Die Hochwasserereignisse im Dezember 1993 und Januar 1995 am Rhein, Juli/August 1997 an der Oder sowie im August 2002 an der Elbe und die hervorgerufenen Schäden haben in Deutschland zu der Erkenntnis geführt, dass baulich-technische Hochwasserschutzmaßnahmen nicht ausreichen, sondern dass ein vorsorgeorientiertes, die Ziele einer dauerhaft umweltgerechten Entwicklung verfolgendes Hochwassermanagement erforderlich ist. Dazu zählen der technische Hochwasserschutz, die weitergehende Hochwasservorsorge und die Flächenvorsorge zum natürlichen Rückhalt als vorbeugender Hochwasserschutz. Allerdings treten Defizite bei der Operationalisierung dieser politischen Ziele und Strategien auf der Umsetzungsebene auf. Es bleibt bisher die Frage unbeantwortet, ob es sich dabei um Regelungs- oder Vollzugsdefizite handelt. Das Forschungsvorhaben am Institut für Forst- und Umweltpolitik verfolgt das Ziel, die Bedingungen für die Implementation von existierenden politischen Initiativen zum vorbeugenden Hochwasserschutz zu untersuchen. Bedeutsam für die Untersuchung ist dabei die Betrachtung von Akteuren der verschiedenen politischen Ebenen und Sektoren im Durchführungsprozess, deren Kommunikations- und Machtstrukturen sowie der eingesetzten Instrumente, um hieraus Erkenntnisse über die politische Steuerung und deren Wirkung gewinnen zu können. Die Politikfeldanalyse sieht den Vergleich der Hochwasserschutzpolitik der Bundesländer Nordrhein-Westfalen, Rheinland-Pfalz und Baden-Württemberg vor und wird unter Verwendung von Methoden der qualitativen Sozialforschung durchgeführt. Im Ergebnis sollen Effizienzfaktoren ermittelt und schließlich Handlungsempfehlungen für die Implementation von ressort- und grenzübergreifenden Planungsprozessen in komplexen politischen Systemen abgeleitet werden.
The proposed PRIMA-EF project will focus on the development of a European framework for psychosocial risk management with a special focus on work-related stress, and workplace violence (including harassment, bullying and mobbing). The objectives of the project are: a. to develop existing knowledge in reviewing available methodologies to evaluate the prevalence and impact of psychosocial risks at work and work-related stress, including physical and psychological workplace violence, harassment, bullying and mobbing; b. to identify appropriate means of collecting sensitive data in relation to these issues; c. to develop international standards and indicators on stress and violence at work; d. to develop detailed recommendations and evidence-based best-practice guidance on the management of these issues at the workplace; and e. to disseminate the results of the project to stakeholders and social partners including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project will place special emphasis on high risk worker groups and occupational sectors and will address relevant gender issues and key issues relating to the implementation of best practice in the context of different enterprises and in particular SMEs. In addition, and in line with European policy on corporate social responsibility and social dialogue, the project will engage the social partners throughout its implementation and will link the project outcomes to these principles. Through the project consortium, the results will be disseminated widely with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Office (ILO). In addition, the consortium will work in synergy with partners in candidate and third countries and national regulatory bodies to ensure a wide impact of the project outcomes and the initiation of the development of an international network of centres of excellence in psychosocial risk management. Prime Contractor: The University of Nottingham; Nottingham; United Kingdom.
Based on a better understanding of terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem functioning ALARM will develop and test methods and protocols for the assessment of large-scale environmental risks in order to minimise negative direct and indirect human impacts. Research will focus on assessment and forecast of changes in biodiversity and in structure, function, and dynamics of ecosystems. This relates to ecosystem services and includes the relationship between society, economy and biodiversity. In particular, risks arising from climate change, environmental chemicals, biological invasions and pollinator loss in the context of current and future European land use patterns will be assessed. There is an increasing number of case studies on the environmental risks subsequent to each of these impacts. This yields an improved understanding on how these act individually and affect living systems. Whereas the knowledge on how they act in concert is poor and ALARM will be the first research initiative with the critical mass needed to deal with such aspects of combined impacts and their consequences. So far the ALARM consortium combines the expertise of 54 partners from 26 countries (19 EU, Bulgaria, Romania, Israel, Switzerland, Russia, Chile, and Argentina). Within this call we propose to include 16 new TTC partners from Russia, Belarus, China, South-Africa, India, Croatia, Ukraine, Serbia & Montenegro, The Philippines, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Mexico, in order to complement expertise and geographical coverage of the existing consortium.
European cultural heritage is often damaged by salt related damaging processes. There appears to be an increasing risk of salt damage to our monuments, due to climate changes and possibly resulting floods. According to recent research, in some situations, desalination may be the only possible conservation technique. For buildings, desalination still constitutes a major problem as the bath-method can not be used. The use of desalination mortar/poultices seems to be the most promising conservation technique for immovable objects. However, the performance and especially the effectiveness of different desalination systems is not clear, which hinders the choice of an appropriate mortar/poultice. The research project DESALINATION will result in a clear guideline how to choose an adequate desalination system. This is of great importance to the European decision makers and will incorporated in a knowledge based decision tool. A second major result will be better knowledge of moisture and salt transport from the historic material to the desalination product. This knowledge will give raise to a recommendation for a test to assess the effectiveness of desalination products. The better understanding of the transport process may be used in product development and increases the competitiveness of European SMEs, and may have a much broader spin-off in all kind of salt related problems. Prime Contractor: Universita IUAV; Venezia; Italy.
Many EU cities are experiencing increasing problems with their water pipeline infrastructure. The cost of replacing these old, worn-out systems, if left to deteriorate beyond repair, is astronomical and clearly beyond the resources of many communities. Replacement, however, is not the only choice as many of these systems can be rehabilitated at 30 to 70 percent of the cost of replacement. Accordingly, resources are now increasingly being allocated to address pipeline rehabilitation management issues. Due to the emphasis on sustainable management, risk-based approaches for the rehabilitation management of the water supply network need to be developed. Rehabilitation decisions should be based, inter alia, on inspection and evaluation of the pipeline conditions. Yet, utilities cannot locate a number of their old pipes and current inspection technologies typically do not provide the needed detailed information on pipeline damage. The objectives of this work are: 1. To develop a novel, high resolution imaging ground penetrating radar for the detection of pipes, leaks and damages and the imaging of the damaged region and evaluate it at a test site. 2. To produce an integrated system that will contain the equipment in 1 and a Decision-Support-System (DSS) for the rehabilitation management of the underground water pipelines that will use input from the inspections to assess, probabilistically, the time-dependent leakage and structural reliability of the pipelines and a risk-based methodology for rehabilitation decisions that considers the overall risk, including financial, social and environmental criteria. 3. To field test the equipment and the DSS. Prime Contractor: Institute of Communication and Computer Systems, Athen, Greece.
Current methods for risk assessment are mostly 'deterministic'. This means they treat factors such as the toxicity of pesticides as if they were fixed, and precisely known. But in the real world, factors such as toxicity are not fixed but variable. For example, the same pesticide could be more toxic to some species of wildlife, and less toxic to others. What's more, the factors affecting risk are not precisely known but uncertain. For example, toxicity is measured for only a very small number of species, so scientists have to estimate toxicity to all the other species that we want to protect. Current methods for risk assessment try to allow for variability and uncertainty by using 'fixed safety factors', but this fails to give a complete description of the full range of the possible risks. Also, it is difficult to decide how big the safety factors should be. Probabilistic approaches enable variation and uncertainty to be quantified, mainly by using distributions instead of fixed values in risk assessment. A distribution describes the range of possible values (e.g. for toxicity), and shows which values within the range are most likely. The result of a probabilistic risk assessment can also be shown as a distribution, showing the range of environmental impacts that are possible, and which impacts within that range are most likely. This should provide a better basis for making decisions about pesticide risks, because the full range of possible outcomes can be taken into account. The main work of the EUFRAM project is done by a core partnership of 27 organisations from government, industry and academia, and comprises three main parts. 1. Development of a draft framework of basic guidance for risk assessors. The topics to be addressed include: - role and outputs of probabilistic assessments - methods of uncertainty analysis - probabilistic methods for small datasets - how to report and communicate results - how to validate probabilistic methods - how to improve access to existing data - requirements for probabilistic software and databases. - The framework will also include case studies of probabilistic risk assessment, showing how the methods can be applied to assessing impacts of pesticides on terrestrial and aquatic organisms. The first draft of the framework will be published at the end of 2004. 2. End-user testing. - In 2005-2006, the draft framework was subjected to extensive testing and refinement. A series of three workshops was organised for potential users, who were encouraged to trial the framework in their own organisations. Feedback from the users was used to refine the framework, and it is intended that the final version will be suitable for adoption as standard guidance at the European level. Prime Contractor: Central Science Laboratory, York, UK.
The aim of the European project AMICA is to develop local and regional strategies which adopt a comprehensive approach to climate change. Climate policy should be an optimum blend of short- and long-term preventive and reactive measures, thus reducing future planning risks. The choice between climate protection (mitigation) and adaptation to climate change is comparable with the choice between mending a broken brake on a bicycle or buying a cycle helmet instead. Functioning brakes help to prevent accidents (mitigation), whereas the helmet is intended to avert disaster if an accident does occur (adaptation). Most people would probably opt in favour of both. This comparison also makes it clear that both mitigation and adaptation measures (in other words, spending money on both the brakes and the helmet) are relatively cheap compared with the damage likely to occur in an accident or disaster. As Dr. Manfred Stock from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is providing scientific support for the project points out, 'recent events show that adaptation measures are extremely important but these are reliant on a parallel process of mitigation in the longer term. If we don't do enough to tackle climate change, we will find that disasters are occurring thick and fast and our adaptation measures will be quite inadequate as a response'.
Im Rahmen des Vorhabens wurden ausgewählte Produktionslinien der Galvanik auf ein neues, umweltschonendes Beizverfahren umgestellt. Dabei wurde erstmalig der Beizzusatz PRO-pHx großtechnisch eingesetzt, um die den Beizprozess störenden organischen und anorganischen Stoffe aus der Beizlösung zu entfernen und den damit verbundenen ökologischen (Ressourcenschonung und Abfallreduzierung) und ökonomischen Vorteil (Kostenminimierung) zu erschließen. In einer Beize erfolgte die PRO-pHx-Anwendung in jeder Hinsicht unproblematisch und zielkonform, ohne negative Auswirkungen auf Beizbedingungen, Werkstück und Beschichtung. Der Verbrauch an Säure und Beizzusatzmittel konnte erheblich minimiert werden. Der Verbrauch an Salzsäure sank um mehr als 90 Prozent während der Verbrauch an Schwefelsäure auf gleichem Niveau blieb. Auf teure Beizinhibitoren konnte gänzlich verzichtet werden. Der Einsatz von PROpHx bei Werkstücken mit glatten Oberflächen und einfacher Formgebung ist offensichtlich problemlos möglich, bietet ökonomische Einsparpotenziale und trägt zur Umweltentlastung bei. Bei Werkstücken mit komplexer Geometrie, z. B. mit Sacklöchern/Bohrungen, oder Teilen mit Schweißstellen führte der PRO-pHx-Einsatz hingegen zu Störungen (unzureichende Beizwirkung bei Schweißstellen, fehlerhafte Beschichtung bei geometrisch komplexen Teilen wegen Rückständen). Die PRO-pHx-Verwendung in diesen Fertigungslinien musste abgebrochen werden. Eine Untersuchung der Ursachen konnte im Rahmen des Projekts nicht durchgeführt werden. Die Abklärung noch offener Punkte wurde vorgeschlagen. Die Anwendung von PRO-pHx in galvanotechnischen Fertigungslinien ist daher nur eingeschränkt zu empfehlen. Es bleibt ein Risiko, mit dem Badzusatz PRO-pHx in die laufende Produktion zu gehen.
This study has to be understood in the frame of the global Energy Policy. A great part of world energy production is currently based on non-renewable sources: oil, gas and coal. Global warming and restricted fossil energy sources force a strong demand for another climate compatible energy supply. Therefore, fossil energy sources will nearly disappear until the end of this century. The question is to find a viable replacement. By using viable' it is meant a low-cost and environmental friendly energy. In other words, the question is to find an alternative to nuclear energy among all proposed but still not mature renewable energies. One of the solutions proposed is solar energy. Yet, two major concerns slow down its development as an alternative: first, it lacks of technological maturity and secondly it suffers from alternating supply during days and nights, winters and summers. The idea proposed by Glaser in the sixties to bypass this inconvenient is to take the energy at the source (or at least, as near as possible): in other words, to put a solar station on orbit that captures the energy without problems of climatic conditions and to redirect it through a beam to the ground. That is the concept of Solar Power Satellites. Its principal feasibility was shown by DOE / NASA in 1970 years studies (5 GW SPS in GEO). Project objectives: This phase 1 study activity is to be seen as the initial step of a series of investigations on the viability of power generation in space facing towards an European strategy on renewable, CO2 free energy generation, including a technology development roadmap pacing the way to establish in a step-wise approach on energy generation capabilities in space. The entire activity has to be embedded in an international network of competent, experienced partners. As part of this, an interrelationship to and incorporation of activities targeting the aims of the EU 6th FP ESSPERANS should be maintained. In particular, the activities related to following objectives are described: The generation of scientifically sound and objective results on terrestrial CO2 emission free power generation solutions in comparison with state-of-the-art space based solar power solutions The detailed comparison and trades between the terrestrial and the space based solutions in terms of cost, reliability and risk The identification of possible synergies between ground and space based power generation solutions The assessment on terrestrial energy storage needs by combining ground based with space based energy generation solutions The investigation of the viability of concepts in terms of energy balance of the complete systems and payback times.
The project aims at supporting the implementation of the proposed Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the management of waste from the extractive industries 2003/0107. The Directive was prepared following several major accidents with a serious impact on the environment, and it has the purpose of ensuring a safer management of the mining waste facilities, so that such accidents will not occur in the future. This project addresses particularly Article 9, which provides for the classification of waste facilities with respect to the possible consequences of an accident, and respectively the Annex II: Characterisation of mining waste and Annex III: Criteria for the classification of waste facilities. The activities of the project are divided into four major work packages as follows: - Preparation of a Methodology for the Characterisation of Mining Waste - Elaboration of a Risk Assessment Methodology for the Classification of Mining Waste Facilities, including Old/Abandoned Mining Waste Facilities - Review of Techniques for the Prevention and Abatement of Pollution Generated by Mining Wastes - Development of a Decision Support Tool for Minimising the Impact of the Mining Industry on the Environment. The Consortium co-ordinated by BIUTEC, Austria, includes universities, research institutes, NGOs and implementing authorities from 8 European countries, both Members of the EU and accession countries. The experts team is highly qualified and has many years of experience and research in this area, so that the best outputs can be obtained. The project will build on the results of other projects carried out in this field, and will relate closely to on-going projects, so that there is no overlap in our activities. In order to provide an effective tool for the potential beneficiaries, the project team will consult with representatives of the stakeholders before the final versions of the outputs are publicly made available on the project web-site.
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