The interactive landscape plan: Use and benefits of new technologies in landscape planning and discussion of the interactive landscape plan in Koenigslutter am Elm, Germany

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Information technologies (IT) provide new approaches for better access to environmental information and for improving the implementation of environmental goals in landscape planning. Many potentially suitable tools already exist. However, most have been developed in a different planning context, such as town planning or environmental impact assessment, and are only partly suitable for the comprehensive task of landscape planning. A number of important questions concerning the application of these tools in landscape planning remain unanswered: which types of tools are needed to solve the problems in landscape planning?; must these tools be adapted to the special conditions of landscape planning?; how should they be co-ordinated and ultimately integrated into a landscape planning support system? An analysis of the implementation problems in German landscape planning and the potentials of IT suggests new approaches and answers to these questions. This paper explores the effective use of IT in landscape planning and describes a model landscape planning support system that was developed and tested during the research project ‘Interactive Landscape Plan’ in Koenigslutter am Elm, Germany. The pilot project incorporated important components of an IT-supported landscape planning system: a geographical information system (GIS), tools for the support of communication in public participation, visualization tools and Decision Support Systems (DSSs). The project offers ‘open-source’ solutions, including a newly developed on-line participation tool, and an evaluation of selected visualization tools.