Landscape management accounting as a tool for indicating the need of action for ecosystem maintenance and restoration – Exemplified for Saxony

•We explain the methodological framework of a landscape management assessment, needed for the maintenance of landscapes.•Management tasks are defined and the method of cost calculation for habitat types/restructuring requirements is explained.•Steps and results are exemplified by the German Free State of Saxony.•The actually available budgets are much lower than the means to perform the necessary measures.

A politically fixed und broadly concerted social consensus for the permanent preservation of wildlife and of their habitats reflects the demand for biodiversity and intact cultural landscapes. But wherever human beings have to intervene in nature in order to secure their own existence, targeted landscape management becomes necessary for the preservation of the values and performances of ecosystems.This paper explains the methodological framework of a landscape management accounting system as exemplified by the German Free State of Saxony. Management tasks are defined and the method of cost calculation is explained. The calculation of management costs comprises, first, the determination of care-dependent habitats; second, an allocation of necessary measures; and third, the estimation of the related costs per year. The total financial requirement is composed of costs for maintaining, developing and investing measures per habitat type. Based on different inventories of landscape structures showing the losses of the last decades, and considering the habitat needs of key species, a demand for restructuring measures was determined.A total requirement for habitat management was quantified for almost 10% of the land area. Regarding the restructuring needs, analyses and assessments were made for running waters and accompanying structural elements demanding the opening of 300 km of closed rivulets from their pipes, the planting of copses along 680 km of bare streams, and the abandonment of 21,300 ha of arable fields in floodplains. Furthermore, 2500 km of tree lines, hedgerows and field margins are necessary to plant in the agricultural landscape.