Comprehensive assessment of the landscape in North Rhine-Westphalia

The perception of nature and landscape is not only due to individual structures such as mountains and valleys, but is reflected in a uniform landscape. Depending on the aesthetic nature, human needs for beauty, home and recreation can be met. Landscape-shaping elements have been used in the past and are often over-embossed, unified or even eliminated. The landscape assessment in North Rhine-Westphalia aims, among other things, to identify value vol-le and also less valuable areas and to protect, preserve and improve them in the long term. The assessment of the protected property landscape is carried out on the basis of its characteristic criteria “individual species”, “diversity” and “beauty”, whose protection, development and restoration is enshrined in § 1 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act. At the same time, the assessment of the landscape is an integral part of the technical contribution of nature conservation and landscape care in accordance with § 8 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Provincial Nature Conservation Act. The basis is the degree of conformity of the actual state with the target state, i.e. the real state compared to the mission statement. As a result, the standardised method results in a country-wide assessment, which is divided into the four grades very high (outstanding meaning), high (special importance) medium and very low/low.