Compensation landscapes

In this contribution, I explore compensation landscapes as a concept through which we can question the nature of ecological urbanism today, as an alliance of environmental degradation, urban development and landscape design. In urbanism and landscape studies, there is currently almost no debate on the spatial dynamics created by the compensation of environmental harm. This is remarkable, as green urban landscapes are increasingly developed through biodiversity offsetting, i.e. the process where open space assets that have been destroyed through urban development are replaced elsewhere. While the literature on these topics is booming in critical geography and political ecology, I explore three scopes in which biodiversity offsetting can be studied as part of urbanism and landscape studies. Through the spatialization of compensation, the linking of offsetting to planning research, and by giving attention to landscape design, this paper frames compensation as a socio-spatial urbanisation project.