Hubert Wiggering

Multifunctional land use: meeting future demands for landscape goods and services

Cultural landscapes are multifunctional through their simultaneous support of habitat, productivity, regulatory, social, and economic functions (de Groot 1987; Bastian and Schreiber 1999). Heterogeneity is a basic characteristic of landscape, and this heterogeneity implies the capacity of landscape to support various, sometimes contradictory functions simultaneously. Many elements in cultural landscapes have a multifunctional character, and this has been thoroughly studied. For instance, hedgerows (Burel 1996), forests (Pandey 2002), wetlands and their ecotones (Kruk 2003), riparian buffer zones (Mander et al. 2005) and various grassland ecosystems (Gibon 2005), which control various energy and material fluxes in the landscape, protect biodiversity and provide recreational opportunities for people, are classical examples of multifunctional landscape elements. Land use is the key activity which determines the performance of landscapes with respect to socio-economic functions such as land based production, infrastructure and housing. The degree of integration between these socio-economic functions and environmental functions including natural resources protection depends on the patterns and intensities of land use (Wiggering et al. 2003).

Indicating ecosystem integrity — theoretical concepts and environmental requirements

This paper discusses some conceptual fundamentals for the derivation of environmental indicator sets. On the one hand, it defines requirements from environmental politics, environmental management and legislation, reaching from political target hierarchies and sustainable management strategies to holistic protection concepts such as process protection, resource preservation, ecosystem health and ecological integrity. On the other hand, demands from ecosystem theory are described which include the consideration of features such as self-organization, emergence, thermodynamics, gradients and ecological orientors in environmental indicator sets. From that concept, collective and emergent properties are selected and eight holistic ecosystem features are presented that indicate the ecosystemic state as an ensemble. These general indicators of ecosystem integrity are supplemented by variables on structural changes and substance dynamics.

Ex ante impact assessment of policies affecting land use, Part B: application of the analytical framework

The use of science-based tools for impact assessment has increasingly gained focus in addressing the complexity of interactions between environment, society, and economy. For integrated assessment of policies affecting land use, an analytical framework was developed. The aim of our work was to apply the analytical framework for specific scenario cases and in combination with quantitative and qualitative application methods. The analytical framework was tested for two cases involving the ex ante impact assessment of: (1) a European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) financial reform scenario employing a modeling approach and combined with a comprehensive indicator analysis and valuation; and (2) a regional bioenergy policy scenario, employing a fully participatory approach. The results showed that European land use in general is less sensitive to changes in the Common Agricultural Policy, but in the context of regions there can be significant impacts on the functions of land use. In general, the implementation of the analytical framework for impact assessment proved to be doable with both methods, i.e., with the quantitative modeling and with the qualitative participatory approach. A key advantage of using the system of linked quantitative models is that it makes possible the simultaneous consideration of all relevant sectors of the economy without abstaining from a great level of detail for sectors of particular interest. Other advantages lie in the incontestable character of the results. Based on neutral, existing data with a fixed set of settings and regions, an absolute comparability and reproducibility throughout Europe can be maintained. Analyzing the pros and cons of both approaches showed that they could be used complementarily rather than be seen as competing alternatives.

Sustainable development of multifunctional landscapes

Multifunctional landscapes and sustainable development.- The concept of multifunctionality in sustainable land development.- Sustainable development of European landscapes as a multidimensional environmental and societal issue.- Multifunctionality of landscapes and ecosystem services with respect to rural development.- Some aspects of multifunctional landscape character in the interdisciplinary environmental study.- Indicators of agricultural sustainability - the moral of a story.- The unconscious driving forces of landscape perception and formation.- Landscape characterisation and assessment.- A European landscape stratification reflecting drainage density.- Integration of spatio-temporal landscape analysis in model approaches.- Integrated land use zonation system in Hungary as a territorial base for agri-environmental programs.- The structure of landscapes in Poland as a function of agricultural land quality.- Pressure, state and response indicators in landscape assessment: An attempt on nitrogen fluxes.- Analyzing spatial habitat distribution to improve the assessment of land use impacts on habitat functions.- Sustainable land management and development.- Landscape functions in relation to agricultural management in Norway.- A review of sustainable landscape management in the UK.- Land management in Poland in a period of transformation.- Studies on agricultural landscape management in the Western Poland plain.- Managing interactions between agriculture, nature and economy.- Sustainable management of wood and timber fluxes in the region Ostprignitz-Ruppin, Germany.- Resume.- Landscape Tomorrow: a research network for sustainable development of multifunctional landscapes.- List of authors.- Key word index.

Assessing the productivity function of soils. A review

The development and survival or disappearance of civilizations has been based on the performance of soils to provide food, fibre, and further essential goods for humans. Amongst soil functions, the capacity to produce plant biomass (productivity function) remains essential. This function is closely associated with the main global issues of the 21st century like food security, demands of energy and water, carbon balance and climate change. A standardised methodology for assessing the productivity function of the global soil resource consistently over different spatial scales will be demanded by a growing international community of land users and stakeholders for achieving high soil productivity in the context of sustainable multifunctional use of soils. We analysed available methods for assessing the soil productivity function. The aim was to find potentials, deficiencies and gaps in knowledge of current approaches towards a global reference framework. Our main findings were (i) that the soil moisture and thermal regime, which are climate-influenced, are the main constraints to the soil productivity potential on a global scale, and (ii) that most taxonomic soil classification systems including the World Reference Basis for Soil Resources provide little information on soil functionality in particular the productivity function. We found (iii) a multitude of approaches developed at the national and local scale in the last century for assessing mainly specific aspects of potential soil and land productivity. Their soil data inputs differ, evaluation ratings are not transferable and thus not applicable in international and global studies. At an international level or global scale, methods like agro-ecological zoning or ecosystem and crop modelling provide assessments of land productivity but contain little soil information. Those methods are not intended for field scale application to detect main soil constraints and thereby to derive soil management and conservation recommendations in situ. We found also, that (iv) soil structure is a crucial criterion of agricultural soil quality and methods of visual soil assessment like the Peerlkamp scheme, the French method “Le profil cultural” and the New Zealand Visual Soil Assessment are powerful tools for recognising dynamic agricultural soil quality and controlling soil management processes at field scale. We concluded that these approaches have potential to be integrated into an internationally applicable assessment framework of the soil’s productivity function, working from field scale to the global level. This framework needs to serve as a reference base for ranking soil productivity potentials on a global scale and as an operational tool for controlling further soil degradation and desertification. Methods like the multi-indicator-based Muencheberg Soil Quality Rating meet most criteria of such a framework. This method has potential to act as a global overall assessment method of the soil productivity function for cropping land and pastoral grassland but needs further evolution by testing and amending its indicator thresholds.

Ex Ante Impact Assessment of Policies Affecting Land Use, Part A: Analytical Framework

Contemporary policy making calls for scientific support to anticipate the possible consequences of optional policy decisions on sustainable development. This paper presents an analytical framework for ex ante assessment of economic, social, and environmental impacts of policy driven land use changes that can be used as an aid to policy making. The tasks were to (1) link policy scenarios with land use change simulations, (2) link land use change simulations with environmental, social, and economic impacts through indicators, and (3) valuate the impacts in the context of sustainable development. The outcome was a basis for dialogue at the science-policy interface in the process of developing new policies on the European level that impact on land and land use. The analytical approach provides a logical thread for ex ante impact assessment within the context of sustainable development, land use multifunctionality, and land use change and it provides a thorough discussion of achievements and open challenges related to the framework. It concludes with considerations on the potential for using evidence based ex ante assessments in the process of policy development. The paper is complemented by a B-paper providing exemplary results from two applications of the framework: a financial reform scenario of the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union, and a bioenergy policy scenario for the case of Poland (Helming et al. 2011).

The Concept of Multifunctionality in Sustainable Land Development

The identification of sustainable pathways for proper land use development will play a crucial role in future management of rural landscapes. While in the past, agriculture and forestry have been the predominant types of land use in most arable areas, an increasing number of further demands on land use and landscape functions have to be integrated today. One important step towards sustainable land use is therefore the identification of the multiple environmental, social and economic functions of land use and the subsequent analysis of how well specific landscapes perform with regard to those functions.

Ex ante impact assessment of land use changes in European regions: the SENSOR approach

Land use includes those human activities that exhibit a spatial dimension and that change the bio-geophysical conditions of land. Land use policy making at European level aims at fostering sustainability pathways of natural resource use and rural development through the decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation while supporting social cohesion in rural areas. Targeted policy making requires tools for the ex ante assessment of impacts of policy driven land use changes on sustainable development opportunities in European regions. These tools have to cover all relevant land use sectors and impact issues including their interrelations. They have to be spatially explicit, allow scenario analysis of possible future developments, be based on reproducible analyses, and be transparent and easy to use. The European Commission funded Integrated Project SENSOR is dedicated to develop such ex-ante Sustainability Impact Assessment Tools (SIAT) for land use in European regions. SIAT is designed as a meta modelling toolkit, in which global economic trend and policy scenarios are translated into land use changes at 1km2 grid resolution for the area of Europe. Based on qualitative and quantitative indicator analyses, impacts of simulated land use changes on social, environmental and economic sustainability issues are assessed at regional (NUTS2/3) scale. Valuation of these impacts is based on the concept of multifunctionality of land use. It is conducted through expert and stakeholder valuations leading to the determination of sustainability choice spaces for European regions. This paper presents the analytical approach in SENSOR and describes the impact assessment framework.

Regional impact assessment of land use scenarios in developing countries using the FoPIA approach: Findings from five case studies

The impact of land use changes on sustainable development is of increasing interest in many regions of the world. This study aimed to test the transferability of the Framework for Participatory Impact Assessment (FoPIA), which was originally developed in the European context, to developing countries, in which lack of data often prevents the use of data-driven impact assessment methods. The core aspect of FoPIA is the stakeholder-based assessment of alternative land use scenarios. Scenario impacts on regional sustainability are assessed by using a set of nine regional land use functions (LUFs), which equally cover the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The cases analysed in this study include (1) the alternative spatial planning policies around the Merapi volcano and surrounding areas of Yogyakarta City, Indonesia; (2) the large-scale afforestation of agricultural areas to reduce soil erosion in Guyuan, China; (3) the expansion of soil and water conservation measures in the Oum Zessar watershed, Tunisia; (4) the agricultural intensification and the potential for organic agriculture in Bijapur, India; and (5) the land degradation and land conflicts resulting from land division and privatisation in Narok, Kenya. All five regions are characterised by population growth, partially combined with considerable economic development, environmental degradation problems and social conflicts. Implications of the regional scenario impacts as well as methodological aspects are discussed. Overall, FoPIA proved to be a useful tool for diagnosing regional human-environment interactions and for supporting the communication and social learning process among different stakeholder groups.

Assessing land use change impacts – a comparison of the SENSOR land use function approach with other frameworks

Land use changes play a key role in sustainable, rural development. In decision-making for land use, sustainability impact assessment is therefore essential and must provide condensed key information about impact pathway relationships based on complex scientific analysis. For this purpose a number of science-based valuation frameworks exist, including ecosystem services as applied in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, landscape functions identified through landscape ecology and land use functions, a multifunctionality-based approach developed in the EU Integrated Project SENSOR (Sustainability Impact Assessment: Tools for environmental, social and economic effects of multifunctional land use in European regions). In this article, the three approaches are comparatively reviewed for their suitability for sustainability impact assessment of land use changes, using the following criteria: premises and perspectives, application in the science–policy interface, spatial and temporal references, consideration of the three sustainability dimensions and the role of land use. Core findings are that ecosystem services were biased towards the environmental dimension of sustainability and best suited for long-term projections. Landscape functions were aligned with the above sustainability concept and met prospective planning purposes. Land use functions were a pragmatic way for stakeholder-driven sustainability assessment of land use changes.