This dissertation examines three landscape changes during the British Mandate for Palestine (1917-1948), showing how environmental practices influenced the power relations between the British Mandatory government, the Zionist movement, and the Arab Palestinian population. The study demonstrates the importance of environmental history lenses to understand colonial areas of conflict, and adds to a new dimension of the study of Mandatory Palestine. It concludes that human-made landscape changes influenced human relationships in Palestine by manifesting and transferring power and revealing underlying cultural convictions and political goals. Landscape changes impacted human power relations as they helped Zionist and British actors make knowledge claims, take over land, and develop the land according to European colonial ideals. These arguments are developed based on three case studies, highlighting unique but overlapping dynamics. The first case study on land reclamation techniques examines British colonial thought about arid landscapes and the resulting policies. The second case study on the mineral extraction at the Dead Sea shows this industry’s impact on the landscape, local ways of life, and Zionist-British relations. The last case study on Hebrew University’s botanical garden explores the political importance of botany in the process of nation building. The study is based on archival research. The main archives consulted are located in Israel (Central Zionist Archives, National Library, and Hebrew University Archives, Jerusalem) and England (National Archives, London; Weston Library, Oxford).