This project aims at analysing the influence of competing national and international bureaucracies on the fragmentation of the international forest regime complex (IFRC). Its objectives are: - describing the political dimension of fragmentation of the IFRC programme- explaining the political dimension of fragmentation based on the model of bureaucratic politics- analysing the steering consequences resulting from fragmentation - trans-disciplinary design of solutions for coping with political aspects of fragmentationBuilding on the bureaucratic politics approach these objectives will be pursued by testing the linking hypothesis: Interest and influence of the bureaucracies cause a fragmented programme of the IFRC. This programme supports the goal of profitable timber production but keeps the decision about biodiversity and CO2 sequestration open hindering the effective steering by the IFRC. The project develops an analytical framework consisting of the following independent variables: competing national and competing international bureaucracies, elected politicians, national and international non-state actors and media discourses. The fragmentation of the political programme of the IFRC is the overall dependent variable. This project will analyse the influence of bureaucracies and their coalitions on fragmentation at the international level as well as in national case studies in Sweden, Poland and Germany. The other independent variables will be covered by sub-projects 2, 3 and 4. The findings will be linked to the other political and to the economic and technic-ecological sub projects in order to contribute to the multi-disciplinary description and explanation of fragmentation and its steering consequences.
Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
Deviant behaviour on various levels of the food supply chain may cause food risks. It entails irregular technological procedures which cause (increased probabilities of) adverse outcomes for buyers and consumers. Besides technological hazards and hitherto unknown health threats, moral hazard and malpractice in food businesses represent an additional source of risk which can be termed 'behavioural food risk'. From a regulatory perspective, adverse outcomes associated with deviance represent negative externalities that are caused by the breaking of rules designed to prevent them. From a rational choice perspective, the probability of malpractice increases with the benefits for its authors. It decreases with the probability of detection and resulting losses. It also decreases with bonds to social norms that protect producers from yielding to economic temptations. The design of mechanisms that reduce behavioural risks and prevent malpractice requires an understanding of why food businesses obey or do not obey the rules. This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of malpractice on the restaurant/retail level through comparative case studies and statistical analyses of food inspection and survey data. Accounting for the complexity of economic behaviour, we will not only look at economic incentives but consider all relevant behavioural determinants, including social context factors.
The majority of the worlds forests has undergone some form of management, such as clear-cut or thinning. This management has direct relevance for global climate: Studies estimate that forest management emissions add a third to those from deforestation, while enhanced productivity in managed forests increases the capacity of the terrestrial biosphere to act as a sink for carbon dioxide emissions. However, uncertainties in the assessment of these fluxes are large. Moreover, forests influence climate also by altering the energy and water balance of the land surface. In many regions of historical deforestation, such biogeophysical effects have substantially counteracted warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. However, the effect of management on biogeophysical effects is largely unknown beyond local case studies. While the effects of climate on forest productivity is well established in forestry models, the effects of forest management on climate is less understood. Closing this feedback cycle is crucial to understand the driving forces behind past climate changes to be able to predict future climate responses and thus the required effort to adapt to it or avert it. To investigate the role of forest management in the climate system I propose to integrate a forest management module into a comprehensive Earth system model. The resulting model will be able to simultaneously address both directions of the interactions between climate and the managed land surface. My proposed work includes model development and implementation for key forest management processes, determining the growth and stock of living biomass, soil carbon cycle, and biophysical land surface properties. With this unique tool I will be able to improve estimates of terrestrial carbon source and sink terms and to assess the susceptibility of past and future climate to combined carbon cycle and biophysical effects of forest management. Furthermore, representing feedbacks between forest management and climate in a global climate model could advance efforts to combat climate change. Changes in forest management are inevitable to adapt to future climate change. In this process, is it possible to identify win-win strategies for which local management changes do not only help adaptation, but at the same time mitigate global warming by presenting favorable effects on climate? The proposed work opens a range of long-term research paths, with the aim of strengthening the climate perspective in the economic considerations of forest management and helping to improve local decisionmaking with respect to adaptation and mitigation.
Research in 'silviculture' and 'forest economics' very often takes place largely independent from each other. While silviculture predominantly focuses on ecological aspects, forest eco-nomics is sometimes very theoretic. The applied bioeconomic models often lack biological realism. Investigating mixed forests this proposal tries to improve bioeconomic modelling and optimisation under uncertainty. The hypothesis is tested whether or not bioeconomic model-ling of interacting tree species and risk integration would implicitly lead to close-to-nature forestry. In a first part, economic consequences of interdependent tree species mixed at the stand level are modelled. This part is based on published literature, an improved model of timber quality and existing data on salvage harvests. A model of survival over age is then to be developed for mixed stands. A second section then builds upon data generated in part one and concentrates on the simultaneous optimisation of species proportions and harvest-ing ages. It starts with a mean-variance optimisation as a reference solution. The obtained results are compared with data from alternative approaches as stochastic dominance, down-side risk and information-gap robustness.
The rational calculus of farmers assumed in many agricultural economic models is unrealistic and non-predictive of their actual decision making. Understanding structural change in agriculture can thus be improved via a realistic modeling of the decision making by agricultural entrepreneurs. Specifically, slow disinvestment (i.e., postponing farm exit), persistence of market structures (i.e., failure to reallocate land plots towards higher efficiency), and more generally characterizing the decision making of farmers are crucial for a better understanding of structural change and policy advice. We apply economic experiments to better understand such disinvestment choices, land markets with economies of scale and private opportunity costs, different auction and bargaining forms to improve allocation efficiency of land markets, and to generally characterize the decision making of farmers.
Implementation of EU waste legislation shows large differences in the EU Member States especially with regard to municipal waste management. Major discrepancies prevail particularly in the implementation and application of the Waste Framework Directive and proper transposition of EU requirements into national legislation. The waste management performance of all EU Member States was subject to screening to identify those Member States with the largest implementation gaps, in particular in relation to municipal waste management. For screening the main elements and legal requirements stemming from EU waste directives (mainly from the Waste Framework and the Landfill Directive) were considered for the design of suitable criteria. These core elements comprise the practical implementation of the waste management hierarchy, application of economic and legal instruments to move up the waste hierarchy, sufficiency of treatment infrastructure and quality of waste management planning, the fulfilment of targets and infringement procedures. These elements were assessed by 18 criteria for each Member State taking into account information sources at EU, national or regional level. Latest available statistical data and data of former years for comparison of development within a country were extracted from the EUROSTAT database. References comprised reports published by the European Commission, the European Topic Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production, internal working documents of EUROSTAT and the EU Commission as well as national/regional Waste Management Plans. Where available also Waste Prevention Programmes were screened. The screening results confirmed the assumption of large differences within the EU-27 with regard to treatment of municipal waste, compliance with the WFD and Landfill Directives and application of legal or economic instruments as well as planning quality. For each criterion two, one or zero points could be achieved, leading to maximum points of 42 for all criteria. The methodology includes weighting of results for three selected criteria related to the application of the treatment options recycling, energy recovery and disposal of municipal waste.
The European project initiative TRUST will produce knowledge and guidance to support TRansitions to Urban Water Services of Tomorrow, enabling communities to achieve sustainable, low-carbon water futures without compromising service quality. We deliver this ambition through close collaboration with problem owners in ten participating pilot city regions under changing and challenging conditions in Europe and Africa. Our work provides research driven innovations in governance, modelling concepts, technologies, decision support tools, and novel approaches to integrated water, energy, and infrastructure asset management. An extended understanding of the performance of contemporary urban water services will allow detailed exploration of transition pathways. Urban water cycle analysis will include use of an innovative systems metabolism model, derivation of key performance indicators, risk assessment, as well as broad stakeholder involvement and an analysis of public perceptions and governance modes. A number of emerging technologies in water supply, waste and storm water treatment and disposal, in water demand management and in the exploitation of alternative water sources will be analysed in terms of their cost-effectiveness, performance, safety and sustainability. Cross-cutting issues include innovations in urban asset management and water-energy nexus strengthening. The most promising interventions will be demonstrated and legitimised in the urban water systems of the ten participating pilot city regions. TRUST outcomes will be incorporated into planning guidelines and decision support tools, will be subject to life-cycle assessment, and be shaped by regulatory considerations as well as potential environmental, economic and social impacts. Outputs from the project will catalyse transformation change in both the form and management of urban water services and give utilities increased confidence to specify innovative solutions to a range of pressing challenges.
One of the major problems that civil aeronautics will have to face over the next twenty or thirty years is to accommodate the predicted growth in demand of air transport without creating unacceptable adverse environmental effects. It is to be expected that new scientific results, increasing public concerns over the environment and future restrictive regulations with respect to aircraft emissions will force airline companies to take ecological considerations much more into account than it does at present. Consequently, for European aircraft manufacturers it is of high importance to react early and to guide their research and development resources into the most important and efficient direction. The aim of the AERONET project is to support coordination ' a postiori' of existing European and national projects or programmes dealing with the contribution of air traffic emissions to anthropogenic climate and atmospheric changes. For this purpose AERONET seeks to : - bring together experts from engine technology, atmospheric research and operations as well as programme responsible to exchange knowledge and opinions and to discuss necessary future actions on the basis of jointly defined goals and time scales, - produce competitive advantage for Europe through enhanced information echoing in the field of atmospheric effects of air traffic emissions, - strengthen a common European position in global technical and political discussions - support the Commission in identifying topics for the 5th Framework Programme, - identify gaps and help prepare a coordinated submission of proposals. European Dimension and Partnership: Europe is, beside the US, one of the two biggest aircraft manufacturers. One supposition for the economic success of European aircraft industry is not only to fulfill the existing regulations but, due to the long development times of 5-10 years and the long lifetimes of aircraft of more than 20 years, also to take the trend of future regulations development into account at a very early stage. This needs continuous and fast information exchange and discussions between atmospheric scientists, aircraft engineers and regulatory organisations. To be successful with an effort of this dimension, optimal coordination of national and European programmes in all three fields is required. Thus the network brings together representatives of all programmes and institutions concerned, helps to integrate activities through better information exchange, tries to identify the most urgent themes for R&D activities and intends to give recommendations for the Fifth Framework Programme. Potential Applications: Understanding the atmospheric impacts, the technical consequences and development perspectives, and the operational impacts as a whole is absolutely necessary to strengthen the European position in global regulatory committees on the on side and to gain competitive advantages for the European aircraft and airline industries on the other side. usw
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