- The concept of Sustainable Land Management: a comparative discussion (at a global scale)   84 kb by    Weith, Thomas & Repp, Annegret | thomas.weith@zalf.de    Short Outline The abstract seeks to initiate a discussion about the concept of Sustainable Land Management in an internationally comparative perspective. To enable mutual learning, it will focus on comparing governance approaches with regard to main drivers for land use demands and to different multi- level governance frameworks. Abstract Mankind has influenced landscape for centuries and created different types of land use. With regard to the development of land use in Europe, main drivers of currently increasing influence comprise changes in values (e.g. sustainability), economic and social trends (e.g. globalisation, demographic change), technological innovations and political priorities (e.g. in climate and biodiversity policy). A high variety of institutional arrangements and regulatory schemes on several policy levels (EU, national, regional, local) has been initiated in order to deal with these land use demands and resulting land use conflicts. Examples include European agricultural policy (e.g. cross-compliance rules) and water policy (Water Framework Direction), national development procedures (e.g. spatial planning in Germany, Austria and Switzerland), regional development schemes (e.g. in the UK) or local planning and building schemes. However, referring to experience from Germany, problems in governing land are currently seen in a missing integrative approach and fragmented problem analysis. This gap is being addressed by the concept of Sustainable Land Management, as initiated by a research funding measure which has been launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2010 (Weith et al. 2010). Before then, the concept had mainly been used outside Europe as a normative approach in land use of developing countries (Hurni 1997; The World Bank 2006). Only in Australia and New Zealand ‘Sustainable Land Management’ constitutes an official topic of national environmental policy, albeit strongly connected to solutions with regard to climate change. Land management questions and activities therefore vary considerably, with the usage of the concept of Sustainable Land Management being related to different understandings and governance approaches, depending on the geographical area and policy context (Weith et al. 2013). The German funding measure “Sustainable Land Management” comprises 13 joint projects within Module B, working on the development of system solutions for land management in different regions in Germany. Due to the high variety of involved actors and complex interactions one main aspect of research refers to handling complexity by inter- and transdisciplinary methods (Klein et al. 2001). Public actors, companies or civil society actors are seen as starting points, nuclei, and development partners for the imple­mentation of sustainable solutions in land management. In that context, all projects seek to combine contents of governance in a synergetic way. Examples include the combination of water management with waste management, water management with energy supply, settlement development with mobility aspects or housing and energy consumption. However, these approaches are mainly embedded in and adjusted to the German and EU policy context. Enhanced international exchange on the understanding and concept of sustainable land management and a comparison of approaches will thus enable researchers and practical experts to benefit from each other in two main ways: First, a more comprehensive understanding of conceptual contents will be fostered and second, adequate governance processes can be compared as well as further developed and adapted to the respective policy contexts. Since the International Planners Exchange as part of the ISOCARP Congress 2013 could provide an excellent opportunity to launch such an international exchange, we propose the following guiding questions for discussion: What are key elements for sustainable land management, what is covered by the term/concept? To what extent are new spatial developments and new land use conflicts being reflected adequately by analytical models and tools on the one hand, and by existing governance modes on the other hand? What is missing? What might be new governance options towards sustainable land use? Selected References Hurni, H. (1997): Concepts of sustainable land management. In: ITC Journal 1997 (3-4), 210-215. Klein, J. et al. (2001): Transdisciplinarity: Joint Problem Solving among Science, Technology and Society – An effective way for managing complexity. Basel. The World Bank (2006): Sustainable Land Management. Washington. Weith, Th., Schulz, K., Gaasch, N., Seppelt, R., Werntze, A., Eppink, F. (2010): Towards Integration: Sustainable Land Management. A new German Research Funding Measure. Local Land & Soil News 34/35 II/10, 21-22. Weith, Th., Besendörfer, C., Gaasch, N., Kaiser, D.B., Müller, K., Repp, A., Rogga, S., Strauß, C., Zscheischler, J. (2013): Nachhaltiges Landmanagement: Was ist das? Diskussionspapier Nr. 7 des Wissenschaftlichen Begleitvorhabens (Modul B), April 2013. Keywords Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2013: Frontiers of Planning - Evolving and declining models of city planning practice   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper