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A profound understanding of actors’ perspectives on issues to be resolved is essential for researchers and practitioners in integrated natural resource management. Existing mental model approaches ...

Forest frontiers worldwide reveal trade-offs that are key in mitigating global change. In the forest frontiers of northeast Madagascar, land-use changes result from decisions made by smallholder fa...

Multi-objective optimization can be used to solve land-use allocation problems involving multiple conflicting objectives. In this paper, we show how genetic algorithms can be improved in order to effectively and efficiently solve multi-objective land-use allocation problems. Our focus lies on improving crossover and mutation operators of the genetic algorithms. We tested a range of different approaches either based on the literature or proposed for the first time. We applied them to a land-use allocation problem in Switzerland including two conflicting objectives: ensuring compact urban development and reducing the loss of agricultural productivity. We compared all approaches by calculating hypervolumes and by analysing the spread of the produced non-dominated fronts. Our results suggest that a combination of different mutation operators, of which at least one includes spatial heuristics, can help to find well-distributed fronts of non-dominated solutions. The tested modified crossover operators did not significantly improve the results. These findings provide a benchmark for multi-objective optimization of land-use allocation problems with promising prospectives for solving complex spatial planning problems.

Land-use models can be used to assess the importance of different drivers of land-use change. Local actors make land-use decisions on the basis of both biophysical and policy aspects, but they can also be considered as autonomous drivers as their attitudes and beliefs influence land-use substantially. We use a Bayesian network-based Land-use Modeling Approach (BLUMAP) to analyze influences of local actor characteristics on land-use change in a spatially explicit manner. Our analysis shows that local actor characteristics have a greater influence on land-use change than changes in agricultural policy schemes. Furthermore, focusing on the probabilities of land-use occurrence under different scenarios facilitates the quantification of influences of local actor characteristics on land-use changes and aids in the detection of where land-use changes are more likely to occur. We demonstrate that local actor characteristics could override land-use policy trends; thus, greater consideration should be paid to actor...

Mountain forests are recognized as an effective biological protection measure against snow avalanches. To investigate how forests decelerate snow avalanches, we analyzed two data sets from the European Alps. The first data set contained 43 small to medium avalanches which released in forests and either stopped in forested terrain within 50 to 400 m or ran through forests and stopped in unforested terrain with a maximum runout distance of 700 m. The second data set consisted of 44 medium to large avalanches (360 to 1800 m in runout distance) which all stopped within forests, but started above treeline. Statistical dependencies between predictor variables on forest conditions, terrain features and avalanche characteristics (60 in total), and the response variable avalanche runout distance were investigated. Clear differences between avalanches that released in forests and avalanches that released above forests were observed. Forest structural parameters, in particular the starting zone stem density...

Climate change and its complex, heterogenous and long-term impacts challenge the traditional spatially and temporally restricted instruments of spatial planning. This paper suggests a methodological framework for backcasting to support spatial adaptation to predicted climate changes. Starting from a vision of the future, backcasting infers information about the constituents of a system using knowledge about the behavior of the system and its structure. In popular terms, backcasting plans from a single future vision of a desirable outcome, followed by the question “what shall we do today to get to the desired future situation?”, thus freeing constraints caused by the current situation and opening the mind for future options. It provides a broad and flexible enough platform for a set of strategies to address future uncertainties and insure the realization of the vision. Strategic backcasting involves various stakeholders in the discussion of alternative visions and in the development and implementation of flexible measures, and is thus useful for coordinating spatial planning instruments. For addressing quantitative spatial problems, inverse modeling has shown to be a valuable expansion of strategic backcasting. Yet, for a successful implementation of such approaches, current planning systems have to evolve: (1) participation, bottomup processes and informal instruments need to be further developed, (2) a regional perspective and responsibility has to be taken by planners, and (3) sectoral measures should be combined strongly and implemented integratively in system- oriented strategies to secure the multifunctionality of landscapes and reduce the vulnerability of our environment to climate changes.

Communication of natural hazard assessment results is crucial to protect people and infrastructure from devastating impacts of extreme events. While hazard maps provide important information on potential impacts, their interpretation and the general knowledge exchange between stakeholders is often difficult. Web-based information systems contain the potential to support hazard management tasks by fast distribution and customization of hazard visualizations through interactive functionality. Cartographic principles are, however, often ignored in existing web-based visualizations which leads to poor graphical results and consequently to an impairment of the information flow. While these issues need to be solved, a new task is already waiting: the integration of uncertainty information into hazard visualizations. Since many hazard management activities rely on hazard assessment results, communication of associated uncertainties among experts is vital. The challenge of this research is to overcome these exist...

Contemporary studies on sustainability indicator systems (SISs) typically focus on the technical advancement of indicator construction, on qualitative impacts of indicator programmes and on impacts on governance, decision-making and sustainability as a social construct. Yet, their implementation so far has rarely been addressed, even though monitoring and the use of indicator results fall far behind the number of SISs developed. This study aims at the identification of requirements for the development of and constraints to the implementation of SISs in five Asian cities of developing countries. Interviews with local key actors are held, and a qualitative content analysis is carried out. Findings include evidence on the degree of indicator implementation in the case study cities, a hexagonal model for the classification of requirements and constraints, as well as general conclusions for barriers to the use of SISs.