Christian Albert
Biographic Data
| ID | 3703725 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christian Albert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christian |
| FAMILY NAME | Albert |
| SIGNATURE | ALBERT C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Leibniz University Hannover |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2591-4779 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 43 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 86 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 43 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Mapping Urban Green Space Soundscape Quality from PPGIS
Urban green spaces (UGSs) are among the most important settings for high-quality soundscapes in cities, yet tools for spatially explicit identification and characterization of soundscape quality remain limited for green space planning. This research develops a predictive and mapping framework for perceived soundscape quality in UGSs by integrating perceptual data collected through public participation geographic information systems, multi-scale e…
Landscape planning for transformative change in social-ecological systems
In Europe, landscape planning has demonstrated its capacity to guide more sustainable landscape development and support biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people (NCP), yet its potential to enable transformative change at the scale and pace required remains insufficiently understood. This Perspective critically explores how landscape planning may need to transform in order to act as a catalyst for achieving transformative change in social…
Who leads matters
Existing nature-based solutions (NbS) typologies prioritize technical form, ecosystem function or spatial scale and treat governance as secondary, limiting their ability to explain variation in feasibility, coordination, persistence and scaling. We propose a governance-informed typology anchored in implementation leadership—defined as the actor or coalition in which constitutive levers (decision authority, resource control and stewardship respons…
Evaluating trends in the consideration of urban green spaces in strategic spatial planning
In Europe, strategic spatial planning is increasingly recognized as a public-sector-led approach that brings together multiple actors in collaborative settings to build long-term visions for urban development. Despite the growing importance of urban green spaces (UGS) in fostering sustainable and liveable cities, systematic longitudinal and comparative analyses of UGS integration into strategic urban plans remain scarce. Drawing on established no…
Planning for transformative change with nature-based solutions
Geodesign is key for crafting innovative plans, managing trade-offs, and involving stakeholders. • A geodesign process was implemented in Stockholm, involving fourteen stakeholders. • Participants drafted transformative plans addressing local housing needs and promoting biodiversity and ecosystem services. • Participants found proposed transformative change desirable but were skeptical about its plausibility and probability. • It is crucial to st…
Why do people visit or avoid public green spaces? Insights from an online map-based survey in Bochum, Germany
Public green spaces (PGS) have the capacity to fulfil the needs and interests of diverse groups of urban dwellers and thus contribute to their well-being. However, PGS designers and managers usually lack spatially disaggregated information on how PGS is used, by whom, and for what reasons. This study aims to assess spatial PGS visitation and avoidance patterns and their respective determinants using the city of Bochum, Germany as a case study. Th…
Pathways for biodiversity enhancement in German agricultural landscapes
Conserving biodiversity, especially in agricultural landscapes, is a major societal challenge. Broad scientific evidence exists on the impacts of single drivers on biodiversity, such as the intensification of agriculture. However, halting biodiversity decline requires a systemic understanding of the interactions between multiple drivers, which has hardly been achieved so far. Selecting Germany as a case study, the goal of our analysis is (i) to u…
Operational principles for fostering transformative qualities and capacities in higher education sustainability science and practice
Education for sustainability is widely recognised as a critical pathway for driving the transformations needed to address today’s polycrisis. Despite growing theoretical and conceptual advancements in sustainability education, current approaches have not achieved the deep systemic changes required. While university networks and individual institutions increasingly integrate sustainability into their education, concerns persist that transformative…
Modelling monetary and non-monetary flows of recreational ecosystem services in Germany
While policy interest and research on recreational ecosystem services (RES) has increased substantially, insights into the actual flows of benefits to people have remained scarce, especially at levels beyond local communities. This paper aims to model RES Flows and Benefits for Germany in monetary and non-monetary terms. We use Germany as a case study due its diversity of landscapes and availability of relevant spatial and empirical data. We deve…
Geodesign to advance boundary work in urban planning
Geodesign supports collaborative urban planning by managing ‘boundaries’ between diverse knowledge holders. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence of its contribution to ‘boundary work’. This paper aims to evaluate how a geodesign process facilitates knowledge co-production through boundary work and to assess the scientific credibility, political saliency, and procedural legitimacy of its outputs in urban planning. We propose a replica…
Multiple ways to bend the curve of biodiversity loss
Humans are significantly impacting ecosystems worldwide. Scientists of the IPBES Global Assessment are therefore calling for a transformative change that includes all aspects of society in order to address drivers of biodiversity loss. However, these calls are rather abstract, and thus it remains unclear how this goal can be achieved. With this conceptual contribution, we present an analytical framework for evaluating existing processes of societ…
Geodesign as a boundary management process
Geodesign is a participatory research and planning process that manages diverse boundaries and combines place-based local knowledge and values, design and planning expertise, and geographic information science for the purpose of collaborative and well-informed spatial planning. It is particularly effective in managing boundaries between stakeholders, knowledge frameworks, and technology. Geodesign is valuable in the early stages of planning, faci…
Mainstreaming biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people in Europe and Central Asia
Recent global and regional assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) show that Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) are under an alarming threat due to the continuing loss of biodiversity. These assessments call for increasing conservation efforts and a more sustainable use of biodiversity to enhance the chances of halting biodiversity loss and reversing current trends. One of th…
Biodiversity and ecosystem services dashboards to inform landscape and urban planning
Guiding the transformation of cities and regions towards more sustainable pathways requires a deep understanding of the complexities of socio-ecological systems. This entails gaining insights into the status and trends of biodiversity, ecosystems and their services (BES), as well as navigating complex governance and power structures, particularly in contested spaces. Digital dashboards, understood as visual representations of key information, cou…
Science on ecosystems and people to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
In December 2022, members of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) (https://www.cbd.int/gbf/targets/) to guide international biodiversity conservation efforts until 2030 in order to be able to live ‘in harmony with nature’ by 2050. This framework addresses the implementation gap left after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which were the previous global instrument for mainstreami…
Disconnection from nature
The human relationship with nature is a topic that has been explored throughout human history. More recently, the idea of connection to nature has merged as an important transdisciplinary field of study. Despite increased scholarly attention to connection to nature, the notion of disconnection from nature remains undertheorized and understudied. In this perspective article, we argue for a more comprehensive understanding of disconnection from nat…
Mapping and assessing ecosystem services for sustainable policy and decision-making in Eritrea
The mapping and assessment of ecosystems and their services (MAES) is key to inform sustainable policy and decision-making at national and sub-national levels. Responding to the paucity of research in sub-Saharan Africa, we conduct a pilot study for Eritrea that aims to map and assess the temporal dynamics of key ecosystems and their services. We reviewed policy and legal documents, analyzed land cover changes and estimated the potential for ecos…
Access to urban green spaces in Hannover
City dwellers' accessibility of urban green spaces (UGS) has recently gained immense interest in research and policy. Related scientific studies thus far have focused primarily on spatial distances, largely missing considerations of UGS qualities. We analysed the entire UGS setting of Hannover considering the recreational nature quality and potential demands to identify age-appropriate green spaces by applying a geographic information system anal…
Comparing landscape value patterns between participatory mapping and geolocated social media content across Europe
In this study, we bring together participatory mapping and analysis of geolocated social media content from the Flickr platform in an assessment of similarities and differences in their utility for landscape value elicitation. We do so in a Pan-European context comparing types of landscape values and their spatial patterns across 19 case sites in 11 European countries. Across these sites, we find great variety in volume, types and spatial pattern…
Important places in landscape – investigating the determinants of perceived landscape value in the suburban area of Wrocław, Poland
Landscape planning studies usually consider landscape values through expert assessments of landscape aesthetic quality. Combining such expert assessments with people’s perceptions as derived from citizen-based approaches is advisable, but scientific knowledge gaps exist regarding explanatory variables of perceived landscape values. This study aims to investigate determinants of landscape value as perceived by citizens. The suburban area of Wrocla…
Knowledge co‐production and researcher roles in transdisciplinary environmental management projects
Calls for transformative change and participatory modes of knowledge production demand researchers to assume new roles. This paper synthesizes the literature on knowledge co‐production and researcher roles to explore challenges for researchers involved in transdisciplinary environmental management projects. Our research methods combine a scoping review and reflections on personal experiences with three transdisciplinary projects. To conceptualize…
Using meaningful places as an indicator for sense of place in the management of social-ecological systems
Sense of place is increasingly advocated to support the management of social-ecological systems. Given the concept’s complexity, we suggest that an indicator for sense of place is needed to facilitate its application in practical planning. We propose such an indicator called “meaningful places,” defined as geographic locations to which (i) immediately perceived as well as socially constructed meanings are ascribed and (ii) evaluative attachments …
Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene
The scale, pace, and intensity of human activity on the planet demands radical departures from the status quo to remain within planetary boundaries and achieve sustainability. The steering arms of society including embedded financial, legal, political, and governance systems must be radically realigned and recognize the connectivity among social, ecological, and technological domains of urban systems to deliver more just, equitable, sustainable, …
Spatially assessing unpleasant places with hard- and soft-GIS methods
This paper explores the visual, acoustic and olfactory impairments to landscape aesthetic quality in a river landscape case study, using hard- and soft-GIS approaches. The research objectives are (1) to develop a model that localizes the spatial distribution of areas likely perceived as unpleasant and assesses the intensity of visual, acoustic and olfactory impairments in those areas by using a hard-GIS method, and (2) to test the statistical val…
Nature-based recreation in Germany
Planning nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) find increasing attention as actions to address societal challenges through harnessing ecological processes, yet knowledge gaps exist regarding approaches to landscape planning with NBS. This paper aims to provide suggestions of how planning NBS can be conceptualized and applied in practice. We develop a framework for planning NBS by merging insights from literature and a case study in the Lahn river landscape, German…
Knowledge co‐production and researcher roles in transdisciplinary environmental management projects
Calls for transformative change and participatory modes of knowledge production demand researchers to assume new roles. This paper synthesizes the literature on knowledge co‐production and researcher roles to explore challenges for researchers involved in transdisciplinary environmental management projects. Our research methods combine a scoping review and reflections on personal experiences with three transdisciplinary projects. To conceptualize…
Constraints and opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy
Governance models for nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) for mitigating climate change are gaining popularity. The number of NBS is increasing, but research gaps still exist at the governance level. The objectives of this paper are (i) to give an overview of the implemented NBS for flood risk management and mitigation in Germany, (ii) to identify governance models that are applied, and (iii) to explore the differences between these models. The results of a hierarchical clus…
Exploring the uptake of nature-based measures in flood risk management
Practical applications of ecosystem services in spatial planning
The integration of ecosystem service (ES) knowledge into decision-making processes is increasingly endorsed by various policies and initiatives, with spatial planning targeted as one of the most relevant fields. Learning and feeding back from existing experiences is therefore a fundamental step to ensure appropriate and useful support by ES science. This paper aims to gather and critically analyse how ES science contributes to spatial planning pr…
Using Geodesign as a boundary management process for planning nature-based solutions in river landscapes
Planning with nature-based solutions (NBS) presents a participatory approach that harnesses actions supported by nature to address societal challenges. Whilst Geodesign may facilitate participatory planning, manage boundaries between participants, and assess impacts of NBS, empirical insights remain scarce. This paper aims to develop and test a Geodesign process for planning with NBS, and to evaluate its contributions to boundary management. In a…
Integrating sense of place into participatory landscape planning
This article explores the potential of integrating sense of place into participatory landscape planning processes. In an illustrative case study, spatial information on sense of place assessed through a participatory mapping survey from local citizens is integrated into a geodesign workshop at the Lahn river, Germany, with local stakeholders and planning administration representatives. Results show that sense of place information (1) has been con…
Using meaningful places as an indicator for sense of place in the management of social-ecological systems
Sense of place is increasingly advocated to support the management of social-ecological systems. Given the concept’s complexity, we suggest that an indicator for sense of place is needed to facilitate its application in practical planning. We propose such an indicator called “meaningful places,” defined as geographic locations to which (i) immediately perceived as well as socially constructed meanings are ascribed and (ii) evaluative attachments …
Planning and governing nature-based solutions in river landscapes
Nature-based solutions (NBS), understood as actions that use ecosystem processes to address societal needs, can play important roles to future-proof river landscape development for people and nature. However, knowledge gaps exist how NBS can be planned and implemented at landscape scales. This Special Issue brings together insights and experiences from studies of assessing, planning, and implementing NBS in river landscapes in Europe and beyond. …
Modelling monetary and non-monetary flows of recreational ecosystem services in Germany
While policy interest and research on recreational ecosystem services (RES) has increased substantially, insights into the actual flows of benefits to people have remained scarce, especially at levels beyond local communities. This paper aims to model RES Flows and Benefits for Germany in monetary and non-monetary terms. We use Germany as a case study due its diversity of landscapes and availability of relevant spatial and empirical data. We deve…
Access to urban green spaces in Hannover
City dwellers' accessibility of urban green spaces (UGS) has recently gained immense interest in research and policy. Related scientific studies thus far have focused primarily on spatial distances, largely missing considerations of UGS qualities. We analysed the entire UGS setting of Hannover considering the recreational nature quality and potential demands to identify age-appropriate green spaces by applying a geographic information system anal…
The Promise of the Ecosystem Services Concept for Planning and Decision-Making
Implications of Applying the Green Infrastructure Concept in Landscape Planning for Ecosystem Services in Peri-Urban Areas
This paper investigates how planning experts understand the potential of integrating the concept of green infrastructure in planning practice in Germany. It develops a systematic approach for green infrastructure planning at the landscape scale. Research methods include a web-based survey among German planning experts and geographic information system analysis in the case study region of Hannover. Survey results suggest that the green infrastruct…
Towards a National Ecosystem Assessment in Germany
We present options for a National Ecosystem Assessment in Germany (NEA-DE) that could inform decision-makers on the state and trends of ecosystems and ecosystem services. Characterizing a NEA-DE, we argue that its cross-sectoral, integrative approach would have the advantages of increased scientific understanding, addressing specific policy questions and creating science-policy dialogues. Challenges include objections against a utilitarian perspe…
The elderly in green spaces
Building Capacities for Transdisciplinary Research
Transdisciplinary research is intriguing and challenging. Early-career researchers in particular, who lack experience and are still working on their disciplinary standing, struggle with difficulties and uncertainties. We offer insights into the challenges faced and solutions found by seven transdisciplinary junior research groups.While transdisciplinarity offers a way to tackle complex social-ecological challenges, transdisciplinary research is a…
Addressing societal challenges through nature-based solutions
Constraints and opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy
Research note
This research note explores opportunities for spatial planning to enhance the consideration of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) in Europe and Central Asia. We refer to and build on the regional assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We find that a targeted and integrated approach to spatial planning can substantially enhance the conservation and sustainable use of biodiv…
Biocultural approaches to sustainability
Current sustainability challenges demand approaches that acknowledge a plurality of human–nature interactions and worldviews, for which biocultural approaches are considered appropriate and timely. This systematic review analyses the application of biocultural approaches to sustainability in scientific journal articles published between 1990 and 2018 through a mixed methods approach combining qualitative content analysis and quantitative multivar…
Perceived contributions of multifunctional landscapes to human well‐being
Multifunctional landscapes provide critical benefits and are essential for human well‐being. The relationship between multifunctional landscapes and well‐being has mostly been studied using ecosystem services as a linkage. However, there is a challenge of concretizing what human well‐being exactly is and how it can be measured, particularly in relation to ecosystem services, landscape values and related discussions. In this paper, we measure self…
Exploring the uptake of nature-based measures in flood risk management
Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene
The scale, pace, and intensity of human activity on the planet demands radical departures from the status quo to remain within planetary boundaries and achieve sustainability. The steering arms of society including embedded financial, legal, political, and governance systems must be radically realigned and recognize the connectivity among social, ecological, and technological domains of urban systems to deliver more just, equitable, sustainable, …
Spatially assessing unpleasant places with hard- and soft-GIS methods
This paper explores the visual, acoustic and olfactory impairments to landscape aesthetic quality in a river landscape case study, using hard- and soft-GIS approaches. The research objectives are (1) to develop a model that localizes the spatial distribution of areas likely perceived as unpleasant and assesses the intensity of visual, acoustic and olfactory impairments in those areas by using a hard-GIS method, and (2) to test the statistical val…
Nature-based recreation in Germany
Practical applications of ecosystem services in spatial planning
The integration of ecosystem service (ES) knowledge into decision-making processes is increasingly endorsed by various policies and initiatives, with spatial planning targeted as one of the most relevant fields. Learning and feeding back from existing experiences is therefore a fundamental step to ensure appropriate and useful support by ES science. This paper aims to gather and critically analyse how ES science contributes to spatial planning pr…
Ecosystem-based adaptation in cities
Extreme weather events like heavy rainfall and heat waves will likely increase in intensity and frequency due to climate change. As the impacts of these extremes are particularly prominent in urban agglomerations, cities face an urgent need to develop adaptation strategies. Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) provides helpful strategies that harness ecological processes in addition to technical interventions. EbA has been addressed in informal adapt…
Integrating sense of place into participatory landscape planning
This article explores the potential of integrating sense of place into participatory landscape planning processes. In an illustrative case study, spatial information on sense of place assessed through a participatory mapping survey from local citizens is integrated into a geodesign workshop at the Lahn river, Germany, with local stakeholders and planning administration representatives. Results show that sense of place information (1) has been con…
Planning and governing nature-based solutions in river landscapes
Nature-based solutions (NBS), understood as actions that use ecosystem processes to address societal needs, can play important roles to future-proof river landscape development for people and nature. However, knowledge gaps exist how NBS can be planned and implemented at landscape scales. This Special Issue brings together insights and experiences from studies of assessing, planning, and implementing NBS in river landscapes in Europe and beyond. …
Governance models for nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) for mitigating climate change are gaining popularity. The number of NBS is increasing, but research gaps still exist at the governance level. The objectives of this paper are (i) to give an overview of the implemented NBS for flood risk management and mitigation in Germany, (ii) to identify governance models that are applied, and (iii) to explore the differences between these models. The results of a hierarchical clus…
Planning nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) find increasing attention as actions to address societal challenges through harnessing ecological processes, yet knowledge gaps exist regarding approaches to landscape planning with NBS. This paper aims to provide suggestions of how planning NBS can be conceptualized and applied in practice. We develop a framework for planning NBS by merging insights from literature and a case study in the Lahn river landscape, German…
Using Geodesign as a boundary management process for planning nature-based solutions in river landscapes
Planning with nature-based solutions (NBS) presents a participatory approach that harnesses actions supported by nature to address societal challenges. Whilst Geodesign may facilitate participatory planning, manage boundaries between participants, and assess impacts of NBS, empirical insights remain scarce. This paper aims to develop and test a Geodesign process for planning with NBS, and to evaluate its contributions to boundary management. In a…
Comparing landscape value patterns between participatory mapping and geolocated social media content across Europe
In this study, we bring together participatory mapping and analysis of geolocated social media content from the Flickr platform in an assessment of similarities and differences in their utility for landscape value elicitation. We do so in a Pan-European context comparing types of landscape values and their spatial patterns across 19 case sites in 11 European countries. Across these sites, we find great variety in volume, types and spatial pattern…
Important places in landscape – investigating the determinants of perceived landscape value in the suburban area of Wrocław, Poland
Landscape planning studies usually consider landscape values through expert assessments of landscape aesthetic quality. Combining such expert assessments with people’s perceptions as derived from citizen-based approaches is advisable, but scientific knowledge gaps exist regarding explanatory variables of perceived landscape values. This study aims to investigate determinants of landscape value as perceived by citizens. The suburban area of Wrocla…
Knowledge co‐production and researcher roles in transdisciplinary environmental management projects
Calls for transformative change and participatory modes of knowledge production demand researchers to assume new roles. This paper synthesizes the literature on knowledge co‐production and researcher roles to explore challenges for researchers involved in transdisciplinary environmental management projects. Our research methods combine a scoping review and reflections on personal experiences with three transdisciplinary projects. To conceptualize…
Using meaningful places as an indicator for sense of place in the management of social-ecological systems
Sense of place is increasingly advocated to support the management of social-ecological systems. Given the concept’s complexity, we suggest that an indicator for sense of place is needed to facilitate its application in practical planning. We propose such an indicator called “meaningful places,” defined as geographic locations to which (i) immediately perceived as well as socially constructed meanings are ascribed and (ii) evaluative attachments …
Land Use and Ecosystem Services (35 works) · Geography (28 works) · Environmental resource management (27 works) · Environmental planning (24 works) · Business (23 works) · Environmental Science (19 works) · Ecology (18 works) · Computer Science (17 works) · Political science (15 works) · Urban Green Space and Health (15 works)