Kirsten Bomans

Pasture For Horses: An Underestimated Land Use Class In An Urbanized And Multifunctional Area

This paper investigates the spatial importance of horses in a multifunctional and urbanized area. The growing spatial importance of horses in the open space was already mentioned by different authors, but never quantified before. In many countries, including Belgium, statistics on horses are only partly covered by agricultural data. As a consequence, the amount of space in use for horses, especially hobby horses, is largely unknown but may encompass a significant area of the open space. Especially within the context of an increasing urbanization and growing demands on the remaining rural area, this evolution must not be neglected. A reliable quantification of the space used by horses is therefore essential and is given in this research for the case study Flanders. According to the results of fieldwork, about one third of the pasture land in Flanders is used to keep horses. A qualitative analysis showed a higher horse density within the more urbanized areas with a fragmented agricultural area and a quantitative analysis showed negative associations between the presence of horses and (i) the distance to gardens, (ii) the parcel area and (iii) the distance to forest. Moreover an internet survey assessed evolutions and motivations of horse owners to keep horses. The survey resulted in clear data on the fact that the number of horses is increasing. This is mainly motivated by recreational purposes. The majority of horsekeepers do not consider themselves to be part of the agricultural sector. These results, showing an intensified competition for land between stakeholders in the open space of urbanized regions put new challenges for sustainable land use planning. The major challenges are i) to avoid increasing functional and spatial fragmentation of rural landscapes, ii) to assure enough space for societal necessity urgencies such as food or energy self efficiency, iii) to increase positive interactions of horse keeping with other sectors such as agriculture, nature conservation and others and iv) to develop a proper visual and cultural landscape strategy, helping in setting up guidelines for fencing and other infrastructural elements that do not deteriorate the landscape character.

The Fragmentation Bias in Valuing and Qualifying Open Space

As urbanization progresses, open space becomes structured as units of progressively smaller sizes and with more pronounced physical and functional boundaries. This paper analyzes these Open Space Units (OSUs) in Flanders, and seeks how size of open space units, hence also spatial fragmentation, affects the evaluation of these units. The results clearly confirm a fragmentation bias, meaning a lower valuation of smaller units, which leads to a strategic gap and land use uncertainty concerning large stretches of area with high degree of fragmentation. This valuation is confronted with the contrasting and positive values expressed in a strategic open space project by local stakeholders about a typical peri-urban remnant open space unit. Overcoming the fragmentation bias in open space valuation is a continuing challenge in planning and open space policies, especially in highly urbanized environments.

Missing Categories in Open Space Planning

This paper describes how planning for open space is strongly rooted in conventional categories of land use and land cover (such as agriculture, urban and forest). Objectives are set and measures are taken to, for example, preserve biodiversity, enlarge the area for forests, ensure there is enough land for cost-effective professional agriculture and maintain a margin for housing and industrial development. However, in recent years there has been an emerging attention for questioning these standard categorizations for several reasons, such as the upsurge of newcomers in land use, the differentiation of standard categories, such as tourism/recreation, agriculture and water management and the emergence of new functions, such as carbon sequestration and wind energy. This paper pays attention to the spatial importance of two rather neglected categories of open space: (i) gardens and (ii) grassland for horses. Gardens, especially private gardens, tend to be ignored because they are considered as a part of the urban fabric. ‘Grassland for horses’ disappears somewhere within the category of agriculture, although it is also strongly linked with the urban context. Using different methods, including fieldwork, interpretation of aerial photographs and regression analysis, a quantification of these categories is made for the Northern part of Belgium, Flanders. From this, suggestions are made about the role of these categories in sustainable open space planning.