20 Years of KLEKs—The Establishment of Historical Cultural Landscape Element Database Based on Volunteer Participation in Germany

Historical cultural landscape elements have shaped the “face” of today’s landscape. Against the background of the current planning framework its protection and evaluation will be realized by the digital means in the context of enough understanding of the concept. For this purpose, a cultural landscape element collection system (KLEKs) based on voluntary behaviors has been set up in Germany in 1999. It aims to collect the historical and cultural landscape elements based on GIS data as detailed and completely as possible. KLEKs is currently used in several federal states in Germany. It is advanced in particular with the participation of experts and volunteers in rural research and with the support of teaching and research projects at several German universities. This paper provides an overview of the technological development of the KLEKs system. It focuses on the introduction of the chronological development, collection methodology, and the use of the KLEKs database in planning processes.