Dear Stephan,

Of course your research initiative covers a vast variety of scholarly fields. But as far as the ones I am familiar with are concerned, one of the themes that I think might need intensive research in the coming years is the issue of the urbanization of the fringes of expanding urban areas, where competing logics between urban uses, agricultural lands and infrastructures compete. It is one of the main challenges for spatial planning in the coming years in Europe and elsewhere. There is also the issue of the "renaturalization" of urban, peri-urban, post-industrial and infrastructure related lands: here, soil management, infrastructure studies, urban studies and regional planning studies have to converge in order to reflect on sustainable solutions.

I am glad you opened this dialogue and hope these remarks are useful

Best regards

denis

Dear Stephan,

Of course your research initiative covers a vast variety of scholarly fields. But as far as the ones I am familiar with are concerned, one of the themes that I think might need intensive research in the coming years is the issue of the urbanization of the fringes of expanding urban areas, where competing logics between urban uses, agricultural lands and infrastructures compete. It is one of the main challenges for spatial planning in the coming years in Europe and elsewhere. There is also the issue of the "renaturalization" of urban, peri-urban, post-industrial and infrastructure related lands: here, soil management, infrastructure studies, urban studies and regional planning studies have to converge in order to reflect on sustainable solutions.

I am glad you opened this dialogue and hope these remarks are useful

Best regards

denis

1) I agree that the main strategic spatial issue is designating appropriate land use patterns for human settlement, intensive agriculture or ecological/recreational buffers.  Presumably, the process involves a) identifying flood and other risks, b) designating high value ecological / hydrological parcels to limit sprawl or ill-considered urbanization which depletes ecological or agricultural capital.  On the other hand, people need somewhere suitable to dwell (as opposed to subsist).  This brings me to the second strategic issue of identifying spatial injustices (like access to quality education/healthcare and distance from pollution sources) so public investment is targeted not at elitist enclaves but to redress social deprivation. 

2) Often scientific experts are more concerned with the esoteric modelling not actually talking to local people so connecting science to policy/practice will involve sustained dialogue at local level - nowadays social medial could help foster more participatory planning.

3) In the current unstable financial climate, I doubt substantive funding will be forthcoming to implement a research program which could constrain short-term commercial impulses.

Interesting project, question and approach to use research gate for this. 

I would argue for research which contributes for assessing the efficiency of land use from the point of view of sustainable development. Many policies (including those that explicity aim for SD goals) have implications for land use: protection of BioDiv, Bio fuels and use of bio based raw materials, renewable energies, organic food, etc. Is all this coherent? How can efficiency of use measured and inform decision making, while considering also non-monetary values (or alternatively improving the data base for monetarization). 

Best Klaus 

Dear Denis, Simon and Klaus,

Dear soil and land researchers,

Thank you for your first responses!

Indeed, the competition for the scarce resource land / soil is obvious – and one role of research is to support evidence based decision making on the different respective levels from the farm and local planning to global direct and indirect land use changes.

That being said, we have to understand the competing interests (may they be of obvious nature between rational actors or of indirect nature by considering future generations or existence values), but don’t we also have research needs with regard to our understanding on how land and soil management impacts on the soil functions and the derived ecosystem services? These are meant to be just two examples of domains, where more specific research needs might be located, e.g. --> What soil functions are most critical? Which interactions are least known? Which governance support can enable more sustainable land management?

I am looking forward for further contributions on what you regard as strategic research needs concerning land-use, soil management and spatial planning in Europe. Thank you!

Best regards,

Stephan

Dear colleagues, the focus on "soil" and "planning" needs your explanation. Soil is not a bottom up category in my contacts with farmers, but rather an a priori professional perspective. Similarly, land-use planning is used by a very specific professional guild inspired by FAOs soil-based land evaluation and the USDA.

As a practitioner, I have seen too many land-use planners trying to second guess farmers on what crop should be grown, without success. Soil is relatively manageable on farm level compared to climate and market access.

I would rather opt for land use zoning in the Dale & McLaughing 1999 definition. A well established statutory instrument to spatiality optimize various sectors throughout Europe (and elsewhere). Klaus comes closest to my concern by reference to coherence. The various policies, say on agriculture, bio-energy, wind turbines, solar parks, biodiversity, road infrastructure and tourism are not necessarily spatially at each zoning level (local, regional national). There is certainly a great scope for research on the effectiveness of land use zoning in reaching its declared goals across a number of countries.

Dear followers of this question,

If you are interested in an update on the information collated in seventeen countries that are participating in the INSPIRATION project, you can find more info in the attached publication.

Best regards,

Stephan

http://www.inspiration-h2020.eu

Technical Report INSPIRATION: National report on collated information followi...

Basis established for European Strategic Research Agenda on soil, land-use and land management

Happy to announce availability of the latest report of the INSPIRATION project. The report contains a review and syntheses of information on research demands on soil, land-use and land management as well as on science-policy-interface and funding options. This information was obtained for 17 European states and was collated via a truly bottom-up, participatory process, engaging about 500 stakeholders.

The information will be now synthesized to define a shared European Strategic Research Agenda as well as options for its funding and implementation in the next two years. Stay in touch with the project by subscribing to its newsletter by sending a mail to [email protected] or follow via Twitter @inspiration4eu

https://twitter.com/inspiration4eu

http://www.inspiration-h2020.eu/page/newsletters

Technical Report INSPIRATION - National reports with a review and synthesis o...

I can recommend you this ESPON project that is just about to start:

https://www.researchgate.net/project/ESPON-SUPER-Sustainable-Urbanization-and-Land-Use-Practices-in-European-Regions