Managing Green Infrastructure in Central European Landscapes - MaGICLandscapes

Elmar Csaplovics / Anke Hahn / Christopher MarrsManaging Green Infrastructure in Central European Landscapes - MaGICLandscapes A compilation of Results and Outputs from the EU Central Europe MaGICLandscapes ProjectVolume 16 of the series "Remote Sensing and Applied Geoinformatics". Published by Elmar Csaplovics, TU Dresden. 176 pages, DIN B5 format, numerous illustrations, many of them colored. Language: English. Price: 38,50 Euro. ISBN 978-3-949314-02-5. Rhombos Verlag, Berlin 2021The European Commission defines green infrastructure (GI) as a 'strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green spaces (or blue if aquatic ecosystems are concerned) and other physical features in terrestrial (including coastal) and marine areas. On land, GI is present in rural and urban settings' (European Commission 2013).Until recently green infrastructure, nestling amongst the more identifiable grey infrastructure of development, has rarely attracted the same level of interest or investment, at least on the strategic level, with local-level investment often concentrating on a site by site basis taking into account recreational needs or the aesthetic requirements of changing development design trends over the years. Understandably, as settlements expand and change, the strategic potential of green infrastructure has remained a secondary consideration.The Interreg Central Europe MaGICLandscapes project worked to operationalise and promote the GI concept in Central Europe. It provided provide land-managers, policy makers and communities with the tools and the knowledge, at different spatial levels that they need to ensure the persistence of GI functionality and the consequent benefits to society. The MaGICLandscapes project created an assessment approach that deals with all spatial levels across CE landscapes types. It produced tools for GI assessment at the transnational level ensuring cross-border GI is understood in a way that reduces mismatched management approaches.The outputs were developed, tested and implemented across nine multi-scale and multi-thematic case studies across Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy and Poland. Those outputs include a suite of transferable tools: a series of technical manuals as well as partner-level evidence-based strategies and action plans to direct actions as well as investment and will enhance the capacities of institutions to better manage our natural heritage for future generations.The first chapter of this publication provides a description of how those tools were developed and tested in those case study areas. The second chapter describes how the tools were used to develop the strategies and action plans designed to address the specific needs of those areas such as flood control, habitat connectivity and reducing soil loss for example. The final chapter is a series of articles provided by partners, associated partners and external contributors and cover a wide range of green infrastructure issues.The MaGICLandscapes project was implemented by the CENTRAL EUROPE Programme co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund