Wolfgang Wende

Landscape services: the concept and its practical relevance

Recently, in addition to the popular concept of “ecosystem services” (ES), the term “landscape services” (LS) has come into use. We are examining the question of whether a stronger focus on LS would be useful, particularly with regard to case studies carried out in Germany. Important reasons for introducing the term LS include the prominent role of spatial aspects, the reference to landscape elements and the landscape character, and the relevance of LS for landscape planning. We found no strong arguments for replacing the concept of ES by LS; however, we do prefer a situation-related use of both concepts. We propose the following definition: Landscape services are the contributions of landscapes and landscape elements to human well-being.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EIA IN GERMANY: OUR CHILD HAS GROWN UP

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) has been formally applied in Germany since 1990, and has over time developed a methodological and technical routine in environmental planning practice. It can now be considered an established instrument; nonetheless, substantial challenges to the further development of the EIA, and to even stronger implementation of environmental requirements in planning and decision-making practice in Germany, still exist. This paper reports briefly on the application and the main achievements of the EIA in Germany, and, in the second section, primarily provides a perspective for addressing remaining and new challenges involving this instrument. The paper also includes specific proposals for the further optimization of the EIA at the EU level, as well as for Germany. The current status and future challenges facing the EIA, which are described herein, range from screening and scoping through public participation and monitoring to the area of application.

Urban Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity Offsets

With the adoption of the 2020 Biodiversity Strategy, the EU has made a commitment to halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020. EU-wide actions include the development of an initiative to ensure that there is no net loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and their services e.g. through compensation or offsetting schemes by 2015 (Action 7b; initiated by the European Commission). In this chapter we intend to examine one relatively new and innovative instrument that can be applied to achieve no net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services: biodiversity offsets. We focus on the German system as a kind of role model and example that shows challenges and advantages of a biodiversity offsetting system within the European context. However, a brief outlook on comparable offsetting systems in other countries will also be raised. Particularly, the urban stage is to be addressed.

Constructed Ecologies. Critical Reflections on Ecology with Design

Entitled ‘Global Differences, Not Universals’, Chapter 2 focuses on Grose’s concept of ‘shifting continuities’ as a reaction to the demands made on design, for instance by climate change. Grose suggests, for example, that we should create ‘climate space’ by means of migration routes, thereby enabling landscape connectivity and ‘shifting continuities’ for species to adapt towards climate change. Although the general concept of generating climate space to allow for shifting continuities can be appreciated, the details Grose provides on how to produce climate space remain fuzzy to a landscape planner such as myself or to any other designer. And, in general, this is a recurring issue within the book: when the discussion attempts to become more concrete by providing practical principles for the landscape architecture project, the details remain rather sketchy. Indeed, the author often presents vague principles for action in the form of questions rather than supplying specific practical answers for design professionals. One example can be found in Chapter 2, which deals with the implications of climate change for landscape and design: ‘Could landscape architects explore the concept of “northern purity, southern richness” by using it as a tightening frame? Does it mean that we might consider mass planting of low diversity in the northern latitudes, including Germany, Russia, northern China and northern North America? Should we consider massed genetic diversity in southern latitudes . . . ?’ This bundle of questions on page 27 is followed on page 30 by the query: ‘Can designers, planners, ecologists and conservationists help continuity?’ and further on page 31: ‘How can we design for shift and dispersal of plants?’ At this point the designer is truly thirsting for more information. But the tendency of supplying questions rather than much-needed answers is continued in the following chapters, which always close with a somewhat vague consideration of the consequences for the practical work of landscape designers whereby little detail is provided on implementation. One welcome exception is found in Chapter 5, which looks closely at the question of light pollution. In my opinion, it provides sufficient details on how a design project might respond to this problem (see p. 141 ff). Only in Chapter 6 does the author reveal Margaret Grose teaches landscape architecture at the University of Melbourne. As well as being a trained landscape architect, she has extensive research experience as an agricultural scientist and ecologist. This makes her ideally suited to integrate the fields of science and design, particularly at a time when landscape architecture teaching seems increasingly split between design on the one hand, and ecology and planning on the other. Margaret Grose’s varied experience in the two complementary fields of science and design in relation to landscape architecture is reflected in her book Constructed Ecologies: Critical Reflections on Ecology with Design, a collection of individual essays that provides exciting, interesting, and inspiring ideas derived from the latest scientific research and theoretical debate. Addressed to landscape designers and architects as well as students, the book is highly theoretical. While the main title, Constructed Ecologies, suggests that the reader might find concrete and even detailed recommendations for a landscape design strategy based on an ecological approach, in fact this is not the case. Indeed, that was never the author’s intention, as we find out in the last pages of the ‘Concluding Comments’: ‘This is unabashedly a theoretical book’ (p. 185). The true value, I feel, of this highly stimulating book lies in providing a careful and critical selection of scientific approaches to design.

Indicator-based assessment of green space in growing cities as planning tool - experiences from the Sino-German ‘Green Cities Study’

The paper introduce the Sino-German ‘Green Cities Study’. In the last decades China and Germany have experienced a rapid urbanization process caused by rural-urban migration flows, re-densification and population growth. Against this background current developments, different approaches and future challenges in the competition of green spaces and urban land consumption in China and Germany are elaborated, discussed and illustrated within case studies and good practice examples. Mainstreaming urban biodiversity and ecosystem services in urban development policies requires the establishment of adequate indicators and the integration of ecosystem services in planning systems in China and Germany.