Publications (FIS)

Assessing the Uniqueness of River Landscapes

The Lahn Case Study

authored by
Christian Albert, Jana Brenner, Johannes Hermes, Dominik Metzger, Julia Thiele
Abstract

Rivers create landscape with often unique characteristics, which make them both hotspots for biodiversity and preferred areas for human activities. Assessing and valuing the specific character of those areas is a crucial aspect when aiming to develop spatial strategies for more sustainable river landscape development. One of the most important determinants of a landscape’s character is its uniqueness, understood here as the specificity of a particular landscape. The aim of this contribution is to introduce a method for assessing and evaluating the landscape uniqueness of riverside areas. More specifically, we propose and apply a method for assessing landscape uniqueness to the Lahn river landscape, Germany, and compare the results with existing assessments of landscape uniqueness in Germany in general. Our results provide insights regarding both the spatial distribution of attributes of uniqueness across the case study area, and the specific uniqueness of the case study area in comparison with German river landscapes in general. We close with recommendations for further research and for applications in practice.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Environmental Planning
Digital Environmental Planning
Type
Contribution to book/anthology
Pages
303-315
No. of pages
13
Publication date
04.05.2020
Publication status
Published
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3507-9_16 (Access: Closed)