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)