BACKGROUND: The Kingdom of Jordan belongs to the ten water scarcest countries in the world, and climate change is likely to increase the frequency of future droughts. Jordan is considered among the 10 most water impoverished countries in the world, with per capita water availability estimated at 170 m per annum, compared to an average of 1,000 m per annum in other countries. Jordan Government has taken the strategic decision to develop a conveyor system including a 325 km pipe to pump 100 million cubic meters per year of potable water from Disi-Mudawwara close to the Saudi Border in the south, to the Greater Amman area in the north. The construction of the water pipeline has started end of 2009 and shall be finished in 2013. Later on, the pipeline could serve as a major part of a national water carrier in order to convey desalinated water from the Red Sea to the economically most important central region of the country. The conveyor project will not only significantly increase water supplies to the capital, but also provide for the re-allocation of current supplies to other governorates, and for the conservation of aquifers. In the context of the Disi project that is co-funded by EIB two Environmental and Social Management Plans have been prepared: one for the private project partners and one for the Jordan Government. The latter includes the Governments obligation to re-balance water allocations to irrigation and to gradually restore the protected wetlands of Azraq (Ramsar site) east of Amman that has been depleted due to over-abstraction by re-directing discharge of highland aquifers after the Disi pipeline becomes operational. The Water Strategy recognizes that groundwater extraction for irrigation is beyond acceptable limits. Since the source is finite and priority should be given to human consumption it proposes to tackle the demand for irrigation through tariff adjustments, improved irrigation technology and disincentive to water intensive crops. The Disi aquifer is currently used for irrigation by farms producing all kinds of fruits and vegetables on a large scale and exporting most of their products to the Saudi and European markets and it is almost a third of Jordan's total consumption. The licenses for that commercial irrigation were finished by 2011/12. Whilst the licenses will be not renewed the difficulty will be the enforcement and satellite based information become an important supporting tool for monitoring. OUTLOOK: The ESA funded project Water management had the objective to support the South-North conveyor project and the activities of EIB together with the MWI in Jordan to ensure the supply of water for the increasing demand. EO Information provides a baseline for land cover and elevation and support the monitoring of further stages. usw.
Objective: SHIVA aims to reduce uncertainties in present and future stratospheric halogen loading and ozone depletion resulting from climate feedbacks between emissions and transport of ozone depleting substances (ODS). Of particular relevance will be studies of short and very short-lived substances (VSLS) with climate-sensitive natural emissions. We will perform field studies of ODS production, emission and transport in understudied, but critical, regions of the tropics using ship, aircraft and ground-based instrumentation. We will parameterize potential climate sensitivities of emissions based on inter-dependencies derived from our own field studies, and surveys of ongoing work in this area. We will study the chemical transformation of ODS during transport from the surface to the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), and in the stratosphere, using a combination of aircraft and balloon observations together with process-oriented meso-scale modelling. These investigations will be corroborated by space-based remote sensing of marine phytoplankton biomass as a possible proxy for the ocean-atmosphere flux of ODS. From this a systematic emission inventory of VSLS ODS will be established to allow construction of future-climate scenarios. The impact of climate-sensitive feedbacks between transport and the delivery of ODS to the stratosphere, and their lifetime within it, will be studied using tracer observations and modelling. Further global modelling will assess the contribution of all ODS, including VSLS (which have hitherto normally been excluded from such models) to past, present and future ozone loss. Here, the sensitivity of natural ODS emissions to climate change parameters will be used in combination with standard IPCC climate model scenarios in order to drive measurement-calibrated chemical transport model (CTM) simulations for present and future stratospheric ozone; to better predict the rate, timing and climate-sensitivity of ozone-layer recovery.
While urban Indonesia is almost completely electrified, two-thirds of the rural population still lack access to electricity. In many cases, the mountainous rural areas are difficult to access and sparsely populated implying high investment costs for infrastructure extension. Against this background the German International Cooperation (GIZ) supports the implementation of micro hydro plants (MHP) in rural communities to supply the population with decentralized electricity. During its first project phase between 2006 and 2009, GIZ has supported the construction of 96 MHPs on two of the five main islands of Indonesia, Sulawesi and Sumatra. These activities have been funded as part of the Dutch-German Energy Partnership Energising Development (EnDev), an output-oriented programme that aims at providing modern energy to 6.1 million people in 21 countries. In a second project phase starting in 2010 (EnDev II), more than 200 micro-hydro schemes are planned to be supported. RWI has been assigned to assess the socio-economic impacts of electrification through MHP on household level through both a cross-sectional and a difference in differences approach. For this purpose, 800 households were interviewed in a first survey wave in September and November 2010. Half of them are located in 20 EnDev II villages that only got connected to an MHP after data collection. The remainder of the sample has already been using electricity at that time from a working micro hydro scheme supported within EnDev I. The second survey wave is scheduled for autumn 2012. The cross-sectional arm of the study allowed for gauging the impacts of the connection to an MHP already after the first wave at the end of 2010. For the electrified, hence, treated EnDev I households, comparable EnDev II households have been used as controls. Having follow-up data at hand at the end of 2012, difference in differences estimators can be applied to more rigorously assess the impacts of the connection to an MHP. In this approach, the EnDev I households already connected in 2010 and still connected in 2012 will serve as a reference group for the EnDev II households who got treated between the 2010 and 2012 survey. This prevents that changes induced by external influences (e.g. general economic development) are falsely ascribed to the treatment. For the reference group of EnDev II households it was found in 2010 that an important share already used 'pre-electrification' sources like generators or very simple traditional waterwheels - so called kincirs. The impact assessment will therefore not only illustrate the change from traditional energy sources like kerosene to electricity but also deliver impact findings on using a modern electricity source in comparison to pre-electrification sources that tend to be either costly and dirty (generators), or unstable and weak (kincir).
Projektziel war die experimentelle Untersuchung der Vertikalstruktur der konvektiven Grenzschicht im Grossraum Wien mittels Radiosonde, Fesselballon, Sodar, Schwebeballonen und Motorseglern. Der umfangreiche Datensatz wurde zur Bestimmung von Mischungshoehen, der Untersuchung der Struktur von Thermikblasen sowie zur Validierung von Trajektorienberechnungen verwendet. Die gemessenen Mischungshoehen wurden mit Modellergebnissen (OML, Daenemark) verglichen. Unterschiede, die sich bei der Verwendung verschiedener Methoden ergeben (Radiosonden - Sodar - Modell), konnten erklaert werden, eine allgemeingueltige Messmethode bzw. ein entsprechender Modellansatz fehlt noch (auch international). Die Vertikalgeschwindigkeit wurde waehrend der Messkampagne mit dem Sodar und den Schwebeballonen erfasst. Beide Instrumentarien messen im Mittel mehr aufwaerts als abwaerts gerichtete Vertikalgeschwindigkeiten. Weiters wurde die Struktur von Thermikblasen anhand der Messdaten untersucht und eine Methode gefunden, mit der die Genauigkeit von Trajektorien erhoeht werden konnte.
Globalization raised the importance of food safety and quality concerns. Developed countries implement precautionary food regulation policies to protect their affluent consumers from unsafe food imported from developing and transition countries. However, the alarming number of trade disputes at WTO evidences cases of abuse of such policies. While claims on protectionist nature of food regulations are valid in principle, yet there is little empirical evidence about their economic effects. The questions of 1) quantification of trade impact of food standards and 2) investigation of national food regulation systems are absolutely essential for the new trade agenda. These problems for developing countries are on the focus of trade policy debate, whereas for transition countries are not considered seriously. Such a research for these recently liberalized markets gains a special significance. - The proposed research will employ Gravity Model for quantitative estimation of impact of EU aflatoxin standards on transition countries- exports.- Russian food regulations for cereal value chain, their enforcement and monitoring mechanisms will be investigated through value chain and cost-benefit analysis.- Compliance of Russian norms with EU standards will be estimated applying comparative advantage analysis.The study area is Stavropol region of the Russian Federation. Local experts will contribute to the construction of the research data set and analysis. The results of the research will assist 1) international policy makers in designing new global trade agenda and 2) Russian producers, exporters and decision makers in improving cereal value chain.
Bio-EtOH is a research project in the Sixth Framework Programme FP6 of the EU with eight different partners from 4 European countries. The objective of this project is the development of a sophisticated new process for bio-fuel ethanol production with significant reduced energy consumption and savings in construction and operation costs of ethanol dehydration by using Membrane Technologies.
LEnSE is a research project that responds to the growing need in Europe for assessing a building's sustainability performance. The project draws on the existing knowledge available in Europe on building assessment methodologies. LEnSE aims to develop a truly holistic methodology that addresses the overall, integrating concept of sustainability. The main objective of LEnSE is to develop a methodology for the assessment of the sustainability performance of existing, new and renovated buildings, which is broadly accepted by the European stakeholders involved in sustainable construction. This methodology will allow for future labelling of buildings, in analogy with the Energy Performance Directive. The work should result in increased awareness of the European stakeholders and will allow adequate policy implementation on sustainable construction. The project consists of three main themes. The first theme is the identification and scope of the issues which need to be included in a sustainability assessment. This has to be wide enough to be acceptable and limited enough to be practicable. A broad consensus on these issues will be reached through strategic consultation of the relevant stakeholders. The second theme is the actual development of the assessment methodology. The content of the assessment will be developed for a limited, but representative range of key issues. Guidelines on how to address local variations will be provided. This work will be validated by the development of a prototype tool and tested on case study buildings. The key stakeholders on the European and national level will be highly involved in the development of the methodology, to guarantee a wide acceptance and implementation of the project results. These consultations will include national meetings with stakeholders and trans-national expert workshops. Thematic -stepping stone- publications, will serve as strategic reference and discussion documents for the stakeholder consultation rounds. Prime Contractor: Centre Scientifique et Technique de la Construction; Bruxelles; Belgium.
Nachhaltiges Bauen und Sanieren ist ein zentrales Handlungsfeld zur Erreichung von Umweltzielen. Zugleich handelt es sich um ein Arbeitsfeld mit enormen Potenzialen und bietet wegen seiner Transdisziplinarität für Beschäftigte verschiedenster Disziplinen Entwicklungsperspektiven. Aufgrund der Komplexitivität des Themenfeldes sind Kooperationen zwischen AkteurInnen notwendig und wünschenswert, diese gestalten sich jedoch durch die derzeit besonders stark ausgeprägte Wettbewerbssituation (Konzentrazionsprozesse, Arbeitsplatzabbau etc.) im Baubereich schwierig. Darüber hinaus sind Frauen speziell im Baubereich unterrepräsentiert. Lösungsansätze für verbesserte Kooperationen im Baubereich sind nötig, damit die Potenziale, die das Segment des nachhaltigen Bauens in sich birgt, genützt werden können. Ziel des vorliegenden Projekt ist es, ein Modell zu entwickeln, um in einem transdisziplinären Prozess die Netzwerkbildung des nachhaltigen Bauens und Sanierens zu erforschen und daraus Handlungsempfehlungen für künftige Netzwerkbildungen abzuleiten. Das Projekt trägt dadurch dazu bei, vorhandene Beschäftigungs- und Umweltpotenziale im Bereich des nachhaltigen Bauens besser nutzbar zu machen. Erprobt wird das Modell anhand des Netzwerkes 'Stärkefeld Nachhaltiges Bauen, das vom Eco und Co-Ökotechnik Netzwerk Steiermark in Kooperation mit dem Projekt WINBAU initiiert wird. Der Erfolg der Netzwerkbildung kann durch das Forschungsprojekt langfristig optimiert werden. Ein wichtiges Ziel liegt in der Vermittlung des entwickelten und gesammelten Wissens über Netzwerkbildung zwischen WissenschaffterInnen und PraktikerInnen. Insbesondere werden folgende Projektziele verfolgt: Erarbeitung eines transdisziplinären Forschungsansatzes zur Analyse und Dokumentation von transdisziplinären Netzwerkbildungen; Darstellung des Kommunikations- und Wissensmanagements im Netzwerk 'Stärkefeld Nachhaltiges Bauen und Ableitung von Empfehlungen für die Transferierbarkeit von tacit knowledge; Entwicklung von geschlechtergerechten Strategien im Bereich des nachhaltigen Bauens; Nutzbarmachung der Forschungsergebnisse auf interaktive Weise für WissenschaffterInnen und AkteurInnen im Bereich des nachhaltigen Bauens und Sanierens.
Flowering time is strongly regulated by the circadian clock, which drives photoperiodic flowering. We recently explored natural allelic diversity of the clock in the dicot Arabidopsis and found a 'memory' of the proceeding environment. Furthermore, we showed that clock variation has a large role in directing flowering time under field conditions. Cloning of one circadian quantitative trait locus revealed variation at the flowering-time gene EARLY FLOWERING 3 (ELF3). Here we will further explore allelic variation in clock genes to define key loci that direct photoperiodic flowering. Firstly, we will complete the construction of new Arabidopsis recombinant inbred populations derived from accessions originating from extremely differing latitudes, and map the genomes of these lines at kilobase resolution. These populations will be scored for variation in the clock and flowering time; dynamic correlations will be constructed. Together, components underling clock-gene variation that directs seasonal flowering will be identified. Secondly, we will examine the molecular genetics of circadian control of flowering in the monocot barley using existing and newly generated variation at barley ELF3. This gene is the likely direct regulator of the seasonality locus Ppd-H1. This second program should reveal dicot/monocot clock conservations and identify allelic variation at the circadian-clock gene ELF3 that could be directly used in barley breeding programs.
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