GIS Application in Landscape Planning

Geographic Information Systems have become of increasing significance for environmental planning, landscape planning and environmental impact studies in recent years. The main reason for this is the need, in Environmental Planning, to compare a great number of area-related data describing the affected natural resources and their sensitivity related to the effects of impacts. because GIS can be used to couple area-related data with their attributes, and can be used to overlay these, it represents a highly efficient instrument for such planning tasks. Environmental Impact Studies additionally need the prediction of environmental effects of impacts. Therefore Model approaches or risk analyses have to be imbedded in the GIS Technology. This paper describes some of the basic application methods by using a Geographic Information System. Project work and GIS application in connection with model-appoaches are demonstrated with several examples from existing project work: • The WÜRM VALLEY STUDY, an EIA Study for problems of increased traffic in the WürmValley, south of the City of Munich • Impacts of the New AIRPORT MUNICH II on the region and problems of urban development and increased traffic. • Sustainable Environmental Management in the crossborder region of the Bavarian forest Böhmerwald (Sumava) and Mühlviertel (upper Austria). The chosen examples from landscape planning and environmental impact studies have been worked out by using GIS and environmental modelling capabilities. For every project a different issue based GIS Project Information System was created and evaluated. 1. THE WÜRM VALLEY STUDY The Würm Valley is a recreational area southeast of Munich and one of the city's preferred residential areas. The area suffers from heavy traffic pressures because of the attractiveness of the landscape in close proximity to Munich. Together with the Regional Planning Authority of Munich and a working group of planning offices supported by the various local municipalities, the Federal Ministry of the Environment and the Bavarian Ministry of Works have financed an integrated study of the environmental impacts associated with various traffic scenarios. In contrast to standard environmental impact studies, a whole traffic network has been under evaluation instead of just one road. A basic GIS was created using paramters such as natural resource data: • geology, • soils, • groundwater, • elevation, • vegetation and fauna. Land use data such as: • traffic network, existing and planned, • land use types and land use planning were also included at a scale of 1:25.000. In order to describe the status quo, traffic counts were carried out. In addition, present land uses were interpreted from false-colour infrared aerial photographs and land use plans from the local 'Photogrammetric Week '95', D. Fritsch & D. Hobbie, Eds., Wichmann Verlag, Heidelberg, 1995