For many years we have been guiding our clients through all regulatory approval proceedings related to environmental impact assessment and intervention guidelines, and render support for their presentations required in participatory proceedings. On account of our experiences we guarantee that the legal and procedural requirements of environmental impact assessment are fulfilled.

As to traffic and transport planning (roads and rails etc.) and other projects demanding official approval, we cover the entire spectrum of studies necessary in the scope of the development plan and plan approval procedures.

Our services and performances include:

• Environmental impact assessment studies (UVS)

• Auxiliary landscape protection plans (LBP)

• FHH impact assessments (FHH-VP)

• Specialized faunistic studies

• GIS applications, visualizations and 3D simulations

• Feasibility studies prior to project planning

Hansa Luftbild worked on more than 50 projects of various dimension in the past years, ranging from small planning commissions for building bicycle paths and new constructions and expansions of city bypasses to planning performances for motorways and feasibility studies in our country and abroad. The special performance of geo information systems (GIS) is demonstrated in environmental assessment studies, for example, upon so-called impact forecasting. This work step contains the comparison of various planning variants (e.g. different road layouts) with the objective of finding the variant having the lowest impact on the environment. With the aid of GIS the subjects of protection to be analyzed (e.g. soil, water, habitats etc.) can be superimposed with the road-layout variants and the impact areas of pollutants and noise intrusions. Based on this method it is possible to determine exact balances of areas affected by interventions and assess their ecological significance. GIS also provides numerous means of digital cartography which can be used in the cartographic representation of environmental impact assessment maps.

The deliberate application of aerial images has proven to be of value in many projects in which environmental impact assessment was of relevance. For example, aerial images invariably presented an excellent medium for the visualization of plans, e.g. for the purpose of attaining public participation. Hansa Luftbild uses digital aerial images (also oblique aerial images) in order to visualize planning projects, and owing to its modern technology is capable of producing animated 3D visualizations—as are frequently used in foreign country projects— for example, in road construction projects. Furthermore we specifically apply aerial images to survey populations, for example, in mapping habitat types. In the event that either no or only outdated data are available — as is frequently the case in foreign country projects — we apply remote-sensing data, e.g. in large-scale real land-use cartography or the calculation of digital surface models.