2nd Partner Meeting
16-17 May 2018, Kyjov (CZ)
Two days full of discussion about Green Infrastructure (GI) in Central Europe and in particular in the area around the South Moravian city of Kyjov! The MaGICLandscapes project partner discussed on their recent meeting from 16 to 17 May 2018 how to visualise and communicate Green Infrastructure to the stakeholders in their case study areas.
The Leibniz Institute for Ecological Urban and Regional Development is coordinating the transnational assessment of Green Infrastructure which is the central objective of the first work package. This assessment is being carried out by means of GIS and the CORINE Land Cover data (CLC) from the year 2012 and afterwards via comparison in the field (ground-truthing). CORINE stands for “Coordination of Information on the Environment”. Information about Land Use and Land Cover is derived from satellite remote sensing data. CLC allows the application of a consistent and comparable dataset in all Central European partner countries.
The partners shared their work done and experiences gained so far with the GI assessment. It became obvious that GI is defined and classified differently in the regions participating in the MaGICLandscapes project. In some cases the CLC class is not describing the “real” land cover type detected in the field during the ground-truthing. The consortium has developed a catalogue of CLC classes which are elements of GI in MaGICLandscapes and which not. Some classes can’t clearly be allocated to Green or Grey Infrastructure which is dependent on the respective local context. Thus, each partner decides for his own case study area if these classes represent GI or not. Regional maps showing the network of GI from the Dübener Heide Nature Park over the Karkonosze Mountains to the Po Hills around Chieri near Turin have been produced.
Recently a transnational handbook for GI assessment is being compiled to provide actual definitions e.g. “Green Infrastructure”, “Functionality” and “Ecosystem Services”. It also generates reflections on GI in national and regional laws and policies in Central Europe and the needs for GI assessment in the respective regional/local contexts.
The functionality and public benefit assessment of GI and the strategy development (WP 2 and 3) was outlined and the task sharing among the partners discussed.
The University of Vienna provided an approach of assessing the functional values of certain GI elements by means of three staged key-factors: classification regarding broader habitat types, determination of the hemerobic status and provision of ecosystem services. This assessment approach will be carried out in each case study area. The partners are requested to compile a regional catalogue of biotope types of their case study area and to view the appropriate geodata they want to use for the functionality analysis in their case study area. Already in summer the assessment approach will be tested in the areas. The test results and experiences will be discussed within the next partner meeting in autumn.
The Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development introduced to the tasks and deliverables within the public benefit assessment of GI and development of a strategy and action plan how to implement GI on local level. First step is to develop a draft tool to assess the public benefits of green infrastructure which could be, for example, more space for recreation, more fresh air and shadow during hot summer days or prevention of flooding etc. This draft tool will be presented to and tested with regional stakeholders in each case study area. In the end the so called public benefit assessment tool should help to identify local specific needs (strengths, weaknesses, threats, opportunities) for green infrastructure development.
During discussions in small working groups the MaGICLandscapes project partners have got new views and ideas how to organise and resolve the upcoming working steps in their case study areas. On a field trip from the neighbouring village Bohuslavice back to Kyjov the partners inspected the local green infrastructure network pervading arable lands and connected to the river Kyjovka..