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enhancing landscape and green spaces for human healthÂ
– are not explicitly set out.
As such, it has to be assumed that landscape-health relationships are largely irrele-
vant as a basis for political and administrative decisions, even if health impacts of
intended land use changes have to be assessed by the SEA for local land-use plans,
which, again, are mainly restricted to the avoidance or minimization of potential
negative impacts of the plan, e.g. by noise and air pollution or the release of hazard-
ous waste. More attention is paid to health in some informal planning concepts on
urban development (Claßen and Mekel 2017; Rittel et al. 2016), but there is no
strong link to landscape plans.
During the last few years, health has received increasing consideration in differ-
ent documents (and sometimes additional funding) related to issues of landscape
and urban green space planning, published by the German Ministry for Environment
and Building (German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation,
Building and Nuclear Safety, BMUB)3 and the Federal Agency for Nature
Conservation (BfN). In some cases, this is linked to the concepts of Green
Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services, which, despite many possible points of cri-
tique (e.g. Heiland et al. 2016; Silvertown 2015), suggest an intention to raise
awareness for a stronger consideration of health (and other human needs and inter-
ests) in nature conservation, landscape planning and landscape architecture.
Examples include the ‘Federal Green Infrastructure Concept’ (BfN 2017a) and its
underlying research report (Heiland et al. 2017), the reports of TEEB Germany for
urban and rural areas (Naturkapital Deutschland – TEEB DE 2016a, b), the ‘Urban
Green Infrastructure’ brochure with recommendations for municipalities (BfN
2017b) and the ‘White Paper on Urban Green’ (BMUB 2017). Rittel et al. (2016),
being a result of a research project funded by the BfN, directly addresses munici-
palities in order to use synergies between landscape planning and health. It remains
to be seen how these efforts and documents affect planning practice in the mid- to
long-term perspective.
19.3.4 Landscape Planning and Health inÂ
the UK
As in Germany, public health has only become a formal consideration within the
UK planning system relatively recently, although it should be noted that the promo-
tion of public parks in urban areas in 19th century UK was premised on the need to
protect the health of industrial workers. The current planning system is based con-
ceptually on post-WW2 Town and Country Planning legislation, which made
implicit (but not explicit) assumptions about the desirability of separating industrial
zones from residential and recreational areas, in order to protect health.
Currently, Health Impact Assessment (HIA) across the UK is promoted by the
government’s Department of Health (DH) as a means to assess the health impact of
3 Since 2018: Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety
(BMU). S. Heiland et al.
Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Title
- Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change
- Authors
- Melissa Marselle
- Jutta Stadler
- Horst Korn
- Katherine Irvine
- Aletta Bonn
- Publisher
- Springer Open
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-3-030-02318-8
- Size
- 15.5 x 24.0 cm
- Pages
- 508
- Keywords
- Environment, Environmental health, Applied ecology, Climate change, Biodiversity, Public health, Regional planning, Urban planning
- Categories
- Naturwissenschaften Umwelt und Klima