During phase one, Vest-Agder County Council have seen several good examples from the other regions involved. The staff and stakeholders from Vest-Agder has noticed many similarities between Vest-Agder County and Donegal County, both in terms of territorial situation and heritage management & public planning tradition and found a particular interest in the good practise the Seascape Character Assessment from Donegal County Council.
The Seascape Character assessment use digital tools for spatial planning to collate data to inform analysis of the marine and coastal environment. The practice was implemented by digital collation of data; extensive field studies; digital public consultation; public participation workshops; stakeholder and elected members consultation; literary research.
The region of Agder has challenges comparable with Donegal regarding an evidence-based management of the coastal zone, in particular balancing preservation and exploitation measures. Vest-Agder County Council therefore wished to transfer the methodology used in Donegal to the assessment of the landscape around the most valuable cultural environments in our coastal zone - the historical outports.
For such a transfer to be successful it is important that proper time is invested in the "translation" of the methodology to a Norwegian context, both in terms of legal planning requirements, landscape characteristics and technology.
Vest-Agder County has in phase 2 received addition programme funding to transfer and test out the good practise the Seascape Character Assessment from Donegal .
The Pilot Action will entail the following key activities:
- A knowledge exchange with Donegal County Council in order to get to know in detail how the methodology has been used (incl. online meetings and staff exchange).
- 2 stakeholder meetings in order to both plan and evaluate the results of the mapping.
- A mapping of the coastal zone of Agder including: an overview survey of historical outports and their surroundings along the coastal zone in Agder and a more extensive detail study of selected areas with high historical and cultural value.
- Dissemination of results to policy makers at local and regional level.
If the pilot proves successful, the methodology can be transferred to other geographical areas as part both regional and local planning. The primary beneficiaries will be the Vest-Agder County Council and local coastal municipalities. The region will achieve a better balance between exploitation & preservation measures when redeveloping coastal landscapes.
