PALM 2.0 – Intercommunal potential analysis of the resource soil for sustainable land management

Project description

PALM is a web-based spatial decision support system (www.palm.ethz.ch) enabling landscape planners to allocate new building zones by taking into account ecological, economic and social ecosystem services. Based on a user-defined set of ecosystem services the PALM model calculates and displays an optimal distribution of building zones in a specific area. The results of a PALM analysis make it possible to maintain the quality of the landscape and the services of intact ecosystems for future generations. PALM 2.0 covers the whole of Switzerland, which enables analyses to be run on every Swiss canton or municipality.

Research themes

Participatory planning

Integrated landscape management

Ecosystem management

Project details

Start date:

October 1, 2009
End date:

February 28, 2014
Location:

Switzerland
Funded by:

Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture FOAG, Canton Zurich, Canton Berne, Canton Solothurn, Canton Grisons, Canton Vaud
Objectives:

Collaborative platform for trade-off decision making of ecological, economic, and social ecosystem services in allocating building zone reserves.

Project contact

Adrienne Grêt-Regamey

ETH Zurich, Institute for Spatial and Landscape Development, Planning of Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS)

Team members

Adrienne Grêt-Regamey
Juerg Altwegg
Sigrun Rohde
Michel Ott
Michaela Teich
Maarten van Strien
Ralph Sonderegger

Participating partners

Related publications

Grêt-Regamey, A., Altwegg, J., Sirén, E. A., van Strien, M. J. & Weibel, B. (2017). Integrating ecosystem services into spatial planning—A spatial decision support tool. Landscape and Urban Planning 165, 206-219. doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2016.05.003