COURTESY  :  ale-europe.eu

Landscape planning and ecological preservation

Until recently, natural resources in general and water landscapes specifically have been managed in a sectoral way considering ecological and human well-being aspects separately belonging to the domain of engineers and decision-makers. Latest decades in Europe have witnessed new policies and integrated approaches toward water landscape planning and management (IRBM, ICZM, MSP) requiring new participatory methodologies to ensure balanced and sustainable development in ecological, economic, social and also cultural arrays.

However, the loosely defined legislative framework enables interpretation and variation but also favours cooperation across national borders to common advancement in management of freshwaters and sea coasts as impacts of one country influence others, e.g. water quality, revitalisation, restoration and flooding prevention bring about a major landscape change, implicating also renewable energy production and climate change adaptation. Researchers of different disciplines as well as practitioners have learnt from implementations in highly uncertain and ambiguous complex fields.

This symposium will act as a forum for sharing principles, methodologies, best practices, experiences and evaluations on integrated planning and management of water landscapes that can serve as a stepping stone for envisioning an even more complex comprehensive integrated landscape management.

We welcome interdisciplinary presentations on implementing WFD, IRBM, ICZM and MSP on:

• theoretical contemplations (e.g. ecosystem services or landscape approach, landscape quality objectives, nature-based solutions, heritage-led regeneration),
• methodological insights (e.g. participatory approaches, cultural and social capital, brokerage, designating culturally significant areas, trade-off analysis, access to fieldwork in marine areas, range of the planned areas) as well as
• empirical considerations (benefits of integrated management, relevant quality criteria to be evaluated, relevant process criteria), practical success and, more importantly, analytical failure stories.

What can participants expect to learn?

An updated overview of the WFD implementation, and/or IRBM, ICZM and MSP participatory interdisciplinary practices, evaluations and challenges throughout Europe will be gained, providing a basis for discussing new steps towards an integrated water landscape planning and management. Linkages between concrete case studies and European environmental policies will be illustrated. The symposium topics will feed into wider understanding and therefore enhancement of ecosystems and the management of the coupled human-environment systems.