Thinking About Energy, Nature, and Water as a Whole

The energy transition is necessary. But it should not be planned solely based on which locations can generate the largest possible amounts of electricity.

Equally important is the question:

Where is the energy actually needed—and what infrastructure is required to transport it there?

Power grids, substations, transmission lines, and storage facilities require land, energy, and raw materials such as copper, aluminum, and other metals. These resources are not available in unlimited quantities either, and their extraction involves impacts on nature and the landscape.

BioMaps therefore aims to help us consider energy generation, energy consumption, grid infrastructure, and natural spaces as an integrated whole.

Cities must become part of energy production

A large portion of energy is consumed in cities, commercial areas, and industrial zones. Therefore, these areas should not only be consumers but also, to a greater extent, producers of energy.

In addition to photovoltaics and other technologies, we should therefore explore where wind energy can be usefully deployed within already built-up and impervious areas.

These include, for example:

• high-rise buildings and large building complexes,
• commercial and industrial areas,
• logistics and infrastructure areas,
• areas that are already impervious or have been significantly altered,
• suitable transportation and technical infrastructure.

This is not about ruling out wind energy in forests as a matter of principle. It is about fairly comparing alternatives and their total ecological and infrastructural costs.

Natural areas also have economic value

A forest in which no energy facility is built is therefore not automatically an unused area.

It stores carbon, cools its surroundings, provides habitat, protects soils, influences the water cycle, and can absorb and retain precipitation.

These benefits should be assigned a measurable value in political and economic decision-making.

Municipalities that preserve valuable natural areas should therefore not be placed at a financial disadvantage compared to municipalities on whose land energy facilities can be built.

In the long term, a “natural area compensation” or “ecosystem compensation” scheme could be considered: The preservation of ecologically valuable areas would be recognized as a societal benefit and rewarded accordingly.

Water must remain in the landscape

Water plays a particularly important role in this context.

Our goal must not be solely to drain stormwater as quickly as possible via streams, canals, and rivers.

Where it is ecologically sound and hydrologically feasible, water should be retained in the landscape for longer.

The following, for example, can contribute to this:

• natural and restored ponds,
• wetlands and ponds,
• retention areas,
• restored stream floodplains,
• small water reservoirs in forests and the countryside,
• soil de-sealing,
• rewetting of suitable areas,
• measures to improve the water-storage capacity of soils.

Such structures can simultaneously serve to provide flood protection, promote groundwater recharge, support biodiversity, and cool the landscape.