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European Investment Bank - Water Management

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.

LifeWatch - e-science and technology infrastructure for biodiversity data and observatories

Scientific Support for Regional Downscaling of Precipitation and Temperature Data for Climate Change Impact Assessment in the Nile Equatorial Lakes Region

The goal of this study was to enable a prognosis on the future rainfall conditions of the Nile Equatorial Lakes regions by delivering time-series of monthly rainfall sums for the time-period from 2021 to 2050 that can be used for all kinds of applications. One example might be the dimensioning of hydraulic structures. In these very long lasting investments, future climatic conditions have to be considered during present planning and construction.The principal sources of information on future climate conditions are General Circulation Models (GCMs). These are physically based atmospheric models that resemble a numerical weather prediction system but on a much coarser scale. This forecast cannot be perfect. Especially, it cannot predict single values, e. g. if January 2050 will be rather wet or dry, but only climatic references, i.e. state, if Januaries in general will become wetter or dryer in the future. Even if the predictions of a GCM were perfect, its output could not be used directly for hydrological purposes, due to its coarse resolution. The monthly precipitation values that are provided by the GCM present the spatially averaged precipitation over a grid cell of several thousand square kilometres. This 'block rainfall' can differ significantly from rainfall measured at the ground. Rain gauges are influenced by local effects like micro climatic conditions or orographic effects of mountain ranges that GCMs are not able to resolve.This study combined the information from different data sources. As global trend information, monthly precipitation values from two GCMs (ECHAM5 and HadCM3) were used. Three CO2-emission scenarios (A1b, A2 and B1) were considered in this data. As local ground reference observed monthly rainfall sums from several rain gauges in East Africa as well as from three reanalysis projects (Climate Research Unit, University of Delaware and GPCC) were used.At each rain gauge or observation point in the reanalysis a technique called 'Quantile-Quantile-Transformation' was applied to establish a relationship between the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of the GCMs and that of the ground references during the calibration period from 1961-1990. The CDFs were fitted by non-parametric Kernel-Smoothing. To account for potential shifts in the annual cycles of GCMs and ground references, the transformations was done separately for each month.Assuming that the relation between Global Model and local response will be constant in the future, the global predictions of the GCM can be downscaled to local scale, leading to future rainfall scenarios that are coherent with observed past rainfall.Combining the data from three CO2-emission scenarios of two GCM with three reanalysis data sets, an ensemble of 18 different rainfall time-series was created for each observation point. The range of this ensemble helps to estimate the possible uncertainties in the prognosis of future monthly precipitation sums from 2021 to 2050.

Assessment of Effects of EU Aflatoxin Standards along Cereals Value Chain in Russia: German Methodological Proficiency Complemented by Russian Local Knowledge

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.

Strukturen und Instrumente für Netzwerk- und Ressourcenmanagement in Industrieparks - am Beispiel von Deutschland und China

Die Entwicklungsmechanismen der Industrieparks in Deutschland und China unterscheiden sich deutlich. In China dienen die Industrieparks als das herausragende Instrument nationaler Wirtschaftspolitik mit dem Ziel der Förderung des Wirtschaftswachstums, während die Entwicklung in Deutschland auf den industriellen Strukturwandel von werks- zu netzwerkbezogenen Produktionsstrategien zurückzuführen ist. Um die Industrieparks ökonomisch und ökologisch effektiv und effizient zu managen, sind innovative Managementstrukturen und -Instrumente nötig. Aufgrund der unterschiedlichen treibenden Kräfte werden in China fast ausschließlich staatliche Managementmodelle eingesetzt, wohingegen in Deutschland die Industrieparks überwiegend privatwirtschaftlich betrieben werden. Somit folgen die chinesischen Modelle hauptsächlich dem Top-Down -Ansatz, während in Deutschland der Bottom-Up -Ansatz dominiert. Die verschiedenen Modelle sind durch spezifische Strategien und Instrumente gekennzeichnet, die zu unterschiedlichen Rollen des Park Managements führen und dabei stark die ausgewählten Strukturen und Prozesse für die Entwicklung des integrierten Ressourcenmanagements in Industrieparks beeinflussen. In diesem Projekt werden Industrieparks als Interorganizationsnetzwerke untersucht, in denen flexible Organisations- und Ablaufstrukturen aufgebaut und geeignete Management-instrumente implementiert werden müssen, um die verfügbaren Ressourcen und Beziehungen zwischen den Stakeholdern effektiv und effizient zu managen. Industrieparks laufen einen Lebenszyklus mit den Phasen von Planung und Bau, Rekrutierung und Betrieb durch, in welchen spezifische strategische und operative Managementaufgaben auszuführen sind. Das Ziel des Projekts ist es, den Einfluss der unterschiedlichen Modelle auf das integrierte Ressourcenmanagement in Industrieparks anhand der Fallbeispiele in Deutschland und China zu analysieren und Implikationen für Strukturen und Instrumente zum Netzwerk- und Ressourcenmanagement in Industrieparks zu entwickeln.

FP6-POLICIES, Methodology Development towards a Label for Environmental, Social and Economic Buildings (LENSE)

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.

Developing a model for sustainable water and waste management for rural areas in Bulgaria

The Municipalities of Stara Zagora and Varna will be the targets for a 2,5 year project by WECF and its NGO partners from Bulgaria and the Netherlands; the Earth Forever Foundation, the Institute of Ecological Modernization and WASTE and IRC Netherlands. The project receives financial support from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs MATRA programme. The Institute of Wastewater Management (TUHH) is supporting this project with respect to the introduction of ecological sanitation and extensive wastewater treatment technologies like planted soil filters. Workshops are given and technical knowledge regarding the design, construction and operation of these facilities is provided. This will help to improve the current situation in the villages and will provide an example for further distribution of appropriate wastewater management in Bulgarian villages. Currently, only a very small part of the population is connected to a central sewer system, which discharges the wastewater without any further treatment into the environment. The remaining families are depending on outdoor pit latrines, soakaways and septic tanks which are very often subject to clogging. Thus, overflowing and discharging of wastewater onto streets is a very common problem.

Problems of legitimacy in the development of forestry institutions

The typological approach to the prize winning pictures in photo contests in Europe an Japan. The existence of the Foucauldian archive of collective memry in landscape is examed by analyzing the result of the contests from wider socio-cultural context. The social construction of nation as volks of forests is believed to be very unique phenominon but the process could be very similar in different contexts.

Hydrogen Storage Systems for Automotive Application (STORHY)

Objective: Hydrogen storage is a key enabling technology for the extensive use of H2 as energy carrier. In fact, one of the greatest technological barriers to the widespread introduction of hydrogen in vehicles is an efficient and safe storage method. Providing economically and environmentally attractive solutions for these three storage options for transport applications and reinforcing the competitiveness of the European car industry are indeed the main STORHY objectives. This IP is a European initiative on automobile H2 storage driven by major European car manufacturers and covering the full spectrum of currently qualified technologies. Although the primary target of STORHY is the automobile industry, the preparation of spin-offs for stationary systems is also considered. In the three vertical SPs, viable solutions will be developed based on the defined requirements. SP Pressure Vessel concentrates on developing a 700 bar storage technology including production technologies for composite vessels. SP Cryogenic Storage will develop free form lightweight tanks manufactured from composites as well as adequate production technologies. SP Solid Storage assesses current progress in the storage of solid materials and will focus its primary research activities on alienates. Furthermore, up scaling of the material production process will be considered resulting in the construction and testing of prototype tanks. These developments are accompanied by safety studies and pre-normative research within SP SAR. The three storage technologies will be evaluated applying technical, economic, social and environmental criteria in SP Evaluation. The final outcome of the project is to identify the most promising storage solution for different vehicle applications. Such results should illuminate the future perspectives of H2 storage for transport and stationary applications and assist decision makers and stakeholders on the road to an H2 economy.

Bau der großen Windenergieanlage GROWIAN mit einer elektrischen Leistung von 3 MW

Sowohl die bisher gewonnenen Erkenntnisse und Erfahrungen mit Windkonvertern kleinerer und mittlerer Leistungen im In- und Ausland als auch die Ergebnisse mehrerer dem Projekt GROWIAN vorausgegangener FE-Vorhaben ließen erkennen, dass ein (großtechnischer Versuch zur additiven Erzeugung von elektrischem Strom aus Windenergie mit Leistungen zwischen 2000 und 3000 kW als realisierbar einzuschätzen war. So wurde folgerichtig der Entschluss gefasst, das Projekt GROWIAN in einer Prototypanlage zu verwirklichen, auch wenn mit der vorgegebenen Bemessung -Turmhöhe 100m/Rotor Durchmesser, 100m/Nennleistung 3000 kW- diese Größenordnung derzeit ohne Vorbild war, sodass in vielen Fällen technisches Neuland betreten werden musste. Zielsetzung: Die Projektierung, Konstruktion, Errichtung und Erprobung sollen zur Verwirklichung der Einzelentwicklung von (Anlagekomponenten und -systemen durchgeführt werden. Die damit gewonnenen Erkenntnisse sollen neben der Feststellung der Bauaufwendungen die Beurteilung der Realisierbarkeit und Wirtschaftlichkeit einer Stromerzeugung in großen Windenergieanlagen ermöglichen. Ergebnis: Ungeachtet der Frage der Lebensdauer und der festgestellten Bauaufwendungen hat die Anlage die in sie gesetzten Erwartungen voll erfüllt.

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