing the complexities of future human–environment interactions. Now more than ever, knowledge of the past is vital to developing effective strategies to address emerging environmental challenges and to raise awareness of the hazards and associated risks with our relationship with the natural world. Understanding environmental dynamics at temporal and spatial scales provides key insights for sustainable resource management and future environmental challenges and planning.