IALE-D yearly conference 20.-22.09.2017 in Münster

From the 20th to 22nd of September the Research Group Applied Landscape Ecology and Ecological Planning hosted the annual conference of the German Region of the International Association for Landscape Ecology with an overlying topic on water and landscape (Wasser.Landschaft).

About 80 people from all over Germany participated in the conference containing manifold topics. The presentations and posters covered a variety of themes from hydronumeric simulation of model conform replacing structures; microplastics; renaturation and maintenance practices of waters; to issues of water culture or ecosystem services. Program

After welcoming words by the IALE-D executive committee member Prof. Dr. Ute Steinhardt and host Prof. Dr. Tillmann Buttschardt, a keynote was held by Dr. Mario Sommerhäuser (Emschergenossenschaft/Lippeverband) on the Intergenerational project of the Emscher Conversion and its contribution to the water management in the city of the future. The second conference day was opened by Prof. Dr. Ursula Stein (Stein + Schultz Partnerschaft) with a presentation on ”New perspectives for rivers”, as part of the REGIONALE 2016 ZukunftsLAND.

The field trip during the last day illustrated several topics of the conference. We visited a renaturation project on the Ems River near Einen and discussed the Emscher Conversion in the flood water retention basin in Ickern-Mengede and the Phoenix Lake in Dortmund-Hörde.

Additionally the conference was framed by cultural activities in the evenings and the UNESCO exhibition "Water: The Key to a Sustainable Global Future", which will be open for visitors until 18th of October 2017 in the GEO1 building at the WWU Münster.