Narrow Results

This paper provides an overview of the way biodiversity issues are dealt with in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) for spatial plans in the Netherlands. Spatial plans are selected as subject of study because 50 percent of all SEA studies executed in the Netherlands are carried out for spatial plans. Secondly, these plans provide an overarching framework for multiple interventions with potential impacts on biodiversity. It is, therefore, important to pay particular attention to biodiversity at the strategic level of a spatial plan. The evaluation is based on five spatial plans that have been subject to SEA, two national plans, two provincial plans and one local plan. Based on these assessments a number of conclusions are presented on the assessment of biodiversity in SEA for spatial plans in the Netherlands. The evaluation of case studies on which this paper is based was undertaken to produce a submission to the Convention on Biological Diversity for the drafting of international guidelines on biodiversity in SEA.

This paper presents results of a project, funded by the British Academy, on perceptions of SEA effectiveness in two countries with formal SEA requirements, but with very different planning and decision-making traditions: the UK and China. Similarities and differences are described, based on a questionnaire survey, conducted at two workshops with local and regional authority representatives, private consultants and academics; at Liverpool University (October 2006) and at Nankai University (March 2007). Whilst many similarities in perceptions are found, some differences are established, particularly regarding the SEA process (which Chinese representatives think should be more flexible versus UK representatives who mostly think it should be more rigorous) and regarding current shortcomings (lack of real influence and non-existence of relevant baseline data for China; too much unused baseline data for the UK). Overall, there was a more positive perception of many Chinese respondents regarding SEA's potential to lead to more effective decision making, greater efficiency of tiered decision making and an ability to enable more effective involvement.

This paper investigates the potential of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) to contribute to the high-level policy objective of fostering democratisation in spatial planning. Democratic SEA is conceptualised by discussing environmental citizenship, public control over policy making, and participants' empowerment. The empirical investigation is based on the analysis of SEA documents produced during 25 municipal spatial planning processes in Italy between 2004 and 2010. The study found that advances are more evident in the creation of cross-sectoral governance networks than in the involvement of citizens and civil-society organisations. SEA seems to be increasing transparency and expanding the scope of democratic control over spatial planning decisions, though the boundaries between experts, decision makers and citizens are clearly demarcated. To strengthen democratisation processes, the paper argues that all participants should consider themselves equally responsible within SEA networks, and be ready to question alternative environmental value systems that underpin spatial planning processes.

The challenge for implementing an ecosystems approach to environmental decision-making processes, such as spatial planning, is to understand the range, nature and amount of ecosystem services currently provided and the potential for such service provision in the future. The ability to spatially represent ecosystems services is a critical element of the evidence base on which to make decisions about how physical space is used most effectively and sustainably, and the way people and activities are distributed at different spatial scales. This paper reports on the outcomes of a research project originally undertaken for the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which developed a methodology for mapping ecosystem services using GIS and readily available, existing land use/land cover datasets. Critical components of the methodology, in order to determine which datasets are appropriate for which services, are network analysis and stakeholder engagement techniques, to define the relevant typology of ecosystem services and their relationship to land use/land cover types. The methodology was developed and tested successfully in the context of green grid (green infrastructure) networks in a major UK regeneration area, the Thames Gateway, to the east of London, and its potential use in impact assessment further explored through a number of case studies.

Across the public sector, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analysis are increasingly ubiquitous when making decisions involving people and places. However, historically GIS has not been prevalently applied to the various types of impact assessment. As such, this paper presents findings from a survey conducted in 2011 of 100 local authorities in England to examine how embedded GIS, spatial analysis and visualisation practices are to the process of conducting impact assessments. The results show that despite obvious advantages of applying GIS in these processes, applications employing basic techniques are at best sporadic, and where advanced methods are implemented, these in almost all instances are conducted by external contractors, thus illustrating a significant GIS under capacity within the sampled local authorities studied.

In order to support Strategic Environmental Assessment of spatial plans, different scenarios were developed for the future configuration of wetlands along the coast of La Araucanía Region for 2020. To assess each scenario, landscape metrics related to landscape dynamics and structure were used. The results indicate that in general terms the wetland cover diminished and fragmented under different scenarios, including one which was designed for the sustainability of natural areas. It is concluded that the techniques used were relatively easy to implement by means of GIS technologies, which facilitate spatially explicit modelling of future scenarios. Furthermore, landscape metrics were a key element for assessing the effects of each model. There are currently only few experiences on the use of spatially explicit scenarios in SEA and our research suggests that this may be a useful and valid tool for supporting spatial planning decisions.

One of the main gaps in current SEA research is the limited development of analytical methods to predict and assess environmental effects, which are tailored to plans, programmes and policies. The scientific literature is producing new standards and evidence-based conclusions on a number of issues that are potentially relevant for SEA, including health, land take, ecosystem fragmentation and energy needs and supply. However, research in SEA is hardly keeping the pace in terms of "translating" these findings into operational recommendations that can be applied in typical SEA contexts. As a result, the analytical content of SEA is often disappointingly low, and the assessment of impacts is still largely based on qualitative descriptions and general statements. Future research should be directed at innovating SEA methods, by promoting the use of appropriate spatially-explicit and (semi)quantitative approaches, which can be based on advances in relevant disciplines, and the increasing availability of data and technology.

Expansion of renewable energy development causes concerns which traditional land-use planning may have limited capacity to address adequately. The complexity and multiplicity of scales, criteria and actors involved in decision-making processes requires a holistic approach that captures the variety in stakeholder interests. Reaching consensus across interests ensures democratic and cost-effective decision-making processes. The Consensus-based Siting (ConSite) tool suite was developed for optimal siting of onshore wind-power plants and routing of high-voltage power lines considering stakeholder interests. ConSite is based on the operational steps of spatial multi-criteria decision analysis using a bottom-up holistic approach. Its spatially explicit graphical user interface allows for a high level of stakeholder involvement and includes inherent capabilities of scenario modelling. ConSite thereby helps to structure decision problems, balance conflicting interests and identify relevant decision strategies based on risk assessment and trade-off analysis. ConSite visualises the spatial consequences of implementing various decision strategies and balancing site-specific conflict levels with energy production potential.

The challenge of protecting communities in tsunami-prone populated small islands is difficult to meet. Likewise, the islands are often found with a lack of disaster mitigation infrastructure. A tsunami that occurred around the Mentawai Islands of Indonesia on October 25, 2010, causing around 500 dead, is the inspiration for this paper. This study was aimed at elaborating practices in protecting communities of small islands from tsunamis by incorporating information about the estimated time of arrival of a tsunami into the islands mitigation measures. A field survey to obtain the impacts of the tsunami on the number of casualties and damages was conducted in February 2011 around the Mentawai Islands. In the survey, a set of questionnaires were distributed in the Mentawai Islands to investigate the small island residents' responses just after the shock from the tsunami waves. This study was also followed by numerical simulations to obtain tsunami wave Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) for the Mentawai islands. Numerical simulations were conducted using Delft3D software coupled with Tsunami toolkit. This research found that the ETAs for the Mentawai Islands range between 9–20 min. With the existing tsunami early warning system in Indonesia, the ETAs are quite short. Comparing the Simulated ETAs to the findings from the Mentawai Islands tsunami survey led to the recommendation that the best way to increase the community's preparedness for a tsunami would be by managing village-based spatial planning. Such spatial planning may include relocating the residents far away from the coastal area. This would enable the community to have more time to evacuate should a tsunami threat occur.

A new treatment is presented for land use planning problems by means of extremal optimization (EO) in conjunction to cell-based neighborhood local search. EO, inspired by self-organized critical models of evolution has been applied mainly to the solution of classical combinatorial optimization problems. Cell-based local search has been employed by the author elsewhere in problems of spatial resource allocation in combination with genetic algorithms and simulated annealing. In this paper, it complements EO in order to enhance its capacity for a spatial optimization problem. The hybrid method thus formed is compared to methods of the literature on a specific resource allocation problem by taking into account both the development and the transportation cost. It yields better results both in terms of objective function values and in terms of compactness. The latter is an important quantity for spatial planning and its meaning is discussed. The appearance of significant compactness values as emergent results is investigated.

Critical infrastructures (CIs) are of a dual character: they are a protection good that can be adversely affected by a threat, but at the same time, some infrastructure categories are dangerous in their own right. Because it integrates collaboration and decision-making on how space should be used, spatial planning is an important process in development of CI. Risk management utilizing spatial planning includes analysis and management tools that have a spatial and place-based context. In Germany, CI deserves protection as laid down in the Federal Regional Planning Act. This research paper starts from the hypothesis that regional planning is obligated to take the physical component of CI and its susceptibility against various threats into account. However, the administrative boundaries that define a region in this context is not the appropriate level of analysis for assessing the systemic criticality of CI which is up to territorial levels that consider an entire infrastructure network and to individual project approval procedures. The paper discusses the role of regional planning for the protection of CI by the example of the Region of Cologne, Germany. This research was collaborative in nature carried out between a scientific partner and the Region of Cologne that served as a so-called model region for “co-production of knowledge”. The role of science in this context is problematic because science cannot give a proof of normative aspects like the intended level of acceptable risk or the importance of the protection of CI. Science in this context is inconclusive. Thus, there was a need to involve all those experts of the regional administration that are legally responsible or involved in the assessment of risks and management of land. Throughout the project, this included representatives from the divisions of regional planning, natural protection, water management, immission control and crisis management. The entire team of researchers and practitioners came to an agreement on the various normative decisions, for example, concerning the research approach or the definition of susceptibility indicators. This collaborative approach, which is principally applicable in other regions in Germany as well, guarantees for applicability of planning decisions on the ground. Finally, using results from a GIS-based risk assessment demonstrated how regional spatial planning takes CI into account. The assessment results will be used by the administration of the Region of Cologne for the Environmental Report to be prepared for the new regional plan.

The importance of critical infrastructures and strategic planning in the context of extreme events, climate change and urbanization has been underscored recently in international policy frameworks, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (UNISDR (United Nations/International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction) 2015), and the new Paris climate agreement (UNFCCC (United Nations — Framework Convention on Climate Change) 2015) as well as the New Urban Agenda (UN-HABITAT 2016). This paper outlines key research challenges in addressing the nexus between extreme weather events, critical infrastructure resilience, human vulnerability and strategic planning. Using a structured expert dialogue approach (particularly based on a roundtable discussion funded by the German National Science Foundation (DFG)), the paper outlines emerging research issues in the context of extreme events, critical infrastructures, human vulnerability and strategic planning, providing perspectives for inter- and transdisciplinary research on this important nexus. The main contribution of the paper is a compilation of identified research gaps and needs from an interdisciplinary perspective including the lack of integration across subjects and mismatches between different concepts and schools of thought.

In this paper, we show how the concept of tipping points can be interpreted by using the example of natural hazard management. Until now, despite the increasing amount of papers on tipping points in the assessment of geomorphologic hazards and the associated dynamics of research on climate change, there has been little empirical or theoretical engagement with tipping points in risk management and in the adaptive capacity of individual actors or social systems. By bridging this gap, we focus on adaptation initiatives to mountain hazard management and on the question of how these initiatives were triggered using three different study sites in Austria. Necessary system changes root in different nutshells, such as lack of funding, lack of legal incentives to include local interests or lack of space, where classical structural protection schemes cannot respond to the emerging challenges of system dynamics. This paper used a mixed-method approach, including semi-structured in-depth interviews, scenario constructions and policy analysis to assess the potential tipping points in the implementation of innovative systems to manage mountain hazards. The results showed that vital variables influencing the development of new management measures are (1) the current legislation, (2) risk acceptance among authorities and the public, (3) land-use pressure, (4) the demand for innovative solutions, (5) the available technical standards and possibilities and (6) finally the policy entrepreneurship. Concluding the results, contemporary settings concerning risk management strategies will have to change in the future in order to inspire transformative governance arrangements in natural hazard management.

The power network is among the most of critical infrastructures. In Germany, multiple circumstances, triggered by social and political processes of decarbonization and nuclear phaseout, require extensive grid expansion activities. The paper analyzes coincidences of security and reliability aspects with transmission infrastructure planning. It explores essential properties that determine the criticality of power grids, examines to what extent security is subject of grid expansion procedures and finally focuses on selected security-related spatial planning issues such as the concentration of infrastructures or the pros and cons of overhead lines vs. underground cables.

Any adaptation activity needs a reliable evidence basis for the climate itself as well as for the exposition and sensitivity of the social, economic or ecological system and its elements. This requires an assessment of recent climate impacts as well as potential future climate change impacts in order to select tailor-made adaptation measures. For a methodologically coherent assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had introduced the requirement of a parallel modeling approach which means that demographic and socioeconomic changes are projected in parallel to the changes of the climatic system. This paper discusses a conceptual framework of a parallel modeling approach and presents its application in four case studies of climate change impact assessments in Germany, covering the national, regional and local scale. The results from the different applications prove the hypothesis that the change in sensitivity (i.e., demographic change, economic change and change in land-use patterns) often determines the magnitude of climate- and weather-related impacts in the near future significantly. The case studies, however, also show that adaptation processes have to be organized in a collaborative way, which takes the knowledge, and also the concerns of the addressees into full account. A broad mandate from all social groups is especially needed when political decisions are based on uncertain knowledge — which is the case whenever climate change impacts are assessed.

Currently, potentials of spatial planning in disaster risk mitigation have not yet been fully tapped, especially in the context of managed retreat regarding both inhabitants and infrastructure in hazard prone areas. Retreat as a development opportunity in adjusting spatial patterns, diverging urban growth, reducing risks in pre- and post-disasters, achieving urban resilience and “Build Back Better” is undervalued. Besides little success achieved so far, there is a lack of context-specific lessons learnt, particularly in how to prioritize planned retreat. In this paper we attempt to investigate potential barriers, challenges and opportunities of disaster risk-related retreat in both developing and developed countries. Using several country studies, we review and categorise retreat strategies in different development settings and disaster contexts and highlight comparative discussions of both reactive and proactive retreat strategies. We argue that managed retreat can be an effective spatial resilience strategy in disaster mitigation. We propose to examine success factors of retreat, its indicators and criteria, a balance with on-site upgrading and an application of retreat typologies. We emphasise critical aspects including the enhancement of institutional capacity in risk governance, the adoption of legally binding hazard maps and hazard-controlled land use, especially prior to disasters. We vote for embedding of affordable housing with planned retreat schemes and sustaining resettlement sites with viable livelihood strategies, and finally monitoring and evaluating impacts of retreat schemes along with urban development and livelihood performance. We also emphasise community-driven retreat strategies with participation mechanism to ensure inhabitants’ concerns in retreat planning processes to its local context.

The neoliberal planning theory, the subject of the paper, is derived from the policy substantiation of the neoliberal development ideology. The theory is built on participatory principles in the context of market force ruled by informality. This planning perspective has had the potential to sustain the imperial space economy associated with Africa since the mid-19th century. Neoliberal planning theory is regarded as a theory that seriously questions its planning cognate purports as it indicates the outlook for contemporary planning initiatives, perspectives and frameworks. This paper argues that this trend is potentially antithetical to the rhetoric of African renaissance and postulates a change in development ideology as an entry point for appropriate planning option for Africa.

The conflicts in spatial planning are the main reason that restricts the sustainable development of land use in China, and it is also the main barrier to the building of “Territorial Spatial Planning System”. This study analyzes the conflicts between urban planning and land-use planning from the three dimensions of construction land, basic farmland and ecological land based on a land-use transition matrix with the central urban area of Liupanshui City, Guizhou Province as a case region, and analyzes the causes of spatial planning conflicts from the perspectives of the central and local governments in terms of their preferences and interactive relationships. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows. (1) Urban planning and land-use planning have comprehensive conflicts with each other in terms of the construction land, basic farmland and ecological land, i.e. the scale of construction land in urban planning is 154% of that in land-use planning, and the scale of basic farmland in urban planning is 88.56% of that in land-use planning. (2) Central and local governments are the two main stakeholders of spatial planning, and they have different preferences for the utilization of spatial resources at prefecture-level cities. The central government is concerned about food security, and therefore, pays more attention to the protection of cultivated land, while the local governments focus on economic benefits and the ecological environment, and therefore, pay more attention to construction and ecological lands. (3) The urban planning system is a bottom-up design system, which determines that urban planning mainly reflects the preferences of local governments, while the land-use planning system is a top-down design system, which determines that land-use planning mainly reflects the central government’s preferences. The policy implication of this study is that in order to manage spatial planning conflicts, it is necessary to manage the conflicts of interest among stakeholders.

In China, small city cultivation has been raised to the development requirement of national level, which would promote the balanced development of urban and rural areas to build a reasonable urban system. In the planning of pilot towns, their size, space, function and features are four core issues. Taking Zhouquan Town in Tongxiang City as a case study, the article, based on the four core issues, analyzed the main problems of town development which included limited town size, dispersed disorderly development of town spatial, weak public service function and poor environment quality. It proposed corresponding main ideas and strategies to solve these problems and put forward the planning scheme. The case study proposed a guideline in analyzing problems and presenting strategies based on the above four core issues for town planning against the background of small city cultivation, so as to provide reference and inspiration for similar towns.