The geology – land use – nexus

Abstract

It is crucial that today’s land uses are not decoupled even further from prevailing site conditions. Quite the contrary, the site-adequate use of natural resources ought to be mandatory. This is provided for to a certain extent by the concept of multifunctionality and the exploitation of locational geological potential. Nevertheless, an appropriate course of action has yet to be taken. This can be achieved by applying an appropriate geo-based land use concept. To this end, however, from the scientific perspective alone, there has to be a new level of quality in the interaction between the various specialist disciplines to resolve the nexus problem and to achieve systemic approaches. The gap between the knowledge available in geology and the aspired land use concepts appears to be particularly large. A land use concept that pursues a systemic approach and refers to an adequate extent to geological knowledge provides options for future site-adequate land use as the basis for respective decision-makers or decision-making processes, not any longer conducted by political constraints or economic incentives only.