Green space maintenance on the Munich freeway ring road Maintenance and development plan with grazing, woodland management, mowing and public relations work, German Landscape Architecture Award 2005, appreciation

For the compensation areas created for the construction of the A99 federal highway (approx. 200 ha of green spaces, including approx. 160 ha of nature conservation compensation and design areas), a maintenance and development plan (PEPL) was created on behalf of the Autobahndirektion Südbayern (ABDS).

The compensation areas are subdivided into numerous sub-areas that line up in a ribbon on both sides of the highway. Different development goals were defined for the individual areas, the fulfillment of which is largely dependent on future maintenance.

The concept and the associated implementation are based on four pillars:

Grazing, mowing, woodland management and public relations.

The dry sites are maintained and used by grazing Merino sheep.

Wet areas and areas near the roadway are maintained by mowing. This takes place at different intervals depending on the type of green space.

Woody shrubs along the road are cut back, leaving individual well-developed trees. Woodland maintenance ensures the long-term development of stable and ecologically high-quality wooded areas.

In addition to the nature conservation measures, the compensation and design areas also fulfill important functions with regard to recreational use. In order to avoid conflicts, targeted visitor guidance is provided in heavily frequented areas.

The main objective is to optimally promote the development of the compensation and design areas through the proposed maintenance, so that the highway can also take on biotope networking functions in addition to its traffic functions. At the same time, a new economic field of activity and mainstay is created for local agriculture in the context of landscape conservation.

AppreciationGerman Landscape Architecture Award 2005

Jury verdict: The implementation of compensation and replacement measures for project interventions already presents a particular problem or challenge in Germany - due to insufficient availability of quality land. Even more so, there is a lack of feasible, i.e. also financially viable maintenance measures and their follow-up control.

The present green space maintenance concept opens up innovative approaches as to how individual and often isolated compensation and replacement measures are to be networked.
The concept not only serves an ecologically meaningful biotope network system and extensive recreational use, but also simplifies the maintenance of compensation measures. In particular, the proposals for simple and cost-effective maintenance measures (grazing, woody plant care, mowing, etc.), as found and implemented here, are exemplary.