Kiel University is starting a new study which aims to gather farmers’ ideas of environmental planning in the region and develop the ideas to scenarios. These scenarios could then be used by the farmers themselves but also others who have power in land-use questions. The study is done in three steps.

Starting in October 2011, 25 students from Kiel University (Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) will begin to develop qualitative models of the pilot study region in Schleswig-Holstein. The single models will describe important elements of the environment like water management in a lake or a river, average land use patterns, etc. The set of single models will in a second step be combined to a regional overview model which can be the basis for the description of the area, its sensitive parts and main influencing factors as well as its developmental perspectives. This, again, may become the starting point for a regional Decision Support System (DSS) that can enable farmers, planners, stakeholders and others to develop scenarios with different input parameters (water regime, climatic development) and / or different types of farmer´s decisions (plant energy crops only, develop in a totally ecological direction, etc.) and get an indication of the possible consequences for their region.

This University project, carried out in cooperation between the University of Kiel and the State Agency of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas of Schleswig-Holstein (LLUR), is also a part of the communication concept, one of Schleswig-Holstein´s major project inputs to Baltic Compass. The basic idea of the concept is to start a project or idea development bottom up, that is from the local or regional actors, rather than top down. So within this project, farmers have contributed substantially to the knowledge of the region and the possible solutions, and they will be involved in this modelling project in order to identify the main parameters influencing the regional situation as well as their decisions.

The background information stem from the region itself and from ”real” monitoring data, so it will have a direct correlation to real landscape situations. The major factors influencing the farmer´s work will be collected from the farmers themselves, carrying out strucured interviews in the region.

Contact for further information:

Prof. Dr. Uwe Rammert, Carina Hörtdörfer
State Agency of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas
Hamburger Chaussee 5
D-24220 Flintbek, Germany
Mail: uwe.rammert@llur.landsh.de ; carina.hoertdoerfer@llur.landsh.de