Visioning with the Public: Incorporating Public Values in Landscape Planning

Abstract

This article focuses on the incorporation of values in visioning, an early stage of landscape planning from a social learning perspective. After an introduction of social learning in planning and visioning directed at expert knowledge and public values, two visioning cases are evaluated. The authors assess methods of making public values manifest and ways to include them in the visioning process. The cases show that surveys, semi-structured interviews and the emphasis on values during the visioning exercise itself were suitable methods to acquaint civilians with both their own values and those of others. The explicit values made communication more effective and enhanced social learning. In both cases, the civilians proved to be capable of expressing their values and visioning in conjunction with experts. The article concludes with the impact of integrating values in landscape planning, the learning process that emerged between the stakeholders and the implication of the findings for visioning practices elsewhere.

Acknowledgements

M. de Groot and M.H. Winnubst contributed equally to this article. This article has been realized with funds of NWE-ENO (Interreg IIIb Freude am Fluss) and BSIK Leven met Water.

Notes

1. Available at www.zwolle.nl/cms/cms.nsf/AllByUNID/BE5B65C31DCCD7BDC12572D4003392BC (accessed 19 November 2008).

2. Available at http://www.stadsblokken-meinerswijk.nl/index.php?id=165 (accessed 19 November 2008).

3. The visioning experiment was initiated within the context of the European “Freude am Fluss” project to test the first steps of a guideline for joint planning; mutual learning and shared visioning.

4. Executive Agency for Water Management, municipality of Beuningen, province of Gelderland, two nature conservation agencies, a sand and clay extraction enterprise and an environmental scientist from the Radboud University Nijmegen who designs side channels in the floodplain.

5. Available at www.waalweelde.nl, a Dutch spin-off of the Freude am Fluss project (accessed 13 October 2011).

6. The consortium consisted of the province of Zeeland, the municipality of Middelburg, water board Zeeuwse Eilanden, Executive Agency for Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), Government Service for Land and Water Management (Dienst Landelijk Gebied), Knowledge organization Living with water (kennisimpulsprogramma Leven met Water), knowledge institute TNO, consulting and engineering company Tauw and Erasmus University Rotterdam.