Socio-cultural Dynamics of German Cultural Landscapes (SoCuLa) – A Future-oriented Perspective to 2030/2045

• Applicant: Dr. Marion Mehring
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 512359495

In Europe, land-use change, as one of the major direct drivers of biodiversity change, is posing substantial risks for human-wellbeing. Enabling a transformative change from the current trends towards more sustainable ones, indirect drivers such as socio-cultural dynamics are of major importance. The impact of such trends, e.g. demographic change, value change, or digitalization on biodiversity in cultural landscapes are only little understood so far. Thus, SoCuLa will adopt an interdisciplinary approach. It will link social science research on future societal trend developments with ecological data on landscape composition in the study regions of the Biodiversity Exploratories. In particular, SoCuLa will jointly develop future scenarios of the cultural landscape with local stakeholder groups from the regions. Addressing the socio-cultural dynamics in the regions, emphasis will be given on the identification and characterization of cultural ecosystem services and disservices, as well as the development of indicators. The knowledge gained from the SoCuLa project will be relevant for local practice and management in the regions. At the same time, the societal scenarios will be significant for future research in the Biodiversity Exploratories in order to link them to biodiversity dynamics and change in the regions.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories