The European Land-use Institute - the idea behind
Landscapes are complex systems that can only be
understood if multidisciplinary cooperation is established.
Applied landscape research, dealing with landscape
functions, ecosystem services and land management,
integrates actors from diverse backgrounds, e. g. policy
makers, land use planners or ecosystem managers. The
societal demand for transparent, participative, and
integrated concepts has increased dramatically in the
past, since there is a growing public awareness for effects
of land management and global to regional policies on
environmental and economic systems.
Knowledge of landscape processes is a crucial part of
analyzing and predicting landscape dynamics under
influence of society. However, any prediction of landscape
dynamics is uncertain, since (i) the prediction of driving
forces, e.g. climate change, changing world markets, have
a high uncertainty and (ii) direction and magnitude of
related landscape processes are uncertain. Even if there
are excellent data bases of (environmental) data, access
is often limited, data bases are scattered and transfer to
the landscape scale is mostly missing. For analysis of
data landscape research uses frequently indicator
systems to assess the effects of human activities and
natural processes on landscape functions. However, the
great number of indicators for different environments,
compartments, land use or scales causes problems to
harmonize and transfer indicators in terms of scales,
sectors and regions.
Valley of the river Elbe in Saxon Switzerland
Land managers, land planners and policy makers are
facing an increasing number of rules, regulations and
directives, reflecting the multiple interests in landscapes.
Their realization is often hindered, since there is a
mismatch between the real situation on the regional to
local scale and the basic idea of rules, often developed in
national or international context. To make the situation
worse, many of the approaches applied on landscape
level are sectoral without integrating effects on other
sectors and very complex and focused on the sector, thus
hard to understand for non-experts. Though, involvement
of many disciplines is a necessary precondition to
understand complex landscape systems a complication
arises from isolated and sometimes contradicting
approaches of disciplines involved.
The European Land-use Institute will support a
landscape focused approach that
- integrates landscape related research and approaches
from multiple disciplines to create a platform for applied
landscape research
- identifies needs of research and development of tools
aiming at simulating natural and anthropogenic
processes on the landscape scale
- supports application and development of tools (models,
indicators) for integrated land management and
decision support
- analyzes and integrates needs and initiatives of
stakeholders and thus support participative approaches
The European Land-use Institute (ELI) will provide an
efficient and powerful platform in Europe to coordinate and
realize applied landscape research.
