Abstract
Open spaces in the Alps are affected by the extension of human infrastructure and landscape fragmentation. Wide parts of the Alps are continuously affected by soil consumption, while this contrasts with protocols of the Alpine Convention. Conventional planning within administrative boundaries leads to isolated protected landscapes with a lack of coordination. The Interreg Alpine Space OpenSpaceAlps project therefore addressed the question of which priority criteria exist for a better cooperation to harmonize open spaces across regional and national boundaries to safeguard them.
Three rounds of focus group workshops were conducted in three different cross-border case study areas to find the most endangered types of open spaces, for revealing the transferability of possible solutions from other alpine regions and to find harmonization potentials.
The results are showing that ecological landscapes, agricultural areas and areas for recreation are endangered types of open spaces with low protection status. A need for harmonization through spatial planning is given especially for multifunctional green zones in the valley bottoms, for regional landscape plans as well as for plans combining quiet zones with the development aspect in tourism destinations. Workshop participants in general were more convinced of integrative planning instruments to safeguard open spaces. Sectoral instruments against disturbing infrastructure are more difficult to transfer and integrate in other Alpine regions.
It was deduced that future spatial planning processes to harmonize open spaces in the Alps should focus on the analysis and safeguarding of areas based on criteria for landscape permeability to connect areas with a high ecological value, as well as on the productivity of multifunctional agricultural land based on natural yield conditions and continuous size. A third important category are areas for recreation in high distance to disturbing infrastructure.