By 2030, UNWTO forecasts international tourist arrivals to reach 1.8 billion. Like few other sectors, tourism has experienced continued expansion and diversification over the past six decades, turning into one of the largest, fastest growing economic sectors in the world. It contributes 10% of global GDP accounts, for one in each 11 jobs worldwide and for 6% of global exports. With many opportunities deriving from tourisms exponential growth, decoupling environmental degradation from economic growth by placing a strong focus on the sustainable use of resources is as important as never before. Efforts at the international level to accelerate the shift towards more sustainable consumption and production (SCP) patterns are reflected by the definition of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the creation of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on SCP patterns, including the 10YFP Sustainable Tourism Programme (STP). However, it is usually difficult for tourism suppliers and decision-makers to drive the change in developing more SCP patterns in tourism, given the limited evidence available at the destination level and the fact that sustainability in the tourism sector is highly context sensitive. With the aim to support tourism suppliers in their challenge to mainstream sustainable tourism practices, the project Innovative catalysts boosting sustainability in the tourism sector based on examples from Germany was implemented between August 2015 and April 2016. The project focused on identifying and analysing distinct enabling elements (referred to as catalysts ) of sustainable tourism initiatives in Germany that have visibly accelerated the shift towards more SCP patterns. Intensive literature review and desk research were combined with multiple rounds of participatory in-depth interviews via phone and in the field with key stakeholders such as accommodation services, attractions, products, tourism organizations and destinations, among others. The project report of this initiative illustrates the large scope of innovative activities aimed at accelerating the shift towards more SCP patterns in tourism in Germany and seeks to emphasize the diverse efforts made by all types of stakeholders along the tourism supply chain in mainstreaming sustainable tourism development. It provides an overview of catalytic elements that have successfully supported the shift towards SCP with a view to facilitating their replication and integration into current and future initiatives within the framework of the 10YFP STP and beyond.
GEOFON (GEOFOrschungsNetz) is the global seismological broad-band network operated by the German GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ). The GEOFON seismic network came into being in 1993 as one of the three pillars of the GEOFON program dedicated to Ernst von Rebeur-Paschwitz, proposer of a global earthquake monitoring system, who recorded the first teleseismic seismogram in Potsdam in 1889. The program and its seismic network were created to provide high quality broad-band data for scientific use and foster common standards in the seismological community. The network has evolved towards real-time data acquisition and distribution while keeping the high quality broad-band data in focus. Today the network plays a leading role in global real-time seismology providing valuable data for almost all fundamental and applied global/regional seismological research projects at GFZ and the wider seismological community.
The GEOFON network is operated jointly with more than 50 international partners and in 2014 consists of about 80 active stations on all continents, but concentrated in Europe and the Mediterranean region as well as in the Indian Ocean. Station operation is mostly performed by local partners with GFZ guidance and logistic support, allowing the global network to be well-advanced technically while still extremely cost-effective. All stations are equipped with broad-band sensors (generally STS-2) that allow resolution of the complete seismic spectrum from small high-frequency local earthquakes to the largest global earthquakes.
Data from all stations are freely redistributed in real-time for earthquake monitoring and tsunami warning centers immediately after acquisition at the GEOFON data centre via wired or satellite links. Archived data is also available. GEOFON is part of the Modular Earth Science Infrastructure (MESI) housed at GFZ.