Compensating for Loss of Nature and Landscape in a Growing City—Berlin Case Study

Gösta F. M. Baganz () and Daniela Baganz
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Gösta F. M. Baganz: Senate Department for the Environment, Urban Mobility, Consumer Protection and Climate Action, 10179 Berlin, Germany
Daniela Baganz: Department of Fish Biology, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Müggelseedamm 310, 12587 Berlin, Germany

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-18

Abstract: By 2030, around 194,000 new dwellings will be built in Berlin, including almost 52,000 in 16 new urban districts. These and other interventions will impact the city’s nature and landscape. An important means of compensating for these losses is a land-use planning eco-account adapted to Berlin’s needs. It relies on a whole-city compensation concept consisting of three pillars: flagship projects, thematic programmes, and the integrated enhancement of existing land uses. Impacts can be offset in advance via the eco-account. The institutional and legal backgrounds, as well as the allocation of compensations to interventions and the principle of the loss–gain calculation using value points, are presented. Housing construction and its preponed compensation trigger land-use changes. Critical factors affecting this process were identified and categorised as population development, housing requirement, resulting intervention, land-use change, and preponed compensation. A modified causal loop diagram was created to visualise the interdependencies and link the polarities of the derived key variables. The challenges of compensation without a net loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, as well as solutions for avoiding impacts to achieve the goal of no net land take, are discussed. The compensatory approach presented here could be transferred to other growing cities.

Keywords: causal relations; citywide compensation concept; eco-account; glossary; impact mitigation regulation; land securing; land-use change; mitigation banking; urban land-use planning; value-points (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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