Actual Use of Built-up Areas / Inventory of Green and Open Spaces 1990

Methodology

The updating and extension of the Umweltatlas maps proceeded in three stages: review of the system of land use representation, ascertainment and update of the actual land use, and finally, update of the digitized working map of the Berlin UIS.

Review of the System of Land Use Representation

For both halves of the city, a uniform system of representation had to be developed, in which existing deficits would be removed and the special East Berlin statistical base would be taken into account.

Compared with the old system of representation, the categories “Traffic Area,” which now includes airports and harbor facilities as well, and the categories “Construction Site” and “City Square/ Promenade” have been added. The formerly separate category “Water Sports Area” is now subsumed under the category “Sports Facility/ Outdoor Swimming Pool.”

Categories of the Map 06.01 ”Actual Use of Built-up Areas”

Residential Areas are characterized by housing and by the infrastructure required for living, such as shopping possibilities and service enterprises (laundries, restaurants, schools, etc.). The housing share in terms of floor-space is dominant, constituting 75 – 100 %, compared with commercial, service and small business use. Residential areas include both the dense inner city development and the open settlement development at the edge of the city (cf. Map 06.07, SenStadtUm 1995).

The Mixed Area I areas are similar to the residential areas in appearance. However, the housing is more strongly interspersed with commercial and service enterprises (department stores, offices, etc.) and small businesses in lofts and courtyards. As a rule, housing predominates, with a share as high as 75 %, but it may drop as low as 10 %, with the rest being commercial and service enterprises and small businesses. The negative impact of this commercial use on neighboring residences is overall minimal. Large tour-restaurants in recreational areas have also been assigned to this category.

The Mixed Area II category is characterized by a high share of production-related enterprise, with the corresponding building complexes and warehouse/ storage areas. A third of the area, and no more than half, is generally used for housing; in East Berlin, this can drop to 10 %. The appearance is that of a small business area. Major inconvenience for residents due to noise and emissions can be assumed.

In Core Areas, the office and business centers of commercial and service enterprises predominate, with 70 – 100 % of the space. The residential share is very low, 30 % at a maximum. Business and shopping streets are as a rule not categorized as core areas, since, for reasons of visual representation, entire blocks and not single streets along a block, were used as the basis for assignment to use categories (e.g., Wilmersdorfer Strasse). Especially in the Borough of Mitte, public, largely federal administrative buildings, embassies and other comparably-used building, which are as a rule assigned to the category “Public Facilities,” may be assigned to the category “Core Areas,” since these facilities are marked as core areas on the land use map of that borough (cf. the category “Public Facilities”).

Characteristic of Small Business/ Industrial Areas are large industrial buildings and warehouses and storage areas. The housing share is subordinate, with 30 % at a maximum. Inconvenience due to noise and emissions can be rated very high. The category Small Business/ Industrial Area also includes railway freight yards and small business areas on railway land, as well as clearly small business-used waterside areas (shipyards, boatyards, etc.).

Sites of the category Public Facilities Areas include cultural, university and research, health care, administrative, postal and law-enforcement facilities, and also day care centers, playgrounds, schools, sports facilities, youth centers and retirement homes, and religious institutions such as churches. Special Use Areas are built-up areas with a specific purpose, such as the Olympic Stadium and the Messegelände (trade fair complex).

The sites of the category Utilities Areas include power, gas, water and sewage-treatment plants, facilities of the sanitation department and the public transportation system, including railway stations and port facilities, central market halls (the Central Market, the Flower Market, the slaughterhouse) and other service facilities, such as broadcasting facilities.

The Traffic Areas include the areas required for truck and rail service, other than public roadways. Traffic islands and airports also count as Traffic Areas. Parking lots and parking garages are only recorded as Traffic Areas if they occupy an entire block. Parking lots which exceed the minimum ascertainment limit of 1 ha, but which are within one statistical block, and connected with other uses, such as residential areas, have not been delimited through the definition of a corresponding segment formation, but have rather been assigned to the dominant use category. The category “Traffic Area” also includes track-beds and railyards of the city and long-distance railways, and also those portions of the subway running outside the tunnels in open right-of-ways or as elevated railways, and also streetcar-related areas. Median strips are assigned to the ”Traffic Area” category if their use justifies their categorization as motor-vehicle parking. Freight yards and commercial facilities on railway land are not classified as Traffic Areas (cf. the category “Small Business Areas”).

The Weekend Cottage Areas differ hardly at all in appearance from the Allotment-Garden or Residential Area. Those areas assigned to this category in the 1985 Umweltatlas were retained; for the eastern boroughs, areas were assigned to the category “Weekend Cottage Area” only if they were neither residential nor allotment-garden areas (cf. also use category “Allotment Gardens” in Map 06.02, “Inventory of Green and Open Spaces”).

Areas classified as Construction Site were those with a typical construction site character: as a rule open areas with soil disturbed by construction vehicles. Often, the foundations or the first stories are recognizable.

Categories of the Map 06.02 ”Inventory of Green and Open Spaces”

The category Forest includes all wooded areas of the Berlin forests, as well as those wooded stands outside the Berlin forests which appear clearly in aerial photography as self-contained forest stands. The forests include reforested former sewage farms.

Bodies of Water include all natural bodies of water – rivers, lakes, ponds – and also canals and reservoirs belonging to the Berlin Water Authority.

The category Meadows and Pastures includes meadows, pastures and enclosures used for agricultural purposes, and also experimental areas used by the universities for similar purposes, and former sewage fields.

Farmland includes areas identified in aerial photography as being used for agricultural purposes. The difference from “Meadows and Pastures” is that in this case, the land is periodically sown, fertilized and harvested.

Parks or Green Spaces include those facilities listed in the SenStadtUm Directory of Green Spaces, other city squares with a sealing level of less than 30%, and median strips used as green spaces. In addition, playgrounds, the Botanical Garden, the Zoos in Tiergarten and Friedrichsfelde, the Charlottenburg Palace Gardens, and similar facilities were assigned to the category “Parks/Green Spaces.” Green spaces around public facilities such as hospitals were not marked separately.

City Squares and Promenades serve as places of leisure for free time and recreation, as places of assembly, markets, etc. They generally have the word “Platz” (square) in their names, i.e., Alexanderplatz. They are defined differently from green spaces due to their high degree of sealing, which is 30 % or more for both city squares and promenades. Promenades also include median strips with sealing levels of over 30 %, unless they are used as parking lots.

Cemeteries are areas used for burial purposes.

The basis for the assignment and delimitation of the category Allotment Gardens was the SenStadtUm map and list of Berlin allotment garden colonies, which record the allotment gardens as defined by the Federal Allotment Garden Law, which are used as such and are on leased land.

Vacant Areas are areas currently not used or cared for, on which variegated stands of vegetation can develop. Sand beaches and other non-vegetation-filled areas also belong to this category. In addition, a few artificial rain catchments, ditches, landfills and wet areas are assigned to this category.

The category Campgrounds includes areas used for occasional residence in mobile shelters, such as tents, trailers and campers. These include both tent camps and permanent campgrounds.

The category Sports Facilities/Outdoor Swimming Pools includes, in addition to sports facilities, swimming pools and beaches, riding facilities and water sports areas. The water sports areas are characterized by small dockyards, boat-hangars, club houses, parking lots, etc.. Clearly commercial water sports areas (dockyards, boat-building facilities, etc.) are assigned to the category “Small Business Area” of Map 06.01 “Actual Use of Built-Up Areas.”

The category Tree Nursery/Horticulture includes, gardening schools, and the planting fields of private tree nurseries and market gardens, except for those areas marked as having solely greenhouse cultivation.

Maps 06.01 “Actual Use of Built-Up Areas,” and 06.02 “Inventory of Green and Open Spaces” fit together to provide a comprehensive representation of actual land use. Overlapping occurs with ”Public Facility” and ”Special Use” Sites, with ”Utilities Areas”, with ”Small Business Areas” and ”Industrial Areas” and with ”Traffic Areas”. Areas of these categories are in some cases represented on Map 06.02 “Inventory of Green and Open Spaces,” if their character, regardless of their use, is more like that of a green or open space. A sports facility for example, would be represented on Map 06.01 as a Public Facility, and on Map 06.02 as a ”Sports Facility”; a median strip might simultaneously be shown as a ”Traffic Area” (Map 06.01) and as a ”Vacant Area” (Map 06.02). Churches on city squares are shown on Map 06.01 as ”Public Facilities” and in Map 06.02 as ”Parks/Green Spaces” or as ”City Squares/Promenades”, depending on their degree of sealing (cf. Tab. 2).

Tab. 2: Number and Variations of Overlappings

Survey and Update of the Actual Land Use

The available maps were compared and checked against the aerial photography for changes.

The most important map sources for the update and investigation were, for West Berlin, the maps of the uniform-use block segments, as of 1989, at a scale 1:4,000 and, for East Berlin, the land use maps of the boroughs (inventory), as of 1990/‘91, at a scale 1:5,000. For uniform-use block segments of plot size up to block size, use is shown in a very differentiated manner. In this way, assignment to the individual categories could be carried out very well and implemented according to the system used here.

For different land use within a statistical block, uniform-use block segments were delimited. For reasons of clarity, the minimum size shown is 1 ha and the minimum width 20 m. In individual cases, partial areas of less than 1 ha were delimited to show such contrasting uses as green space and housing; in such cases, the minimum was 7,000 m².

Since in the maps of the uniform-use block segments and the land use maps of the boroughs (inventory), areas of less than the minimum size of 1 ha are shown, these had to be merged to form larger block segments. In case of uniform-use block segments defined according to the categories housing, commercial/service and business/industry, the respective area shares of the different block segments were estimated and classed according to the use shares in the categories of Table 1. If uniform-use block segments had to be merged which were defined according to very different criteria, e.g. living space and public facilites, they were classed according to dominant use: Land uses of smaller size were assigned to the prevailing use category.

The information of the map sources used was checked against the aerial photography. In particular, the open space inventory could be updated very well with the aid of aerial photography. Also structural changes, such as new construction and landscaping, and the course of borderlines of uniform-use block segments, could ascertained and corrected accordingly. Use changes without change of construction structure, for instance the transformation of a residential area to a mixed area, could be determined only from the map sources, not from the aerial photography.

For the delimitation and examination of the mixed areas in East Berlin, the map “Land Use Inventory (Berlin and Surrounding Countryside),” 1990, was also used.

For the examination of the commercial areas of East Berlin the map of the ISA commercial area investigation was used.

The Topographical City Map was used for the determination of Public Facilities and Special Use Areas, and Utilities Areas in East Berlin.

Update of the UIS Digitized Work Map

All information about actual land use is managed and processed at the UIS. This makes possible a graphic data processing of the factual data on basis of a uniform spatial reference system.

The spatial reference system is provided by a digital topographical basic map in a scale 1:50,000 – the UIS work map. It shows each individual statistical block, which is as a rule delimited by streets, with its block number. The numbering and delimitation of the blocks are carried by the State Statistical Office (Statistisches Landesamt). The statistical blocks of the digitized work map were updated as part of the processing of the actual land use for the western part of the city, and digitized for the eastern part of the city for the first time, in accordance with the latest information.

The smallest reference segment is formed by the block segments, which were delimited for different land use within a statistical block.

The uniform reference system makes possible a clear spatial identification of all factual data. Over a common key, which contains, among other things, borough, block and block segment numbers, these data are assigned to the spatial reference system.

Streets do not have any area in the UIS spatial reference system, and are thus digitally non-addressable. The course of the street is described by the boundaries of the individual statistical blocks.

The data on actual land use are stored in the use data base. This data base contains, in addition to a statement of the actual land use of a block and/or a block segment, further information about the area size, the area type, the sealing degree, the distribution of differently permeable surface covers, and also detailed information on mixed areas and vacant areas.