Yes

Austria

Associated beneficiary

Coordinating beneficiary

Subcontractor

Expert

Yes

Company

freiland Environmental Consulting Civil Engineers Ltd. was founded in 1991 and has since become one of Austria’s leading environmental and landscape planning consultancies, with offices in Vienna and Graz. freiland offers an interdisciplinary team of highly qualified and competent environmental planners, biologists, ecologists, environmental systems scientists and geographers. freiland provides consultation services to governments, businesses and institutions. The main areas of expertise range from environmental management, regional development, masterplanning, landscape architecture, Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA), environmental coordination of large infrastructure projects, biophysical and ecological studies on to the meditation of participatory planning processes. freiland takes an integrated approach to strategic planning and environmental assessment in order to develop sustainable solutions for all involved stakeholders. For various years the company has been working on international projects in South-Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Strong emphasis is given to reaching successful solutions for all involved parties by transferring best-practice-experience from national to international projects and vice versa. Fields of expertise Landscape planning and spatial development: Planning is the transformation of creative ideas and visions into a workable implementation plan. To this end, freiland works at different scales, from large-scale masterplans to landscape design and detailed implementation planning. Environmental coordination and assessment: As part of freiland’s environmental management services, the company provides expert support for infrastructure and civil engineering projects – from road and rail, energy production, resource extraction to leisure facilities. Using a proven interdisciplinary approach, freiland coordinates all environmental aspects of a project, from site selection to EIA study, up to successful conclusion of the planning approval process. Nature conservation and ecology: freiland’s work in the field of biodiversity ranges from vegetation and habitat surveys, landscape character and visual impact assessments to arboricultural surveys and soil analysis. These studies often form the basis for further analysis as part of larger projects or as expert contributions in Environmental Impact Assessments. In addition, freiland proves expertise and experience in nature conservation strategies, development of nature conservation programs and stakeholder engagement and public consultation processes. In doing so, freiland focuses on supporting the relevant national and international organizations in their decision process. River management and water planning: Water management plans forms the basis for coordinating flood risk management, ecological objectives and different stakeholder interests across all disciplines. This ranges from river basin management plans, flood risk zoning and hazard zone identification, always in line with national technical guidelines and regional programmes. In our considerations and solutions we focus on an integrative approach, combining aquatic ecological knowledge and engineering expertise. Spatial analysis: Space is getting scarce. A limited amount of space has to fulfil a multitude of different functions. How to make the most efficient and in the same time sustainable use of the land, forms the key question of freiland’s spatial analysis services. One of the cornerstones of freiland’s practice in this context is the collaboration of different disciplines. In addition to proven expertise and specialist knowledge in all relevant technical disciplines, freiland has experience with large-scale GIS-based projects as well as application of the latest communication tools. Public participation: Planning processes, in which project managers, planners and future users of space collaborate already from the project start, highly contribute to the identification of all stakeholders with the newly designed space. Convinced of the constructive dynamics of this methodology, the conduction of workshops forms an integrative part of freiland’s projects. Company details: www.freiland.at

LIFE Project "River landscape Enns": http://www.life-enns.at/ LIFE Projects "Upper Mur" and "Murerleben II": http://www.murerleben.at/