This study investigates visitors’ perceptions and preferences regarding the characteristics of deadwood in the Bavarian Forest National Park (SE-Germany). Visitor-employed photography has been used ...to collect information about visitors’ preferences. Deadwood is the second most photographed forest element which underlines its important role in forest perception. Even though deadwood photographs are evaluated significantly worse than most other forest elements, most visitors nevertheless associate deadwood photographs with a positively rated forest image. Based on the relationship between aesthetics and recreation revealed in the interviews, it can be concluded that the forest path during the hike was both pleasant and restful. This is confirmed by the post-trip interviews, showing that a higher proportion of deadwood is associated with more aesthetics or recreational value. Regarding deadwood structure results show that deadwood fragments and debris are perceived negatively, while root stocks were assessed more positively. We also found a gradient with positive evaluations increasing with progressing decomposition.
We provide an extension of the Savanna perceptual preference hypothesis ("Savanna Hypothesis"), supposing that interaction with landscapes offering survival advantage for human groups during ...evolution might have gradually evolved to permanent landscape preferences. This additional support is based on the palaeoenvironmental analysis of the spread of modern humans into Europe in the late Pleistocene and their living environments there. Our hypothesis is that the preference for park-like landscapes after African savannas experienced a kind of "refreshment" in the Pleistocene. Thus, preferences for certain types of natural settings and scenes may have a more continuous evolutionary history than previously thought. The extended Savanna Hypothesis termed "Pleistocene Hypothesis" might stimulate further work on this important topic linking human evolution and human environmental preferences.
In this contribution air temperature differences among Local Climate Zone (LCZ) categories are analysed with special consideration of varying synoptic conditions. Analyses are based upon an LCZ ...mapping for the urban area of Augsburg (Bavaria, Southern Germany) and hourly air temperature data from a comprehensive logger network. Quality checked air temperature measurements have been stratified according to season, hour of the day and weather situation. For resulting subsamples thermal differences among LCZs have been determined and appropriate statistical tests have been applied. Results confirm that built up LCZs feature higher temperatures than natural LCZs and that most distinct differences among LCZs appear under undisturbed synoptic conditions. With increasing cloudiness and in particular with increasing wind speed differences among LCZs diminish. But, even for strongly disturbed synoptic conditions statistical significance of the influence of LCZs on thermal characteristics could be assured. Thus, our findings provide clear evidence that detectable thermal differences among LCZs are not restricted to „ideal “synoptic conditions but occur as well under disturbed conditions. However, to assure not only the statistical but also the climatological and in particular the bioclimatological and human health related relevance of the documented differences among LCZs further studies incorporating appropriate metrics are intended.
Im Freistaat Bayern wird derzeit intensiv diskutiert, wie die nach wie vor hohe Freiflächeninanspruchnahme für Siedlungs- und Verkehrszwecke nachhaltig reduziert werden kann. Wissenschaftliche ...Grundlage für Steuerungsansätze in der Stadt- und Regionalentwicklung sollte ein verbessertes staatliches Flächenmonitoring sein, welches über die amtliche Flächenstatistik und deren Hauptindikator „Siedlungs- und Verkehrsfläche“ (SuV) hinaus auch die qualitative bzw. strukturelle Dimension der Flächeninanspruchnahme einbezieht. Zu diesem Zweck stellt dieser Beitrag methodische Erweiterungsansätze für das Flächenmonitoring vor, welche kleinräumige Analysen der Zersiedelung, Freiraumstruktur, Flächenversiegelung und Ökosystemleistungen am Beispiel des Landkreises Rhön-Grabfeld aufzeigen. Diese werden im Kontext der relevanten Debatten zu Ursachen und Steuerung der Flächeninanspruchnahme sowie zu aktuellen Anforderungen an das Flächenmonitoring diskutiert, sowie deren Bedeutung für das Monitoring rechtlicher Vorgaben und politischer Ziele zur nachhaltigen Flächennutzung betont.
Das Konzept der Ökosystemleistungen kann helfen, Umsetzungsdefizite der räumlichen Planung zu bewältigen und den Schutz und die nachhaltige Nutzung von Natur und Landschaft zu fördern. Die ...vielfältigen Erkenntnisse zur Anwendung in Deutschland wurden bisher jedoch noch nicht systematisch zusammengebracht und ausgewertet. Der vorliegende Beitrag stellt Thesen für einen Einsatz des Konzepts der Ökosystemleistungen in der räumlichen Planung und für eine nachhaltige Raumentwicklung vor. Die Thesen führen den Stand des Wissens zusammen und geben Empfehlungen für den Einsatz in der Praxis und für weitere Forschung. Sie sind in drei thematische Bereiche gegliedert: Thesen zum generellen Nutzen des Konzepts, zu Hemmnissen und Potenzialen des Einsatzes wie der Anbindung an Planungsinstrumente sowie Thesen zu Handlungsbedarfen in Forschung und Planung. Sie sollen Wissenschaft und Praxis motivieren, das Konzept der Ökosystemleistungen in relevanten Planungskontexten einzusetzen, es für besseren Schutz und die nachhaltige Entwicklung von Natur und Landschaft zu nutzen und somit Transformationsprozesse zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung zu unterstützen.
The concept of ecosystem services can help to overcome implementation deficits in spatial planning and to promote the protection and sustainable use of nature and landscape. However, diverse findings on the concept's application in Germany have not yet been brought together and evaluated. The aim of this paper is to present theses on the meaningful and effective use of ecosystem services in spatial planning and the promotion of sustainable spatial development. The theses are intended to summarize the state of knowledge and provide recommendations for use in practice and for further research. They are divided into three thematic areas: Theses on the benefits of the ecosystem services concept, on obstacles and potentials of its use and theses on needs for action. The theses are intended to motivate practitioners and scientists to apply the ecosystem services concept in appropriate planning contexts, to use it for better protection and development of nature and landscape, and to support transformation processes towards sustainable development.
•Visitors cluster along major paths or regions in urban and rural forest.•Recreation of the local population is highly driven by relaxation.•Forest structures and demographic factors play a minor ...role for forest benefits.•Forest benefits do not strongly vary within the area of the forests.•Forest management should focus on avoiding nuisances to support forest benefits.
Research on recreation in forests often aims at quantifying the recreational area, counting the numbers of visitors, or assessing the attractiveness of forest characteristics. The nature and spatial patterns of local recreation within a forest area are far harder to detect. Recreational behavior and perceived forest benefits (FB) such as fresh air or tranquility are weakly studied.
We investigated local recreation in an urban and a rural forest in southern Germany during a summer and a winter survey. We mapped the visitors’ paths and asked them to rate FB and to name reasons for pathway choice. We analyzed visitors’ patterns of perceived FB and spatial behavior.
Forest visitors concentrated their use along existing paths in limited parts of both forests. Most parts of the forest were used by multiple recreation groups, while specific groups (e.g., cyclists) dominated only small parts. Forest visitors gave high ratings to FB such as fresh air, experiencing nature, escaping everyday life, or health. Spatial clusters of similarly perceived FB were detectable but not fundamental in both forests. A regression analysis showed that FB ratings were significantly affected by visitor groups and insignificantly affected by forest characteristics or demographic factors. Pathway choice was dominantly driven by habit, spontaneity, or vicinity to the visitors’ homes and not attributable to specific forest characteristics.
In sum, we found a weak connection between recreational behavior and demand for specific forest characteristics. For local recreation, we recommend to provide a basic level of highly rated FB and to avoid nuisances rather than designing forests for a desired appearance.
There is increasing concern that precipitation and temperature extremes may be changing in frequency and character as a result of changing climate, and the latter is mostly linked with particular ...changes in the atmospheric circulation. Therefore the question arises - a key question in the climate change prospective - as to how precipitation and temperature extremes are related to large-scale atmospheric circulation types? To study such relationships over an extended period of more than one and a half centuries, we include daily precipitation and temperature time series compiled during the EU project EMULATE (European and North Atlantic daily to multidecadal climate variability) back to 1850 as well as daily mean SLP reconstructions from the same project for the same period. The latter data set has been used for classifying daily circulation types for each season using a simulated annealing clustering technique. Comparing each of these circulation types with their percentages among extreme days and among non-extreme days (with respect to precipitation or temperature) clearly reveals that in most cases only a few of the seasonal circulation types are conducive to the occurrence of daily extremes. This is shown for heavy precipitation and positive temperature extremes (beyond the 98th percentile in each case), related to the winter (DJF) and summer (JJA) seasons for a central European region. Different circulation patterns proved to be important in this context. Thus, in contrast to positive temperature extremes during winter being linked preferably to zonal circulation patterns (positive mode of the North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO), heavy winter precipitation in central Europe is distinctly associated with less zonal patterns characterized by an eastward or southeastward shift of the subpolar centre of low pressure implying only weak correlations with the NAO. Furthermore, particular indices reveal that changing frequencies of extremes are not only due to corresponding frequency changes of these conducive circulation types, but also to changes of their association to precipitation or temperature extremes (reflected by changes in the percentage of extremes related to the overall occurrence of the corresponding circulation type). These within-type changes of circulation types often govern the low-frequency variations in the overall incidence of extremes.
Natur und naturnahe Landschaften können menschliches Wohlbefinden stärken, Krankheiten lindern und eine raschere Genesung bewirken. Dieser positive Einfluss wird mit dem Konzept der "Therapeutischen ...Landschaften" operationalisiert. Neu für die Diskussion ist, das gesundheitsfördernde Potenzial von Landschaften in der Psychoonkologie zu nutzen: Der therapeutische Aufenthalt in der Natur und das Betrachten schöner Landschaft verspricht Krebspatient(inn)en Hilfe bei Begleiterscheinungen wie depressiven Verstimmungen, Ängsten und Ermüdungserscheinungen. Keywords: health resources, nature therapy, psycho-oncology, salutogenesis, therapeutic landscapes
Natur und naturnahe Landschaften können menschliches Wohlbefinden stärken, Krankheiten lindern und eine raschere Genesung bewirken. Dieser positive Einfluss wird mit dem Konzept der ,,Therapeutischen ...Landschaften" operationalisiert. Neu für die Diskussion ist, das
gesundheitsfördernde Potenzial von Landschaften in der Psychoonkologie zu nutzen: Der therapeutische Aufenthalt in der Natur und das Betrachten schöner Landschaft verspricht Krebspatient(inn)en Hilfe bei Begleiterscheinungen wie depressiven Verstimmungen, Ängsten und Ermüdungserscheinungen.
Contact with nature can help to reduce stress, enhance stress resilience, promote mental and physical health and has a positive impact on people’s mood. Beside urban park and residential green, ...recreation in urban forests can act as therapeutic means. From a climatological point of view, urban and periurban forests and green spaces provide a number of benefits particularly including air temperature and humidity control as well as air pollution reduction. Due to their compensating thermal effects urban green and urban forests may help to counteract potentially health relevant effects of urban warming. The main objective of our study is to explore the quantification of forest recreation based on measurement campaigns for the combined simultaneous recording of relevant features along routes comprising varying urban structural types (ranging from built up to densely forested areas). Combining data on subjective well-being and objective data on human physiology can help to quantify health effects of varying environments. The study area is the urban forest of Augsburg, in the German Federal State of Bavaria, Southern Germany.
Our results substantiate clear cut and statistically significant climatic differences among varying urban environments (i.e. local climate zone categories) and prove the potential positive effects of urban forests/urban green on bioclimatic conditions (e.g. via a reduction in maximum air temperatures during summer). Moreover, the beneficial effects of urban green structures on human physiological parameters (e.g. reductions in heart rate) could be verified.
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