Landscape Planning with Ecosystem Services

Human well-being depends in many ways on maintaining the stock of natural resources which deliver the services from which humans benefit. However, these resources and flows of services are increasingly threatened by unsustainable and competing land uses. Particular threats exist to those public goods whose values are not well-represented in markets or whose deterioration will only affect future generations. As market forces alone are not sufficient, effective means for local and regional planning are needed in order to safeguard scarce natural resources, coordinate land uses and create sustainable landscape structures. This book argues that a solution to such challenges in Europe can be found by merging the landscape planning tradition with ecosystem services concepts. Landscape planning has strengths in recognition of public benefits and implementation mechanisms, while the ecosystem services approach makes the connection between the status of natural assets and human well-being more explicit. It can also provide an economic perspective, focused on individual preferences and benefits, which helps validate the acceptability of environmental planning goals. Thus linking landscape planning and ecosystem services provides a two-way benefit, creating a usable science to meet the needs of local and regional decision making.

The book is structured around the Drivers-Pressures-State- Impact-Responses framework, providing an introduction to relevant concepts, methodologies and techniques. It presents a new, ecosystem services-informed, approach to landscape planning that constitutes both a framework and toolbox for students and practitioners to address the environmental and landscape challenges of 21st century Europe.

Autorentext

Christina von Haaren is Professor of Landscape Planning and Nature Conservation at the Institute of Environmental Planning at Leibniz Universität Hannover. She has been working for decades on landscape planning theories and methods and is especially interested in the implementation of sustainable agriculture and renewable energies Christian Albert is Junior Professor of Landscape Planning and Ecosystem Services at the Institute of Environmental Planning at Leibniz Universität Hannover. He has expertise in the theories and methods of landscape planning, ecosystem services, and sustainability science Andrew Lovett is Professor of Geography in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. He is a specialist in Geographical Information Systems, with interests in catchment management, energy system transitions and natural capital

Inhalt

1. Landscape planning and ecosystem services: the sum is more than the parts
2. Objectives and structure of the book
3. Theories and methodology for ecosystem services assessment in landscape planning
4. The basis of evaluation: legal, economic and social factors
5. Data sources for assessments
6. Using GIS in landscape planning
7. Ecosystem services under pressure
8. European Union policies and standards as drivers for ecosystem service provision and impairment
9. Assessing pressures in landscape planning
10. Production capacity and actual provision of food, materials and energy
11. Cooper, Hiscock: Catchment water resources
12. Renewable energy production capacities and goods
    13.Regional climate regulation capacities
13. Greenhouse gas storage and sequestration function
14. Landscape aesthetic capacities as a cultural ecosystem service
15. The natural support system of ecosystems
16. Identification and evaluation of habitat development potentials
17. Habitat capacity
18. Evaluation of multifunctionality and aggregated benefits
19. Economic valuation of services
20. Developing landscape planning objectives and measures
21. Measures for protecting soil-related ecosystem services
22. Mitigation measures for water pollution and flooding
23. Measures for landscape aesthetics and recreational quality
24. Measures for biodiversity
25. Methods for increasing spatial and cost effectiveness of measures through multifunctionality
26. Leitbilder and scenarios in landscape planning
27. Techniques for participatory approaches
28. Design in landscape planning solutions
29. Perspectives from outside the EU: Influence of legal and planning frameworks on landscape planning
30. Synthesis and prospects for landscape planning