Landscape planning

Landscape planning in Hessen contributes to the acceleration of approval procedures and ensures that the requirements of nature conservation can be calculated. The supra-local nature conservation objectives and requirements are presented at Land level in a landscape programme. The local requirements and measures of nature conservation and landscape management are presented on the basis of the landscape programme in landscape plans as components of the land use plans in consultation with the nature conservation authorities.

Current landscape plans provide benchmarks for the sustainable use of natural areas which can be used as a basis for other sectoral planning. In particular, with the comprehensive inventory and assessment as well as the formulation of objectives, current landscape plans are an important basis for an environmental impact assessment and the impact assessment of interventions in nature and landscape. In the landscape plans, the biotope network is also shown in particular in the form of the networking of the Natura 2000 area scenery. Both the assessment and the determination of the necessary compensation measures become comprehensible through the representation in landscape plans, the procedure is simplified and thus accelerated.

Decisions on the future use of the natural balance and on nature conservation measures must be comprehensible. Ecological interrelationships, but also the consequences for sustainable use, must therefore be presented in a comprehensible way. Information is needed on the function and values of areas and spaces as well as the importance of these areas for nature conservation.

After an appropriate environmental assessment, these expert representations are incorporated into the cross-sectional planning (landscape programme in the Land Development Plan, landscape plan in the Land Use Plan).

The agricultural department is involved as a public body in the usual participation procedures in municipal and other official landscape planning procedures.