Landscape Planning at Municipal Level in Bavaria

2021-2022 (Bavarian Academy for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management - ANL)

Municipal landscape planning represents an important precaution-oriented planning instrument for the area-wide concretization of the objectives of nature conservation and landscape management. It is addressed to the cities and municipalities as bearers of the municipal right of self-determination. Especially against the background of current challenges (e.g. decline in biodiversity and climate change), municipal landscape planning is of outstanding importance. Nevertheless, only a few municipal landscape plans have been drawn up or updated in Bavaria in the last 10-15 years. This means that in many places there is no strategic basis for action for the development, design and use of nature and landscape. Obviously, there is a discrepancy between the social importance of nature and landscape on the one hand and the handling of these concerns in official planning practice on the other hand.

The aim of the project was to gain as comprehensive and differentiated an insight as possible into the current practice of municipal landscape planning in Bavaria and to provide a solid data basis for further strategy development. The target group of the study primarily comprised the political decision-makers of the municipalities (mayors, municipal and city councils) as well as experts from the administrations, but also the actors working at the municipal level from associations, societies and the other interested civil society. The focus was on small to medium-sized cities and communities in Bavaria with a size of 10,000-50,000 inhabitants.

Between July 2021 and February 2022, three research steps were carried out: (a) individual interviews with selected actors, (b) focus groups with selected actors from different parts of the state, and (c) a standardized online survey in cooperation with the municipal umbrella organizations. The project was embedded in a larger project initiated by the Bavarian State Ministry for the Environment and Consumer Protection (StMUV) under the title Landscape Planning in Bavaria - Municipal and Innovative and in which, in addition to the ANL and the StMUV, the State Office for the Environment (LfU) and the BDLA Bavaria are also involved.