Norbert Kühn: Working with Spontaneous Vegetation in a Changing Climate

Norbert Kühn, Head of the Deptartment of Vegetation Technology & Plant Use at the Technical University of Berlin, presents via livestream, "Working with Spontaneous Vegetation in a Changing Climate."

In the Anthropocene, humans —more than any other actor— determine the environmental conditions of all living beings on earth. The various effects of climate change and globalization can be felt particularly clearly in urban areas. Nevertheless, despite extreme conditions, certain plant species have been able to establish themselves in cities. This spontaneous vegetation is nature's response to anthropogenic environmental change. It offers a window into the future and can act as laboratory for climate adaptation. Spontaneous vegetation has high self-regulating capacity, which implies high resilience. Its existence is based on various adaptation mechanisms that enable the plants to outcompete other plants in seemingly inhospitable environments through effective use of resources. On abandoned land they can, for example, form entirely new plant communities that often develop further through processes of succession.

In some parts of the world societal perceptions around spontaneous vegetation are also shifting. Left-over urban spaces are now seen as urban wilderness. Ruderal parks and designs with spontaneous vegetation no longer need to be explained and advertised at length on display boards. They have become places where city dwellers can track down seemingly lost wild nature and feel part of it. Today, brownfields as well as spontaneous vegetation are widely recognized and valued as part of urban green space.

Norbert Kühn is Professor and Head of the Department of Vegetation Technology and Planting Design at the Technical University Berlin where he joined the faculty in 1998. He studied landscape ecology and landscape architecture at the Technical University of Munich-Weihenstephan, followed by a doctorate at the Chair of Vegetation Ecology on the topic of “Renaturation of species-poor meadows.” He serves on several national and international committees and advisory boards (ICB Muskau /Mużakowski and Branitz), and from 2006 until 2016 was chairman of the Karl Foerster Foundation. His main work focuses on the theory of planting design; extensive use of perennials; design with spontaneous vegetation; green space management; historical planting design; and trees during climate change.

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