An integrated holistic transdisciplinary landscape planning concept after the Leitbild approach

Understanding the complexity of landscapes is an essential requirement to exhibit strategies for landscape development in the mid-term future to predict long-term effects and maintain future demands. In order to steer the landscapes of tomorrow to an aspired future state, it becomes clear that landscape planning could not be done without common consideration of socio-cultural, economic and political components besides the reflection about the ecosystem. In response to this challenge, this article presents a conceptual framework for describing, classifying and planning aspired states of future landscapes based on a transdisciplinary Leitbild methodology. First, a brief review to the Leitbild concept originally developed in the German speaking literature is given. In the second part of the paper the applied conceptual framework is introduced. Data collection and development of a natural scientific ecological framework integrating socio-economic and political values are starting points to frame scenarios representing the wishes, demands and requirements from local stakeholders with different interests in the use of landscape resources. On the ground of communication these realistic spatial explicit land-use/land cover scenarios frame the basis for negotiation and agreements to overcome constraints and conflicting interests towards the commonly agreed aspired future state of spatial utilisation and thus illustrate the future with the aim to provide a set of guidelines that will shape action. The results gained from an informal planning situation in a case study in the Mondsee catchment in Austria show that based on the ground of natural scientific knowledge an integration of socio-economic values and the involvement of local stakeholders enhances landscape planning through knowledge exchange, education among participants and building trust. Thus, it is argued that the developed semi-operational GIS prototype is a successful applied procedure in a transdisciplinary planning context to overcome current shortcomings of participation in present landscape planning with the aim for protection, management and planning of landscapes. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.