Landscape Planning and Environmental Systems (for MSc RE&IS)

Abstract

The aim of the course is to understand how interactions between humans and their environment shape landscapes and vice versa. This understanding provides the basis for planning and managing landscapes to strengthen their resilience to future climatic and socio-economic changes. Core concepts are complemented by GIS-based approaches and applied in group work.

Objective

By the end of the course, students will be able to: - Explain the historical development and contemporary conceptualizations of landscape. - Describe the structure and function of environmental systems and their role in shaping landscapes. - Interpret landscape metrics and conceptual frameworks for landscape patterns and change. - Identify and discuss key ecosystem services, plural landscape values, and landscape aesthetics. - Explain the goals, methods, and instruments of landscape planning in Swiss and European contexts. - Critically reflect on trade-offs and synergies that occur in landscapes and stakeholder interests. - Discuss application areas including nature-based solutions, area-based conservation, and integrated spatial planning. - Identify and justify the appropriate use of GIS and programmatic tools for spatial analysis tasks. - Build conceptual models that link research questions, data, and methods. - Compute landscape metrics and apply statistical land-use change models to analyse landscape structure and its drivers. - Apply process-based and machine-learning approaches to assess ecosystem services and urban climate. - Implement raster-based multi-criteria decision analysis for spatial planning problems. - Apply methods to model and improve ecological connectivity through nature-based solutions and area-based conservation. - Communicate landscape planning and spatial analysis results through maps, infographics, planning reports, presentations and policy briefs.

Content

The lecture component is structured in four parts. Part I introduces landscape as a concept and frames environmental systems as its biophysical backbone. Part II addresses landscape structures, the data and metrics used to assess them, and the dynamics of landscape change. Part III covers the valuation of the landscape through ecosystem services, plural and economic landscape values, and landscape aesthetics. Part IV addresses application and implementation with nature-based solutions, area-based conservation and connectivity, and integrated spatial planning, with attention to Swiss landscape policy instruments. The computational approaches exercises run in parallel to the lecture. The first four weeks introduce the methods and tools used in the course, core concepts of spatial analysis, set up the collaborative structure of the groups, and include a presentation. The following weeks are devoted to group exercises. Each exercise frames a planning or assessment problem in a Swiss landscape context.

Resources