EU FP7 Project RUFUS Rural future Networks Contract no. 217381 - collaborative project -

Theme 8: Socio Economic Sciences and Humanities

Project duration: 02/2008 – 01/2011

RUFUS

Discussion Paper

Discussion paper no. 2010-4 Title RURAL REGIONS IN EUROPE.

A new typology showing the diversity of European rural regions

Author(s): Johanna Scholz & Sylvia Herrmann

2010-4

RURAL REGIONS IN EUROPE A new typology showing the diversity

of European rural regions

Johanna Scholz / LUH Sylvia Herrmann/ LUH

April/2010

Keywords: typology, regional development, rural diversity, classification, cluster analysis,

types of rural regions

INTRODUCTION

The general situation of rural areas, the creation of rural development strategies and the use of regional assets of rural regions in Europe is strongly discussed. Old recipes are no longer valid to cope with current problems like demographic change, decreasing importance of agriculture or impact of global change. To overcome this situation, new approaches are required to direct rural policies. To enable all policies impacting the rural development to follow the principle of an integrated approach to support the coherence of rural areas, the knowledge about rural areas has to be connected closer with demanded policy approaches. Approaches are needed which illustrate the competitiveness of rural regions, help to enhance the local assets and support to exploit unused resources to valorise rural areas (OECD 2006). Based on this, the aim is to develop approaches which allow for sustainable use of regional potentials and to maintain social life in rural regions. In order to meet these challenges, it is necessary to analyse the diversity of potentials of individual regions, to show their respective demand for changes, and relate them to the overall European context. The analysis of the social, economic and ecological diversity of regions may provide a basis for the necessary cooperation across political sectors, a precondition for integrated and sustainable solutions. The EU FP 7 project „RUFUS‟ (Rural Future Networks, www.rufus-eu.de) meets these challenges with a new approach in support of politicians for rural development with knowledge about potentials of rural regions. As the objectives of the CAP shift from an agricultural-centred approach to wider rural development, the CAP comes into closer association with a wide range of sectoral policy regimes: regional policy, spatial planning, environmental management, social policy, energy policy, and others. Sectoral regimes interact in complex ways, and with a determining effect on the sustainable development of rural areas. RUFUS will provide policy makers and stakeholders with better theoretical and practical understanding of how policy regimes can be combined to ensure more sustainable development. At the same time, RUFUS offers information how rural development policy can be targeted at the specific endogenous potential of rural regions to encourage multiple functionalities, which go beyond physical landscape potentials to include social as well as economic activities and opportunities. The project, started at the beginning of 2008, aims to come to new solutions for a wider approach including especially the social dimension as a central component of the analysis, alongside economic and ecological aspects. Therefore, one major objective of RUFUS is to generate a tool in order to specify and visualise the different dimensions of regional resources. This characterization tool consists of a typology of rural regions based on an indicator set developed by an interdisciplinary methodology. By means of the typology, different types of rural regions with specific characteristics concerning their capability, that means their specific resources and potentials, are derived. As basis for project internal discussions of the typology results as well as basis for knowledge exchange with experts and stakeholder, the derived types of the typology are mapped. To be able to act as basis for policy recommendations, the typology is based on the results of a policy baseline assessment (Nadin & Nes 2008) which reflects the actual politics relevant for rural regions. Further on, the typology will be tested and refined by the partners in case studies. Here the significance of the types can be checked by stakeholder processes on a regional and local level (see fig.1). In summary, the tool typology, which is one basic component of RUFUS project, is embedded in the project approach which consists of four steps. They are built on one another:

Definition of relevant policy frameworks and necessary improvements to overcome the disadvantages of non-coordination of policies for rural areas (impact information to RUFUS typology)

Elaboration of a typology based on a broad set of social, economic and ecological indicators which shows the strengths and weaknesses of the regions

Use of bottom-up evidence derived from case studies to relate this typology to the requirements of local/regional stakeholders (iterative process)

Contextualization of findings in respect to political goals and policy problems, and derivation of practical and meaningful recommendations for action referring to the regional diversity.

Figure 1. Integration of the typology in RUFUS project

THE “TOOL TYPOLOGY”

One of the methodological pillars of RUFUS project is the typology. The results of the typology are groups of rural regions which are described by their different characteristics concerning their current state and based on this, their individual development potential. They reflect the diversity of rural areas in Europe. By the use of statistical methods as well as comparing individual regions, the structure of regions within these types can be described and subtypes are derived. The political target group of the RUFUS project are the policy makers on the national and/or European level. Therefore, an appropriate reference unit, the NUTS31 unit, was chosen. NUTS3 allows for a sufficiently diverse comparison among and within the EU countries. Nevertheless, the implementation of policy measures in rural areas takes place on the local level. To bring these requirements of the different levels together, the typology of rural regions takes place on the regional level, but tries to consider underlying structures within these types by the description of subtypes. Beyond that, the view from the local level on the typology results takes place by the bottom-up evidence derived from case studies in the different countries. The typology is based on a wide set of indicators which shows the ecological, economic and social resources of the regions on the basis of well-known as well as innovative indicators. RUFUS will use these baseline „static‟ classifications and will add the endogenous development potentials of regions, including indicators of the need for policy intervention. Beyond that, the result should serve as support for regional „probability‟ to make use of this support. The results should be a more policy relevant typology. Some indicators show the current state regarding the ecological, economic and social situation. Indicators for potentials show the existing development potentials (e.g. NATURA2000, tourism accommodation). As additional indicators, that means variables that are used for a detailed description but not included in the calculation of typology types, for example indicators for agency (e.g.: the application for agricultural development schemes/LEADER+), are used to demonstrate the determination and motivation for change by the people in the regions. In general the derived types out of the RUFUS typology are mapped by the use of geographical information system. That means that each type is displayed as one colour. Based on this, on the one hand people are getting an overview of the distribution of the different types. It can be realized that territorial accumulations of individual types arise. On the other hand, stakeholders are able to assess regions in the context of the typology classification which they know very well.

1 Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques

In summary, the main objective of RUFUS typology is to draw a coherent picture of rural areas and to highlight the diversity and in the same way the similarities of rural regions. At the same time, the typology serves as basis for case studies and policy recommendations.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The methodology for the development of the RUFUS typology consists of the following steps: First decisions on basic settings (e.g. research level, indicator selection) have to be made. A set of indicators has to be derived and will be integrated in the statistical step of the cluster analysis. The interpretation of clusters provides the final typology. These derived types and the individual regions that are part of each region are analysed more in detail to get an idea of rules which determine the process of clustering. Furthermore, the typology results are visualised by the use of GIS software.

BASIC SETTINGS & DATA BASE

The typology is based on available data sets. No primary data selection was initiated. Most of the data are taken from existing data bases like EUROSTAT and CORINE Land Cover. Furthermore, additional indicators, especially social and ecological data sets, have been provided for each country in the project. Therefore, the project is able to extend general indicator sets by regional information. Furthermore it is possible to fill in gaps partly in the existing databases (e.g. Eurostat) through the national data assessment. The focus of the typology is centred on the project countries: the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Germany. The reference units are the NUTS 3 regions of the RUFUS project countries. From the point of view of the project, the NUTS3 level is the most detailed and appropriate level which can still be considered in direct connection to the rural policy and provides at the same time a sufficient data base for the comparison of rural regions. Due to the fact that the level NUTS3 represents the regional level, only average values and average characteristics of a total region are considered and analyzed in the typology.

INDICATOR SELECTION

The calculation of rural types consists of two subsequent steps. Due to the fact that the typology should display common rural characteristics, strong urban influenced regions have to be identified first. On this basis the first typology step (step I: general characterisation of urban and rural regions in Europe) consists of a differentiation between significant urban and more rural characterised regions and takes place to be able to develop a typology which shows the diversity and endogenous as well as development potentials of especially rural regions.

Identification & classification of urban and rural regions

The identification of strong urban influenced regions based on the regions characteristics regarding population density and percentages of land covered by urban use. The following indicators are used for typology step I:

1. Population density2

2. Percentage of CORINE urban land3

3. Percentage of Urban Audit `Core City Regions`4

4. Percentage of Urban Audit `Large Urban Zones`5

Indicator selection for typology of rural regions

On the basis of the policy baseline assessment (Nadin & Nes 2008) and further developed selection criteria, a set of indicators for the second typology step (“typology of rural regions”) has been derived by the interdisciplinary project team of RUFUS project. Two important selection criteria are the policy relevance and the balance between social, ecological and economic related indicators. As last deciding selection criteria, the data availability significantly affects the result of such a typology. The indicators chosen by selection criteria split into indicators describing the current state in the individual regions and into indicators describing potential (see fig. 2). Overall it is tried to select variables which indicate cross sector characteristics (e.g. education degrees as a combination of social and economic potential). To be able to extend the description of types, additional indicators are added after the statistical derivation of clusters. These indicators are not included in the calculation of the clusters. They are called `additional` as they do not define the position of clusters but are used for the description of the characteristics of the individual cluster only. By means of statistical methods, RUFUS just looks how these additional variables behave in the different clusters of rural types. These indicators are mostly variables which do not contribute to the finding of a similarity measure in the cluster analysis. Yet they yield very important information for the interpretation on the cluster and therefore they are used as additional indicators.

2 EUROSTAT data base

3 CORINE land cover

4 EUROSTAT data base

5 EUROSTAT data base

DEVELOPMENT OF TYPES WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK `TYPOLOGY OF RURAL REGIONS`

Factor analysis & cluster analysis

By using multivariate statistical techniques (cluster analysis) the regions (NUTS 3) of selected European countries are clustered by common indicator characteristics. This is not based on individual indicator values but on factor loadings derived from the factor analysis. The values of three components describe the cluster characteristics. Component1 can be described as measure of socio-economic success6. Component2 is characterised by the importance of the three economic sectors7 and component3 describes the importance of the tourism sector as well as the natural capital8. On this basis a cluster analysis9 (Backhaus 2006) has been performed. The results are different clusters which will be used for deriving the main types of rural regions.

6 included variables: GDP, unemploymentrate & migration rate

7 included variables: number of employments and share of GVA in the different sector

8 included variabels: accommodation (camping & hotel), percentage of area covert by NATURA2000

9 k-means cluster analysis

Figure 2. Indicator selection for typology of rural regions

Main Types

Each cluster is defined as a specific type by interpreting and describing their characteristic aspects and their resources to reveal development potentials. The types, derived from the cluster of the statistical analysis, build the typology of rural regions. The description of the types is based on the comparison and ranking of the original indicator values. References are the mean values of the indicators in the nine project countries. Finally, each type reflects the current state of the regions, from which the specific potentials of the regions are derived. Thus, policy should be enabled to shape their frames according to the respective mix of potentials and needs of the regional types. To prove the derived potentials as well as the described actual-status, the result of the typology and the description of the types will be verified in the case studies by means of individual sample regions. In interviews with experts the types will be discussed. They will check the given information of the types on the actual-status as well as the potentials and assets.

Subtypes

To be able to analyse the range of characteristics within one type, different subclasses (“subtypes”) belonging to each main types are developed. This classification also bases on the use of factor loadings in a cluster analytical step10. For each of the five main typology types (rural types), three sub-categorisations are calculated. Again, the clusters of subtypes are interpreted by the use of original data sets. First of all the mean values of variables of main types are used to categorise the classes in a ranking within one main type. After that the mean values of each subtype are used to rank these clusters in the general comparison of the whole typology. That means a main-type overarching comparison. The idea is to analyse the rules in which way regions change from one type to another, if basic settings are verified just a little (e.g. addition of new regions)

MAPPING OF TYPOLOGY RESULTS

To be able to visualise the results of the typology, the types are mapped by the use of instruments like GIS software. Each Type is represented by one colour. The results of two classification steps (step I: general classification of rural and urban types & step II: typology or rural regions) are brought together in one map. The different methodologies used in the different typology steps are not recognisable any more.

RESULTS

THE TOOL TYPOLOGY

Based on the presented methodology, seven main types of European regions in nine countries have been developed (see fig. 3). Two urban types are the result of the first step: “general characterisation of urban and rural regions”. The other five types are the result of the approach: “typology of rural regions”. These five types of rural regions are described regarding the characteristics of each indicator component. Based on the types of rural regions, the range of regional characteristics within one type will be presented in the following.

10

k-means cluster analysis

Figure 3. Typology of rural regions

General characterisation of urban and rural regions

Four classes are derived as the result of the identification of strong urban influenced regions: 1.urban, 2.intermediate urban, 3.intermediate rural and 4.deep rural. The RUFUS project has decided to develop a new approach for characterising significantly urban and more rural regions instead of using an existing approach. In comparison to the OECD classification, the idea is to broaden the often used classes „predominantly rural‟ and „intermediate‟ of OECD classification. Furthermore, the percentage of urban used areas in the RUFUS definition is weighted higher. Nevertheless, the OECD classification is used as a comparative criterion in the definition of urban classes. (OECD 2004) The regions, characterised by the urban classification of RUFUS project as „intermediate rural‟ and „deep rural‟, represent the basis of the typology of rural regions. The classes ´urban´ as well as ´intermediate urban´ are represented in the map (see figure 3) by one common type (“Type urban”).

Characterisation of rural regions

In the RUFUS project, the types themselves and their descriptions represent the results of the typology of rural regions. The type descriptions (see below) focus on the main specific characteristics. In the following sections, each type is described in terms of its dominant characteristics found in the cluster analysis. Finally, the type descriptions are summarized in keywords (see short descriptions).

RURAL TYPE 1

TYPE1 can be described as socio-economic leading clusters of regions. The clusters are characterised by a positive population change in the years 1995 to 2005, a below average11 unemployment rate and proportional to all considered regions by a high value of GDP per inhabitant. The cluster analysis does not point out any of the economic sectors in particular because the GDP in the individual sectors equals the average of the studied regions. On the other hand the number of employed persons in the primary sector is above average. In the regions of TYPE1 tourism does not play an important role. The marginal values of accommodation options are accompanied by a low percentage of Nature2000 areas, which can be interpreted as a low nature capital in these regions. short description: socio-economic successful, economic relevance of sectors is consistent to regions average, sparsely importance of tourism sector, marginal nature capital

11

The terms ‚above average„ and ‚below average„ are in reference to the average values of the considered nine countries (EU9).

RURAL TYPE 2

TYPE2 is represented by regions with medium socio-economic success. The regions are characterised by a low amount of immigration, a GDP per inhabitant that equals the average of all analysed regions and a medium number of unemployed persons. These regions are characterised by high importance of tourism. High values of Hotel accommodations and campsites represent this importance. The high importance of tourism is accompanied by a high value of Natura 2000 which is represented by percentage of area covert by Natura 2000. TYPE2 of RUFUS typology is characterized by the high importance of agricultural and service sector. The importance is evident through the share of employees and economic performance in the primary and tertiary sector in figures. Especially the share of GDP per inhabitant generated in the service sector is evidently high.

short description: medium economic successful, high capital in tourism and nature, high importance of agriculture and service sector

RURAL TYPE 3

TYPE3 could be described as the lagging behind group considering the socio-economic development. It is characterised by a strong out-migration, a very low value of GDP per inhabitant and a high employment rate. With regard to the importance of the individual sectors and their economic performance, Type3 is characterized by an employment rate and GVA generated in the different sectors which are consistent with the average of all regions. In relation to natural capital, TYPE3 includes a high share of NATURA 2000 areas. Tourism does not play a vital role for the region. short description: socio-economic lagging behind, marginal importance of tourism, high nature capital, divers economic mix consists with the general average

RURAL TYPE 4

TYPE4 is characterised as lagging behind with regard to the economic success. A very high unemployment rate is accompanied by a low GDP per inhabitant. In contrast to Type3, Type4 is described by a slightly positive migration rate. Tourism does not play any particular role as well as the value of nature potential is assessed as low. With regard to the importance of the individual sectors and their economic performance, TYPE 4 is characterized by a high percentage of GVA produced by the manufacturing sector. The percentage of GVA coming out of the primary sector is just marginal but in comparison it tops the average value of all analysed regions. The high importance of the manufacturing sector is also certified by the over average value of employed persons in the second sector. Due to the fact, that few regions (17 out of 947) are grouped in the cluster of Type4, this cluster represents a specific case. short description: high percentage rate of unemployed persons, low income by GDP per inhabitant, slightly inmigration, low importance of tourism, marginal nature potential, manufacturing oriented

RURAL TYPE 5

Type 5 is characterised by the highest GDP (Purchasing Power Parities per inhabitant) in comparison to all analysed regions and a positive migration rate. This causes a successful socio-economic situation in these regions. Caused by a little higher unemployment rate, Type5 is not as successful in relation to the socio-economic situation as Type1. The importance of tourism can be characterised as the average of analysed regions. But the natural capital does not go along with this tourism development. The percentage of area covert by Natura 2000 areas is just marginal and therefore the importance of natural capital can be assessed as low. One important common characteristic which causes the clustering of regions in Type5 is the strong importance of the manufacturing sector for the economic success (measured by general GVA). Even if the percentage of employed persons in the service as well in the manufacturing sector are above average, the economic success, measured by the percentage of GVA in the three sectors, is highly based on the manufacturing sector. short description: low percentage rate of unemployed persons, highest income by GDP per inhabitant, slightly inmigration, medium importance of tourism, nature potential scarcely under general average, manufacturing oriented

DETAILED CHARACTERISATION OF REGIONS WITHIN TYPES OF RURAL REGIONS

Development of rural subtypes by multivariate statistics

Each typology, based on statistical analysis, is necessarily a simplification of the real circumstances. To get distinct types, a concentration on the most important characteristics and the building of averages are necessary. This has been done on the spatial level of NUTS3. Nevertheless, each of these types represents a range of different combinations of the indicator values. To show these ranges of characteristics within one type, different subclasses within the main typology types are developed. For each of the five rural types three subclasses are calculated by statistical calculations. The number of three subclasses is defined by the methodology. As example of a sub-classified cluster, Type 1 is described in the following. In general, Type1 is characterised as socio-economically successful with a minor importance of the tourism sector and a marginal nature capital. Beyond that the distribution of economic sector relevancies is consistent with all regions average. The characterisation of the three subtypes regarding the attribute ´socio-economic success´ indicates how heterogeneous the included characteristics can be. While Subtype1.1 is characterised by GDP and unemployment rate which are consistent with the general average and a slightly positive migration rate, Subtype1.2 represents regions with a low GDP, also a low unemployment rate but a much higher number of in-migrating people. This demonstrates that the basic situation of regions which are described as socio-economically successful can differ in a considerable way. The attributes “socio-economically successful” and the “importance of the tourism sector” and the value of “natural capital” are the determining factors which are responsible for the formation of Type1. In contrast the importance of the economic sectors differs within the three subtypes a lot. While Subtype1.2 is highly depends on the agricultural sector, Subtype1.3 represents regions with importance of the economic sectors that are consistent with the general average. Due to the fact that Subtype1.2 includes just three regions, this has to be a specific kind of characteristic combination within Europe. Beyond that it is recognisable how close the characteristic combination of Subtype1.2 to the general description of main Type2 appears. Maybe these are regions which are close to the characteristics of Type2, but one single attribute (for example positive migration rate) differs in an extensive way that these regions change from one main type to the other. To be able to connect the information with policy relevance statements, basic rules of interpretation have to be developed. That means, that within characteristic components (like socio-economic success, which consist of information about GDP, unemployment and number of migrating people) policy relevant prioritisations have to be defined or a detailed analysis of each indicator has to be constituted. VISUALISATION OF TYPES Due to the visualisation of typologies, a comparison of results will be improved. It is possible to identify territorial accumulations of regions within one type as well as the diversity or homogeneity of types within one country. For example, the Rufus typology shows accumulations of regions within Type4 in inner Poland. This cluster of regions is surrounded by a cluster of regions of Type3. These both types are mostly concentrated on Poland. In contrast to these two types, Type5 is distributed to eight of nine countries.

By the use of the map the distribution of rural as well as urban types is noticeable. Also the size of the regions in each country can be compared by the user. In particular, the relation of information value about the type and the size of the region which is part of the type, are important for further interpretation. In general, the information value which is given by the typology does not reflect any assessment. To assess these characteristic clusters is part of the following political discussion.

DISCUSSION

Types of rural Regions

The challenge of the RUFUS typology is to specify the different dimensions of regional resources and at the same time point out the similarities of rural areas to be able to serve as a basis for policy recommendations. Based on a multisectoral indicator set, the RUFUS project displays a range of potentials and assets in European regions. This presents a considerable challenge due to the relative availability of in particular social and ecological indicators and the need for a combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. To be able to provide appropriate and applicable results for policy recommendations on the national and European level, the typology demonstrates the diversity of rural regions as well as specific potentials and their applicability. The diversity of rural regions is demonstrated by the different types of rural regions. The different characteristics are shown by the comparison of several (e.g. economic, environmental, natural, demographic) aspects. The heterogeneity of rural areas can also be described by the range of characteristics within one cluster type. On this basis and by use of additional potential indicating variables, different dimensions of potential are derived. To get an idea of the applicability of these potentials for future development, the current state and available as well as missing potentials are compared. For example, for Type3 a high nature potential is derived. Due to the general bad economic situation and the minor importance of tourism, the natural capital was scarcely used in the past. This kind of information can be used for policy integration and the formulation of policy intervention. On the basis of the types describing current state and related potentials, policy will be able to derive ideas of development impetus to maintain or change the current state of regions by the use of regional potential. Thus there is the possibility to develop intervention strategies and sustaining measures for each type. Changes in politics will have an effect on leading and lagging behind regions. The definition of potentials bears the opportunity to meet these changes with individual strategies. This may include both measures to maintain the existing as well as to start something new. The development of RUFUS typology which includes the interpretation of statistical results, the derivation of regional types and after that the check of transferability to a broader set of analysed countries, has shown, that the development of a general methodology is required for the development of classifications which are strongly connected with policy related information.

The typology as means to support European and national policies

Looking at the different characteristics of the five rural types and considering the fact that these types are simplifications of the real situation including a broad range of wider combinations of the considered issues it can be concluded that

> it is necessary to find out the possibilities of policy integration to be able to use the typology for an integrated planning approach > „multi-functionality‟ has to be used in a broader sense beyond the diversification of agriculture > this implies the involvement of other policies in the formulation of political answers to the development needs shown by the typology > new concepts are necessary to make use of existing unused potentials

Further on, the typology shows the non-use of potentials as well as the necessity to go beyond the current mainstream ideas of rural development for some of the classified types. This implies new approaches for the involvement of society to integrate fresh and unconventional ideas into the development plans. At the same time, the „visualisation‟ of social characteristics (e.g. the governance potential in the regions shown by the additional indicator „participation in LEADER activities‟) may help to shape the programmes and measures for rural development not only according to the economic needs (which can be the same in two regions, while the social indicator shows important differences) but also in respect to the endogenous potential in the regions. The typology represents an important tool to provide information concerning the characteristics of rural regions for different needs. Politicians on the different levels will be provided with an overview on more general rural classes in Europe. The chance of using the information value is to get generalised and abstracted information on rural characteristics. This more generalised information fits with demands of politicians on national and European levels. On this level, it has to be decided which type of regions needs common strategies and therefore common political and financial impetus and where are clusters of types which have to be sub-classified to boost these regions more individually. On this account the RUFUS project zooms in on the main types and develops categories of sub-types. In the following the derived subtypes are compared concerning the main characteristics to find solutions within these groups of subtypes. If there are at least two or three corresponding characteristic components, several of the three subtypes of each main type are recombined. On the other hand, representatives responsible for developing individual regional and local development strategies depend on information on their regions. By the methodological option to develop subtypes, more individual characteristics and subgroups can be calculated and interpreted. But the aim of the typology is to create a comparison of rural regions which means a simplification of an amount of individual characteristics. This implies that special local features below the regional level are not illustrated. But the target of this typology is to indicate how heterogeneous and diverse rural areas are within Europe and at the same time to show in which way they offer common characteristics, potentials and needs. In using the case study results, the information value of the typology which is strongly related to the regional level can be adapted, validated and combined with local information and requirements. Furthermore political decisions on the development of rural areas and the funding on the European level cannot meet these local requirements. In combining the political impulse in the rural area with the territorial approach of such a typology given by RUFUS, European politics could adjust their concepts to the development tendencies in the regions.

Technical aspects

A general problem in the context of interpreting the typology results are the strongly varying sizes of NUTS 3 regions. The average size of NUTS3 regions in Germany is 830km², in Sweden 21.000km². Consequently, rural characteristics of large NUTS3 units like in Sweden are not considered that strongly in the typology. Due to the large-scale of the units, relatively few Swedish areas, are included in the typology. The Swedish regions therefore are of much less influence than the German regions. If the heterogeneous size of the studies areas affects the formation of the regional clusters and thereby the characteristics of the types to a substantial degree, it has to be proved in how far the typology of EU9 can still be considered representative for EU27. Visualisation of typology results Visualisation is a crucial step to make the results of the cluster analysis and typology process easy understandable for the project partners and the stakeholders. Mapping the results with the help of a Geographical Information System (GIS) is one possibility of visualisation. Using a GIS has the advantage that the data base for the cluster analysis directly can be used (linkage via region ID). Further on, the layout of the maps can flexibly be adapted to the need of different users. The results of each step of the RUFUS typology (urban-rural delineation, rural typology, subtypes of rural areas) have been mapped. By this, it is easy to „translate‟ the cluster results in a form which enables the RUFUS project partners as well as the experts to understand the output of the typology. The results become spatially referenced. By this, project partners are able to compare the result for their regions with their own experiences and thus, a first plausibility check can be performed. It allows also for the simple evaluation of spatial accumulation of types or the distribution pattern of all types over a specific country. Contrary characteristics of adjoining regions, for instance, can be analysed to find out if these characteristics hinder or support the development of the neighbouring regions. In the same way, these maps serve as a basis for discussion with stakeholder and experts. They build a bridge between the methodological step of the classification of regions and the territorial knowledge. Further on, maps facilitate the comparison of the own region with others in Europe. Eventually, this could support a clearer understanding of the relationship as well as the diversity of European regions, and build a basis for coordinated rural development approaches. However, the use of these typology maps harbours some risks. For a correct interpretation of the maps the users needs a broad knowledge about the regions in Europe. Furthermore, they have to be able to abstract from local specifications and to generalise their own (local) experiences to the regional and national level. That means that mapped typology results as shown in figure 3 are mainly useful for discussions and policy recommendations related to the national or the European level.

CONCLUSIONS

In summary, the presented typology is an initial result of the RUFUS project and still in progress of being developed. However, the described types of rural regions are able to represent in a new way the diversity of rural regions and the option to group them in a convenient and meaningful manner. As a result, the typology provides, besides the current state of rural region, also indications of specific potentials, especially human capital and natural resources. This will contribute to assist European and national politics in using more than before the whole bandwidth of potentials and demands for the development of programs and instruments. The results of the typology and their usability for policy recommendations show the benefit of future support to develop strategies for integrative rural development. At the same time limitations of usability in the context of interpretation and transferability (concerning different levels and spatial distributions) become apparent. Thus the development of such a typology demands on a distinct aim and a methodology which is strongly related to the defined target group. In addition the visualisation and the general methodology have to consider the ability and knowledge of the target group. The results of the typology and information on the individual types will be reviewed in the following case studies. Experts and stakeholder from studied regions will be invited to discuss the results and to check in which way the typology provides a framework for the local level. In further steps of indicators selection as well as indicator development, RUFUS typology should be changed from the more static characterised to a more dynamic typology to be able to improve the knowledge about future development potentials. Furthermore, the translation of results of RUFUS typology into knowledge for existing policy and practices will be future work of RUFUS project.

REFERENCES

Backhaus, K./ Erichson, B./ Plinke W./ Weiber, R. Multivariate Analysemethoden. Eine anwendungsorientierte Einführung = Multivariate Analysis. An application-oriented introduction. Berlin, 2006, 830 p. Nadin, V./ Nes, A. van. Position Paper. Baseline assessment. Rural Future Networks (RUFUS). Deliverable 2.2. 2008, www.rufus-eu.de OECD. The state of rural policy, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2004, Paris. OECD. The New Rural Paradigm. Policies and Governance. 2006 Edition. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2006, Paris.