Geowissenschaftliches Kolloquium SS 2020 

Live-Videovortrag, 02.07.2020 16:00 Uhr

Link zum Webex-Meeting: https://uni-halle.webex.com/meet/fachschaft27

Protection of peri-urban open spaces at the level of regional policy making. Examples from six European regions.

Each year in the European Union more than 1,000 km² of land is used for new housing, industry, roads or recreational purposes (European Commission, 2011). Those land take processes are related often to peri-urbanization processes of landscapes. Due to that, the new transitional peri-urban landscapes (PULs), which are joining urban, rural and natural characteristics, emerge. New developments taking place in the PULs foster diminishing of peri-urban open spaces (PUOS).

In our research we performed a comparative study of six case studies regions, located in different parts of the European Union: Saxony Anhalt in Germany, Basque Country in Spain, Flanders in Belgium, Hajdú-Bihar in Hungary, Mazovia in Poland and Kranj in Slovenia. In the first part of the study we analyzed land cover changes in those regions, aiming to assess the processes of PUOS diminishing and the expansion of urban fabric into PUOS.  In the second part of the study we performed analyze of the policy instruments, which are the binding governance documents in the case study regions at the regional level. Structured interviews were conducted with regional experts, working in the field of policy making in the case study regions to name governance approaches usable for protecting PUOS. Over the series of international scientific workshop and conference sessions we assessed the selected governance approaches to find out about their usefulness to protect PUOS.

Our study delivers important lessons learned related to the regional governance of PUOS, which are transferable within and beyond European context.