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 also reflected in a uniform landscape. Depending on the aesthetic characteristics, the human needs for beauty, home and recreation can be met. Landscaping 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 valuable and also less valuable areas and to protect, preserve and improve them in line with the mission statement in the long term. The assessment of the protected landscape image is carried out on the basis of its characteristic criteria ‘own species’, ‘diversity’ and ‘beauty’, the protection, development and restoration of which is enshrined in Section 1 of the Federal Nature Conservation Act. At the same time, the assessment of the landscape is an integral part of the expert contribution of nature conservation and landscape conservation in accordance with Section 8 of the North Rhine-Westphalia Nature Conservation Act. The basis is the measure of the conformity of the actual state with the target state, i.e. the real state compared to the model. As a result, the standardized method results in a nationwide assessment, which is divided into the four value levels very high (outstanding importance), high (particular importance) medium and very low/low.