Sustainable use concepts for regions

Development of a sustainable economic management and lifestyle requires a more integrative analysis of the economic, ecological and social processes in natural areas and economic zones. At the same time one must not only take the complex interrelationships in a region into account, but also the interactions with neighbouring areas, such as in the case of transboundary rivers. Furthermore, greater attention has to be given to the interfaces between economic and natural areas (e.g. city/country) since very different living conditions are accompanied by increasing resource consumption and exchange here. Sustainable use concepts for regions not only require new approaches based on economic and social science, but also integrated models which permit the mapping of different regional development scenarios and their evaluation by means of sustainability indicators.

Sustainability research pursues this transdisciplinary approach with the equally important incorporation of socioeconomic questions into natural science research. The questions examined will be geared to a greater degree to the demands of affected actors and at the same time methodological interfaces will be developed to link natural science approaches to those based on social and economic sciences. Global, regional and local questions will be interlinked more closely, based on previous research results.