Regional Green Infrastructure functionality assessment as a foundation to develop evidence-based strategies and action plans through stakeholder involvement

Description

Green Infrastructure (GI) defined as a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas is a key strategy in the European biodiversity strategy and the landscape connectivity agenda. To implement this approach in Central Europe’s (CE) landscape planning policies the Interreg project MaGICLandscapes (ML) tried to operationalise the GI concept in CE, to provide land-managers, policy makers and communities with tools and knowledge, at different spatial levels.
Based on the example of the Austrian case study area, the aim of this work is to present an easy-to-use approach, starting from producing a highly-detailed regional GI database. By compiling regional cadastral and agricultural information, highly detailed data on the water network as well as forests, this detailed representation of the GI network allows to enhance the regional applicability and acceptance of GI initiatives. Additionally, it provides a crucial foundation for assessing the quality of local GI to develop evidence-based strategies and action plans through stakeholder involvement to direct future actions and investment in GI.
In this work we demonstrate GI assessment methods that focus on functionality in terms of connectivity and provision of landscape services and furthermore communicate and facilitate the adoption of those assessment methods and the strategies derived from them by institutions through participatory approaches.
The additional analysis and mapping of landscape service supply offered by these GI elements, built on expert-based assessments to score each service through a capacity matrix, may therefore complement the information basis for the sustainable planning of GI in the case study area by visualising focus areas, which provide or are in need of capacities of certain landscape services.
The results provided planning and environmentally oriented institutions with information and methods as well as action plans and strategies that recognise landscape ecological functions and landscape services and identify opportunities for enhanced multifunctionality.

Period	10 Jun 2021
Event title	3rd Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) Europe Conference 2021: Ecosystem Services Science, Policy and Practice in the face of Global Changes
Event type	Conference
Location	Tartu, EstoniaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International