Ecosystem services are identified in order to demonstrate the specific services and therefore the value of ecosystems. Up until now this concept, followed nationally and internationally since the 1980s, has rarely been used in spatial planning. The research project therefore looks into the question of how the ecosystem services approach can be applied to landscape planning at the regional and local level.
The ecosystem service (ES), as an economic quantifiable analysis of a natural area, demonstrates how much economic benefit is to be derived from the protection and sustainable use of natural resources. In Germany the ES is not yet linked to the legally-based and established landscape planning, which records and assess the functioning and performance of the ecosystem. There are overlaps in terms of content and methods between the ES and landscape planning, e.g. in the analysis of "landscape functions". But there are also differences: particularly in the matter of quantification and monetarisation of the ecosystem services (see ALBERT und VON HAAREN 2012). To date there is almost no practical experience of the feasibility of integrating the ES approach into the national landscape planning, nor whether and if landscape planning would need to be expanded and further developed to accommodate this.
The project's aim is to investigate both the content/method and practical issues of a potential integration of the two approaches and to analyse the potential of landscape planning to be the basis of the ES approach. This raises questions in relation to content and method, for example about the quantitative assessment of the landscape functions, and also in relation to practical application including: an adequate level of knowledge on the part of landscape planners; an actual benefit to the argument in support of landscape planning targets; and an optimisation of the regulatory effect for renewable energies. A key matter to investigate is how well the ES approach can be integrated with the functions and objectives of national landscape planning and, leading on from this, whether new opportunities arise for landscape planning or perhaps new requirements for this.
University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan-Triesdorf
Department of Landscape Architecture
Prof. Dr. Markus Reinke
Tel.: +49 8161 71-3776
markus.reinke(at)hswt.de
Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN)
FG II 4.1 Landscape planning, spatial and settlement planning
Alte Messe 6, 04103 Leipzig
Florian Mayer
Tel.: +49 341 30977 120
Florian.Mayer(at)BfN.de
How can the expansion in renewable energies be designed in harmony with nature? The Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) is providing expert scientific advice on this question to the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (Bundesumweltministerium, BMUB). Research by the BfN always has a practical application and generates scientific results for advising government i.e. supplies a basis for decision-making for the preparation, implementation, monitoring and further development of nature conservation measures and the Federal Government's nature conservation policy.
