Coping with Demographic Change in the Alpine Regions : Actions and Strategies for Spatial and Regional Development

Europe’s population is ageing and decreasing. Demographic change is making not only regional and territorial adaptation necessary, but also new region-specific spatial planning and regional development. This publication focusses on demographic change and its implications for the economy and social systems in the Alpine areas, which differ widely from their surrounding metropolitan areas. It provides a specific regional in-depth study in order to help establish suitable adaptation and development programs. It covers various aspects including demographic analysis, onsite participatory strategies and implementation processes, as well as generalized adaptation strategies. Reports on pilot actions in various regions across the Alps demonstrate how demographic change can be approached from a practitioner’s perspective. The volume is based on the results of the project DEMOCHANGE, which was co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund in the frame of the European Territorial Cooperation "Alpine Space" program.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Bausch is Professor at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Tourism, working in fields of destination management and regional development. A focus of his work is the Alpine Space area and related European programmes of transnational territorial cooperation. As national expert he contributed to several strategy papers on regional development and cohesion policy in the Alps.

Madeleine Koch, born 1978 in Wittenberg is a Research and Teaching Assistant in Social Geography at Salzburg University. She studied Geography in Jena and Salzburg, received her MSc in Geography in 2009 and is currently working on her PhD-Thesis on collaborative housing projects in Austria. In the DEMOCHANGE project she was responsible for the development and implementation of projects in the southern part of the Austrian federal state of Salzburg.

Alexander Veser is a geographer with the Institute for Emergency Medicine and Medicine Management at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich. During his time as research assistant for the DEMOCHANGE project at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, he has analysed ageing and migration processes and their effects on regional economy, infrastructure and society. Together with regional partners and stakeholders, he has facilitated the conceptualisation and implementation of pilot actions in Southern Bavarian model regions. In his current work, he analyses the effects of demographic change on the demand for emergency services.