River floods are extremely important to society because of their potential damage and fatalities. Floods are also very interesting research subjects because of the intriguing non-linear interactions and feedbacks involved, interesting issues of generalisation and the need for investigating them in an interdisciplinary way. Extreme floods are not very well understood to date but new, high resolution data and new concepts for quantifying interactions promise a major breakthrough of a body of research carried out in a coordinated way. The objective of this Research Unit is to understand in a coherent way the atmospheric, catchment and river system processes and their interactions leading to extreme river floods and how these evolve in space and time. An innovative and coherent concept has been adopted in order to maximise the potential of the cooperation between the research partners which consists of three layers of integration: research themes focusing on the science questions, subprojects revolving around specific research tasks, and a joint study object of extreme floods in Germany and Austria. Using scales as a binding element, the research plan is organised into the research themes of event processes, spatial (regional) variability, temporal (decadal) variability, and uncertainty and predictability. The members of the Research Unit have been selected to obtain a team of leading experts with expertise that is complementary in terms of processes, methods and regional knowledge. The cooperation and communication strategy will be implemented through themed cluster groups, combining several subprojects, regular meetings of the cluster groups, an annual project symposium and a private cloud facilitating data exchange on the joint study object. Equal opportunity policies will be adopted and female and early career scientists will be promoted in a major way. Overall, the outcomes of the Research Unit will constitute a step change in the understanding of the coupled system of flood processes in the atmosphere, catchments and rivers which will have major implications for a range of sciences and the society.
Entwicklung und Erprobung eines weiterbildenden Fernstudienganges Angewandte Umweltwissenschaften mit Diplomabschluss. Gestaltung eines kompletten online-Studienangebotes.
Objective: BORIS will use data and samples from the Russian deep borehole injection sites for liquid radioactive waste at Tomsk-7 and/or Krasnoyarsk-26 to further understanding of the chemical behaviour and migration of radionuclides in the geological environment, and thereby build scientific and societal confidence in radioactive waste disposal safety assessments and the deep disposal concept. At the Russian sites, it is possible to study radionuclide geochemical behaviour at similar depths to those envisaged for a deep geological repository for radioactive wastes. Models of radionuclide solubility, speciation and transport over a wide range of pH and Eh will be tested and corroborated. BORIS will demonstrate the ability of Western PA models to assess a 'real-world' example of radionuclide migration in the deep geological environment, and will evaluate the extent to which the new data can be used to build confidence in geosphere performance. Prime Contractor: Galson Sciences Ltd., Oakham (Leichestershire); UK.
We contribute to the Landsat Science Team with a focus on long-term satellite data analysis, regional to sub-continental approaches and cross-sensor integration between Landsat and European satellite missions. Our focus is on rapidly changing land systems, including topics such as REDD+ or global land use intensification. The Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM provides a backbone activity in Earth observation. The European Sentinel missions, specifically Sentinel-2, and the German Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program (EnMAP) will provide great synergies with Landsat-8 and 40 years of archived Landsat data. There are huge opportunities for synergies across sensors and scales in order to achieve better and quasi-continuous high-resolution earth observation products across time and space. At the same time, there is an urgent need to make use of these opportunities, if we wish to move global change research based on Landsat data to the next level. Our research agenda as part of the Landsat Science Team combines aspects of (1) data characterization, (2) product generation and (3) applications. Our approach seeks to maximize synergies between the exceptional depth of the Landsat archive and future European satellite missions for advancing core land system science topics. Our geographic foci include Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Southeast Asia, and South America.
A Virtual Hydrologic Environment (VHE) shall be developed to close the current gap between surface and subsurface hydrological modelling. A VHE is a generic representation of the physical processes that take place in the hydrological system (HS). The HS can be subdivided into surface water as well as water in soil and aquifer compartments (Fig 1) which form the subsurface system. The corresponding hydrological processes inside a HS are flow processes at the surface, like lakes, rivers and overland flow, flow processes in the soil, like unsaturated flow in soils and groundwater flow in porous and fractured media. The VHE is defined as an integrated data and model environment. Compared with the data-centred Geographic Information Systems (GIS) or physical process based numerical simulators, VHE has the ability to store geological and hydrological information in a common understandable GeoHydro/DataBase (GH/DB) structure. The GH/DB will contain the data components of the surface and subsurface in a consistent manner, which has not been achieved before as commonly both parts were only considered separately in hydrological databases and modelling. In addition, VHE can be combined with the capabilities of GIS software and remote sensing technology and facilitates the integration with numerical models, e.g. physics-based hydrological simulator GeoSys/RockFlow as it is planned for the present project. As the inherent coupled processes make the hydrologic interactions difficult to simulate, a multi-disciplinary approach is encouraged that enables a broadening of the hydrologic perspective and the advancement of hydrologic science through the integration with other related sciences and the through cross-fertilization across disciplinary boundaries. VHE as a bridge between surface and subsurface hydrology can improve our understanding of the hydrologic cycle, the interactions between water, earth, ecosystems and man and its role in the context of climate change. This is an interdisciplinary research proposal, and the following disciplines are involved: geography, hydrology, geology, scientific computing, and information technology. The proposed integration of databases and modeling from the different geo-sciences by the use of methods from scientific computing and information technology will lead to a comprehensive and consistent representation of the HS in hydrological modeling, and thus will enhance our understanding about the interactions and coupling processes between the different compartments of the HS. This research program plans to take Poyang Lake, the biggest freshwater lake in China, as an application area in an international collaborative framework.
The HGF Alliance 'Remote Sensing and Earth System Dynamics' aims at the development and evaluation of novel bio/geo-physical information products derived from data acquired by a new generation of remote sensing satellites; and their integration in Earth system models for improving understanding and modelling ability of global environmental processes and ecosystem change. The Earth system comprises a multitude of processes that are intimately meshed through complex interactions. In times of accelerated global change, the understanding and quantification of these processes is of primary importance. Spaceborne remote sensing sensors are predestined to produce bio-geo-information products on a global scale. The upcoming generation of spaceborne remote sensing configurations will be able to provide global data sets and products with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution in the context of a consistent and systematic observation strategy. The integration of these data sets in existing environmental and climate science components will allow a new global view of the Earth system and its dynamics, initiating a performance leap in ecosystem and climate change modelling.
General Information: Rationale for a concerted action on voluntary approaches The fifth European Programme of Action adopted in 1992 encourages a new approach to environmental policy. Besides market-based instruments, the promotion of voluntary initiatives and agreements is considered as a key component of this new approach. Four years later the Commission reiterates this statement with the adoption of a Communication (Com 96/561), setting a framework for the use and devising of environmental accords with polluting industries. These are the first results of an attempt in catching up with the reality of environmental policy in the EU at the national level, where more than 310 Voluntary Approaches have been inventoried. Theoretical and empirical research on Voluntary Approaches has been growing in the same time. For instance the Commission has initiated several studies and more than 60 academic papers have been published in this area. However, research is still very atomicised. Also, interactions between researchers and policy users are lacking. This is unlike other research areas such as environmental taxation, where networks have been deployed since quite a time now. Objectives Much research work on Voluntary Approaches in environmental policy has been done and is currently under way in the fields of economics and legal sciences. But in the absence of systematic interaction between the main researchers, there is a considerable risk that the whole will be less than the sum of the parts. By facilitating interaction, this proposal is designed to ensure that: R and D in this area is of the highest quality, has a cohesive focus and is made available to potential users. Members and methodology This concerted action involves bringing together the main teams of voluntary approaches research expertise in Europe. These are: AKF, Copenhagen (Anders Larsen), CERNA, Paris (Francois Leveque, Coordinator), Fundazione Eni Enrico Mattei, Venice (Carlo Carraro), Oeko-Institut, Darmstadt (Gerhard Roller), University of Gent (Mark de Clercq), University College Dublin (Frank J. Convery). The work programme will be organised in six sub-themes: the nature of VA's, the efficiency of VA's, VA's and competition, Institutional aspects of VA's, Legal aspects and implications of VA's, VA's at the international stage. Each of the teams will organise an academic workshop (in order to share specialist issues in data selection, methodologies, theoretical underpinnings and so on) and a seminar for specialist practitioners (as an interface with policy users) on one of the sub-themes. This will lead to the organising of an international conference in Brussels for high level practitioners and the publishing of a handbook, both including the key theoretical and practical ... Prime Contractor: Association pour la Recherche et le Developpement des methods et Processus industriels, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Mines de Paris Centre D'Economie Industriel - CERNA; Paris; France.
Mit der Green Electricity policy in der Bundesrepublik, Großbritannien und den Niederlanden werden die Politik-Zyklen unterschiedlicher Regulierungsansätze (regulativ und technologieorientiert, technologie- und marktorientiert, markt- und konsensorientiert) dargestellt und verglichen. Das Vorhaben operiert im Kontext verschiedener energiepolitischer Ausgangssituationen, divergierender Chancenstrukturen für Umweltinteressen und politisch-administrativer Institutionenstrukturen, abweichender Haltungen zum europäischen Integrationsprozess sowie zu unterscheidender 'Dritter Wege' sozialdemokratisch geführter Regierungen. Vorliegende Studien zu regenerativen Energieträgern beziehen sich in erster Linie auf deren ökologische Notwendigkeit, ökonomische Vorteile und technische Machbarkeit. Eine international vergleichende politikwissenschaftliche Arbeit über Erfolgsbedingungen und Restriktionen ihrer Verbreitung stellt hingegen eine Forschungslücke dar. Indem die Untersuchung das komplexe Gefüge länderspezifischer Einflussfaktoren ebenso wie die Rückwirkungen globaler Regime und europäischer Harmonisierungsbestrebungen analysiert, sollen Handlungsspielräume nationalstaatlicher Politik ausgelotet werden. Das Vorhaben möchte zum sozialwissenschaftlichen Verständnis beitragen, wie die Nutzung erneuerbarer Energiequellen durch verschiedene Konzepte und Instrumente voranzutreiben ist. Das Projekt soll sowohl wichtiges theoretisches als auch empirisches Material für Wissenschaft und Praxis bereitstellen. Es versteht sich zum einen als ein anwendungsbezogenes Projekt, indem es konkrete Empfehlungen vornimmt und Optionen für politische Entwicklungen und Entscheidungen aufzeigt. Zum anderen soll es mit der Erarbeitung theoretischer Verallgemeinerungen das wissenschaftliche Verständnis zur Entwicklung der Energiepolitik fördern, wovon auch spätere Forschungsvorhaben zur Thematik profitieren werden.
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