Nature protection and biodiversity - Drivers and pressures (Liechtenstein)

In terms of the landscape, changes can be seen owing to the increase in settlement areas and infrastructure and to increasingly intensive use of the landscape for leisure and recreation. Thus, the settled area increased by 18 ha per year between 1984 and 2002 (Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein, 2009b). The challenges faced are directly related to the growth of the population, which has more than doubled since 1960, and the increase in prosperity.

Even land that is not built on is used predominantly by people. The largest areas of the country’s land are taken up by forests (43 %) and agriculture (35 %). Whilst FSC certification has turned all of the forests over to sustainable use, in agriculture the problem remains of segregation of utilisation owing to intensified use in favourable agricultural locations and abandonment of use in less productive areas.

The water situation is an example of how success has been achieved but challenges remain. The drainage of the Rhine Valley plain in the first half of the 20th century was one of the greatest ecological changes in the country. On top of this came the pollution during the 1960s and 1970s by settlement wastewater and nutrients from agriculture. The predominantly very high chemical quality of the water today demonstrates the effect of the measures taken to treat wastewater and to prevent the entry of nutrients from agriculture. On the other hand, deficits in the water morphology remain. 52 % of the water stretches of the Rhine Valley plain are, in terms of water morphology, heavily impacted to non-natural. Thus, successes in protecting the environment through technology are confronted by as yet unresolved questions on securing the spatial requirements of the waters.