Professional Practice
Designed Dutch Ecosystems: Landscape Management Lessons from Heemparks of the Netherlands
Date: 10/24/2023 - 1/24/2024
Location(s): International
Description:
The live virtual lecture takes place on October 24, 2023, 3:00 - 4:15 PM ET. The session will be recorded and viewable to registrants for three months after the live session date.
Netherland’s Heemparks, public parks designed with native Dutch species to reflect local ecosystems, are a unique albeit understudied landscape typology. With more than one hundred established, most for more than fifty years, heemparks offer valuable precedents as to how naturalistic landscapes can be managed to sustain high levels of native vegetation richness for decades. Drawing from three years of research, this presentation will discuss specific heempark management techniques, explain how varying levels of management intensity impacts species richness, and posit how integrating landscape management into the design process is crucial to ensuring that designs remain beautiful and species-rich long after installation, as so many heemparks have successfully achieved.