Urban, peri urban and rural land uses: contradictions or opportunities to
be enhanced
Dr. Katharina Helming
Leibniz-Centre for Agricultural Landscape and Land Use Research, Müncheberg, Germany
e-mail: khelming@zalf.de, phone: +49 33432 82155
SENSOR Project (FP6)
The combinations, patterns and intensities of land use are currently exhibiting increasing
dynamics of change in European regions. Among these changes, two major processes can
be detected:
(1) Demographic processes leading to a polarisation of settlements and related
infrastructure into growing urban and peri urban areas on one hand and depopulating
rural areas on the other.
(2) Enrichment and diversification of land use purposes and functions due to the
increasing diversity of societal demands placed on the land, accompanied by the
decreasing role of food and fibre production, which is the result of technology
efficiency and which opens new opportunities for land use diversification.
These apparently contradicting developments give rise to new challenges for land use
decision making in rural areas based on the growing demand of the urban population for the
provision of goods and services with respect to renewable resources, a clean and pleasant
environment and recreational space. Multifunctional land use is a key to accommodate these
diversified demands given its effective implementation in land use development strategies
and related policies on the European, national and regional scale.
The paradigm of sustainability as general development target and aiming at integrating
environmental, societal and economic concerns has set the direction for land use decision
making. However, its successful implementation requires tools for the ex-ante assessment of
policy options and multifunctional land use strategies on sustainability issues.
This paper reports on the upcoming Integrated Project SENSOR which will build, validate
and implement sustainability impact assessment tools (SIAT), including databases and
spatial reference frameworks for the analysis of land and human resources in the context of
agricultural, regional and environmental policies. Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis
of policy implementation will be an integral part of the project. The scientific challenge is to
establish relationships between different environmental and socio-economic processes as
characterised by indicators considered to be quantitative measures of sustainability.
Scenario techniques will be used in a modelling framework to reflect various aspects of
multifunctionality and their interactions. Modelling results will be cross-checked through
participatory valuation techniques in selected European regions. Specific emphasis will be
given on the development of rules and stakeholder driven procedures for the valuation and
prioritisation of sustainability aspects and threshold identification for land use. This demand
oriented approach places people in the role of driving land use decisions and gives rise to
the analysis of interactions between conflicting and synergetic interests of the urban and
rural population.