Virtual Event
25th of May 2023
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
AMBITION FOR A BETTER FUTURE:
TRENDS IN IMPACT ASSESSMENT RESEARCH AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING PRACTICE
Start: 09:00 a.m.
End: 05:00 p.m.
(Central European Time)
The event will be held as a Zoom Conference and will be conducted in English (without translation). Register here!
| 8:30 | Registration Welcome at the Online Meeting Room |
| 9:00 | Welcome |
| 9:10 | Greetings by the German Environment Agency (UBA) By Alice Schröder |
| 9:20 | Introduction to the Project „Trends in EIA and SEA Research and Practice 2.0“
By Gesa Geißler (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria) |
| 9:30 | Keynote “Impact Assessment – Fit for the future!”
By Lone Kørnøv (Aalborg University, Denmark) |
| 10:15 | Break |
|
Session 1: Project results in the context of current international and national research and practice: Environmental assessment in the context of climate change and societal transformation Moderation: Gesa Geißler |
|
| 10:30 |
Trends of Environmental Assessment in Times of Transformation By Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria) |
| 10:45 |
Accelerating energy transition – SEA gaining importance By Katharina Egger (Austrian Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, Austria) |
| 11:00 |
Streamlining of EA – A never ending story By Charlotta Faith-Ell (Midsweden University, Sweden) |
| 11:15 |
EU Taxonomy and their relevance to EIA – Focus on climate risks By Markus Leitner (Environment Agency Austria) |
| 11:30 |
Discussion |
| 12:00 – 13:00 |
Break |
|
Session 2: Project results in the context of current international and national research and practice: Digital Transformation – Challenges and opportunities for impact assessment Moderation: Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer |
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| 13:00 | State of the Literature on Digital Impact Assessment By Birthe Uhlhorn (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria) |
| 13:20 | Dreams Project – Data Access and Usage of historical IA for knowledge mining and
management By Ivar Lyhne (Aalborg University, Denmark) |
| 13:40 | Developing digital tools for the administrative control of compensation measures from
space By Christian Schulz (TU Berlin, Germany) |
| 14:00 | From research to real world application. Bridging the gap between classical
biodiversity monitoring and the emerging use of AI By Robin Sandfort (capreolus e.U. and micromacro GmbH, Austria) |
| 14:15 | Discussion |
| 14:45 – 15:15 | Break |
|
Session 3: Open Discussion with Panel
Moderation: Gesa Geißler |
|
| 15:15 | How can IA contribute to coping with global changes and develop its full strength?
What do we need in terms of future research, practice, networking, training,
narratives, legal framing conditions etc. to achieve IA’s full potential? Discussion with the audience and the panel Thomas Fischer (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom), Marie Hanusch (German EIA Association & Bosch und Partner, Germany), Johann Köppel (TU Berlin, Germany), Gernot Stöglehner (University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Austria), Lone Kørnøv (Aalborg University, Denmark) |
| 16:35 | Closing |
| 16:45 | End of the event |
We reserve the right to make any necessary adjustments or deviations in content, provided that these do not significantly change the overall character of the conference. Accordingly, changes in the programme or changes in the announced experts are reserved.
Download Conference Programme here: Conference_Programme_25052023.pdf
EXPERTS
Mag. Katharina Egger is a staff member at Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology. Her responsibilities include plant-related environmental protection, environmental assessment and air pollution control. Prior to that, she worked as an associate (Niederhuber & Partner Rechtsanwälte GmbH) and legal assistant (Niederhuber & Partner Rechtsanwälte GmbH). Katharina Egger studied law at Paris Lodron University Salzburg including an Erasmus+ semester abroad at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Prof. Dr. Thomas B. Fischer, PhD, University of Liverpool, UK and North West University, South Africa / Director of Environmental Assessment and Management Research Centre and WHO Collaborating Centre on Health in Impact Assessments, Chair of Academic Section of IAIA. His main research interest is to explore ways for making policies, plans, programmes and project developments more environmentally sustainable. In this context, and based on experiences in the private and public sectors, practice and research as well as higher education professional training, he has developed a particular interest in impact assessments, that he believes are key for supporting more balanced decision outcomes towards a sustainable transformation of communities and societies.
Associate Prof. Dr. Charlotta Faith-Ell, Department of Natural Sciences, Design and Sustainable Development at Mid Sweden University, Director at Estonian Environment Institute (EKKI). Her main research interest is in Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Gender Impact Assessment (GIA) in landuse and infrastructure planning. In this context, her research is closely connected to practice and she has developed a particular interest in the roles of practitioners and researchers in Impact Assessment in the sustainable transformation of societies.
Gesa Geißler (PhD) is senior researcher at the Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning at the University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna (BOKU) and visiting fellow at the Environmental Assessment and Management Research Centre at the University of Liverpool. Gesa holds a PhD in environmental assessment in the context of renewable energy development in Germany and the USA which she completed at the Berlin Institute of Technology (Technische Universität Berlin). Her research interest covers the effectiveness of impact assessment (SEA, EIA), environmental mitigation, and planning tools in the context of current trends such as digitalization, energy system transformation and climate change.
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Dipl.-Ing. Kathrin Ginner holds a degree in landscape planning and landscape architecture and is Research Associate at the Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU). Her main areas of expertise range from SEA and EIA to climate change adaptation and mitigation and sustainable tourism development. She is currently working on international trends in EIA and SEA research and practice.
Dr. Marie Hanusch, 2nd Chair of the EIA-Society e.V. and with Bosch and Partner GmbH since 2008, Hanover. Her fields of work and expertise: Strategic environmental assessments (regional planning, transport, water management, network development), environmental impact assessments, Natura 2000 impact assessments, Water Framework Directive, renewable energies, research projects and method development.
PD Dr. Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer, Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning, University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna (BOKU) is habilitated in environmental planning. She is a senior researcher with responsibilties as principal investigator, editorial board member of scientific journals and senior lecturer of several courses in the field of impact assessment, environmental management and nature conservation. Over the past fifteen years climate change adaptation and mitigation has been one of her research foci including also related topics such as conflicts of interest with biodiversity but also co-benefits e.g. for human health.
Prof. Dr. Johann Köppel has been a full professor at the Technische Universität Berlin and head of the Environmental Assessment and Planning Research Group. He teached Environmental Impact Assessment, Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Planning. Inter alia, his research addresses the challenges of integrated environmental governance in manifold ways and highlighted the requirements for a better co-development of climate protection approaches and biodiversity policies.
Prof. Lone Kørnøv, PhD is Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark and Head of The Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment (DCEA). Her research is focused on impact assessment (SEA, EIA), planning, governance, stakeholder-engagement and currently circular economy. She has more than 25-years’ experience within the fields of management and leadership in research and consultancy, university teaching within a PBL model, PhD supervision, Research evaluation and Capacity building.
Dipl.-Ing. Markus Leitner has been a senior expert in environmental impact assessment, strategic environmental assessment and climate change adaptation since 2005. Since 2019, he has been leading the team for adaptation and resilience at the Environment Agency Austria. His main areas of expertise range from EIA and SEA to adaptation indicators, monitoring and evaluation, adaptation assessments and sectoral experience, e.g. in transport, water, energy and health. He has been involved in several European projects (H2020-Project PLACARD) and supports the European Environment Agency (ETC/CCA) and many European countries with his expertise. He is leading the ETC/CCA MRE Task. Markus Leitner also serves as the Austrian representative in the EU Working Group on Climate Change Adaptation and is a member of the OECD Task Force on Climate change adaptation. He also leads the working group “Adaptation” within the TRATOLOW-Project. Markus Leitner holds a degree in landscape planning from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna.
Prof. Ivar Lyhne, PhD, is associate professor at Aalborg University within environmental assessment, decision-making and public participation processes. Part time senior consultant at Ramboll contributing to environmental assessment of plans and projects. His newest project with colleague Lone Kørnøv is the DREAMS project. The vision of the project is to promote progress on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by digitally transforming the way society accesses and communicates information about environmental impacts of projects and plans. As part of this vision, the DREAMS consortium develops a roadmap for digitalizing environmental assessments in Denmark.
Robin Sandfort, M.Sc., did work and study at the Institute of Wildlife Biology and Game Management, University of Natural Resources and Life Science Vienna (BOKU). He now works with his companies capreolus and micromacro as a conservation technologist bridging the gap between classical biodiversity monitoring and the emerging use of AI in remote sensing, bioacoustics and monitoring of invasive alien species.
Christian Schulz, M.Sc., is research assistant and PhD candidate at the Geoinformation in Environmental Planning Lab, Technische Universität Berlin. His work considers the contribution of remote sensing to large-scale monitoring tasks of controlling agencies in the forest, agriculture and transport sectors. In the project SENSchiene, he is working on compensation measures along rail way tracks.
Prof. Gernot Stöglehner is a full professor at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna and head of the Institute for Spatial Planning, Environmental Planning and Land Rearrangement (IRUB). Besides Environmental Impact Assessment and Strategic Environmental Assessment he teaches and researches the topics sustainable spatial planning and development, energy spatial planning, integrated spatial and infrastructure planning. In addition he is working on the development of planning methods and planning tools as well as planning theory with a focus on planning quality.
Dipl.-Ing. Birthe Uhlhorn is Research Associate at the Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU). She is currently working on international trends in EIA and SEA research and practice. In her doctoral thesis she examines the impact of advancing digitalization and continuously improved data situation in the field of monitoring and follow-up in IA and generates hypotheses on the future role of advanced digitalization in environmental planning.
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| University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna | German Environment Agency (UBA) |
| Peter-Jordan-Straße 65, 1180 Wien, Austria www.boku.ac.at | Wörlitzer Platz 1, 06844 Dessau-Roßlau, Germany www.umweltbundesamt.de |