Nitrogen emissions in the form of nitrogen oxides (NOX) or ammonia (NH3) contribute to the formation of groundlevel ozone and secondary fine particulates, which, together with nitrogen dioxide, are major air pollutants with significant impacts on human health. In addition, ammonia and ground-level ozone cause damage to crops and natural ecosystems. Excess reactive nitrogen lost to the environment disrupts natural cycles and results in eutrophication and acidification of ecosystems, which are among the leading causes of biodiversity loss. The release of reactive nitrogen also jeopardizes groundwater quality. Furthermore, the increased nitrogen availability in ecosystems as well as the application of fertilizers lead to emissions of nitrous oxide which is increasingly contributing to climate change. Veröffentlicht in Fact Sheet.
Nitrogen emissions in the form of nitrogen oxides (NOX) or ammonia (NH3) contribute to the formation of groundlevel ozone and secondary fine particulates, which, together with nitrogen dioxide, are major air pollutants with significant impacts on human health. In addition, ammonia and ground-level ozone cause damage to crops and natural ecosystems. Excess reactive nitrogen lost to the environment disrupts natural cycles and results in eutrophication and acidification of ecosystems, which are among the leading causes of biodiversity loss. The release of reactive nitrogen also jeopardizes groundwater quality. Furthermore, the increased nitrogen availability in ecosystems as well as the application of fertilizers lead to emissions of nitrous oxide which is increasingly contributing to climate change. Quelle: www.umweltbundesamt.de
Das Projekt "Costs of Natural Hazards (ConHaz)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung GmbH - UFZ, Department Ökonomie durchgeführt. Objective: Cost assessments of damages of natural hazards supply crucial information to policy development in the fields of natural hazard management and adaptation planning to climate change. There exists significant diversity in methodological approaches and terminology in cost assessments of different natural hazards and in different impacted sectors. ConHaz provides insight into cost assessment methods, which is needed for an integrated planning and overall budgeting, and to prioritise policies. To strengthen the role of cost assessments in natural hazard management and adaptation planning, existing approaches and best practices as well as knowledge gaps are identified. ConHaz has three key objectives. The first objective is to compile state-of-the-art methods and terminology as used in European case studies, taking a comprehensive perspective on the costs of natural that includes droughts, floods, storms, and alpine hazards. ConHaz also considers various impacted economic sectors such as housing, industry and transport, and non-economic sectors such as health and nature. It will consider single and multi-hazards, leading to direct, indirect and intangible costs. ConHaz moreover looks at costs and benefits of risk-prevention and emergency response policies. The second objective of ConHaz is to evaluate the compiled methods. The analysis addresses theoretical issues, such as the principal assumptions that underlie economic valuation of damage types, as well as practical issues, such as the qualifications needed for data collection and quality assurance. ConHaz also looks at the reliability of the end result by considering the accuracy of cost predictions and best-practice-methods of validation. A central issue of the evaluation is to compare available methods with end-user needs. The third objective of ConHaz is to synthesize the results and give recommendations according to current best practice as well as to resulting research needs.
Die TenneT TSO GmbH plant den Anlagenumbau der 220-kV Freiluftanlage des Umspannwerks Audorf im Zuge des Netzausbaus auf dem Gebiet der Gemeinde Osterrönfeld. Im Rahmen von Änderungen von Vorhaben verändern sich die Leitungsportale im Umspannwerk. Aus diesem Grund kommt es zu Veränderungen der 220-kV-Freileitung LH-13-207 „Audorf-Kiel“ im letzten Spannfeld der Leitung zwischen dem Endmast 001 und den Portalen des Umspannwerks. Um Baufreiheit innerhalb des Umspannwerks zu schaffen, ist die 220-kV-Freileitung temporär umzuverlegen. Ein Neubau von Masten ist mit dem Vorhaben nicht verbunden. Der zu verschwenken-de Leitungsabschnitt befindet sich vollständig im Naturraum der schleswig-holsteinischen Geest, auf landwirtschaftlich genutzten Flächen. Für die Arbeitsfläche sowie die Zuwegung werden landwirtschaftlich genutzte Flächen temporär in Anspruch genommen. Zufahrten außerhalb befestigter Wege werden provisorisch mit Platten aus Holz, Stahl oder Aluminium ausgelegt, die den Flurschaden und die Bodenverdichtung deutlich reduzieren. Nach Beendigung der Arbeiten werden die anfallenden Flur- und Wegeschäden ordnungsgemäß beseitigt
Das Projekt "Entscheidungsstrategien in der Land- und Forstwirtschaft bei den Guraghe im südlichzentralen Hochland Äthiopiens" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Technische Universität Dresden, Fachrichtung Forstwissenschaften, Institut für Internationale Forst- und Holzwirtschaft, Professur für Tropische und Internationale Forstwirtschaft durchgeführt. This study pursues the following research questions: 1. How do the socio-economic and biophysical characteristics of the Guraghe farming system look like? Which farm forestry constraints, potentials, opportunities, and priorities are typical to these households? 2. What are the major constraints that shy farmers away from aggressive integration of multipurpose trees and shrubs into their farm units? 3. How can these constraints be addressed in order to encourage and motivate farmers in on-farm tree/ shrub management schemes? 4. How effective are current government extension programs in promoting farm forestry practices and thus help farmers in reaping the rewards of agroforestry? 5. How do farmers' risk perception and risk attitude vary among households and with different situations under which they are operating? Research hypotheses: 1. Smallholder households of the Guraghe Zone are operating under favorable biophysical and socio-economic conditions that favor guaranteeing food security, betterment of livelihoods, and sustainable production systems. 2. The potential of on-farm tree/shrub management in enhancing household livelihood and sustainable production system has not been fully utilized. 3. Current government programs aimed at promoting agricultural and farm forestry technologies stick to the highly advocated participatory bottom-up approaches rather than conventional top-down approaches. 4. Current eucalypt marketing arrangements allow farmers to obtain satisfactory share of the gross revenue generated. Tentative result: Farm forestry decision-making process of smallholder households in southern-central Ethiopian Highlands was studied via informal and structured questionnaire surveys. Farmers decision-making process is subjected a multitude of internal and external factors. Farmers' limited capability in winning internal constraints predisposes them to diverse external factors of various importance levels. Attempts to achieve food self-sufficiency are being thwarted by intense crop damages by pests and diseases. Wild animals' damage and crop diseases cause a substantial annual loss of crop yields. Likewise, lack of access to modern farm inputs and inappropriate credit arrangements contribute to the dwindling crop yields. Periodically recurring drought problem and ever declining holding sizes add fuel to food insecurity threats. Promotion of on-farm tree/ shrub planting activities is frustrated, inter alia, by lack of adequate knowledge and planting materials of appropriate species. Current extension program is rather counterproductive in helping farmers reap the rewards of agroforestry or integrated land use practices. Extension services provide mainly seedlings of exotic timber species which farmers plant solely for aesthetic values. Eucalypts represent a major on-farm plantation species. Despite government authority's' discouraging propaganda, an account of unfavorable ecological effects, eucalypt woodlots are expanding through farmers
Das Projekt "Ökologie des Wildschweins Sus scrofa in der Nähe von Schutzgebieten" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Freiburg, Forstzoologisches Institut, Professur für Wildtierökologie und Wildtiermanagement durchgeführt. In strict nature reserves and core zones of protected areas hunting and forestry operations are often restricted or banned. However, regarding the management of Wild boar, such hunt-free zones are discussed controversially and can lead to conflict. Hunters whose areas border no-hunting zones (and who have to reimburse farmers for crop damages caused by Wild boar) are concerned that the boars may evade effective population management by staying within the limits of the no-hunting zone, and farmers fear increased crop damage in the surroundings of such areas. Some conservationists are also concerned because Wild boars increasingly root protected habitats and can cause damage to rare plant assemblies. The three-year project Wild boar problem in the vicinity of protected areas by the Game Research Institute (Wildforschungsstelle) at the Centre for Agriculture Baden-Württemberg (LAZBW) aims at investigating if and how no-hunting zones might affect Wild boar activity, movement patterns, home range size, and habitat use, as well as crop damage caused by boars, by comparing these aspects between hunting-free zones and unprotected areas. Although there have already been a number of telemetry studies on Wild boar, including space use in the context of hunting activity, to date there is no study that has specifically investigated spatial and ecological aspects in and around protected areas. My dissertation Ecology of Wild boar Sus scrofa in the vicinity of protected areas is being carried out within the scope of the Game Research Institutes project and apart from the aims outlined above, further aspects of Wild boar ecology will be investigated, especially the role of Wild boar as bio-engineer and habitat creator for other species vs. unwanted damages at protected sites. Twenty-seven Vectronic GPS-GSM satellite collars with integrated activity sensors are available to tag Wild boars in three study areas: the non-protected Altdorfer Forest near Aulendorf with regular hunting activity and forestry, the nature reserve Wurzacher Ried with its ca. 700 ha core zone that is a strict reserve with no human activity, and the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Jura, especially in the surroundings of the former military training area near Münsingen and the 170 ha no-usage-area Föhrenberg.
Das Projekt "Soil - structure interaction in urban civil engineering" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Bochum, Fakultät für Bauingenieurwesen, Lehrstuhl für Grundbau und Bodenmechanik durchgeführt. Objective: The main objective is the formulation of recommendations to take into account the soil-structure interaction in urban areas. These recommendations are to treat as comprehensively as possible problems resulting from soil-structure interaction. Moreover, they must correspond to the technological state of the art and be so formulated that not only specialists, but also all people involved in the planning and design of the structures can read them and take them into account. This is specially directed at planning engineers and architects in the sector of town planning and urban development, and at structural engineers, who have to estimate and take appropriate account of the loading stress resulting from the soil-structure interaction. The first phase of the Action concerns the gathering of knowledge, which means compilation of latest developments and checking of the knowledge with additional research. In the second phase the objective is to consolidate the compiled knowledge, meaning that the differing knowledge from the particular fields of work will be balanced against each other and gaps of knowledge discovered in phase 1 will be examined in research projects at a national level. If the Action has been successful in the first two phases, there is a third phase planned, subject to a prolongation of two years being agreed. This third phase will be devoted to transferring the knowledge that was acquired during the first two phases into recommendations for the consideration of soil-structure interaction in the development of towns and cities. General Information: Current status. The first MC meeting was held in Brussels on 11 September 1996. At the time of writing, 12 countries have signed the Moll, while several other countries have started the procedure to sign. Three Working Groups have been established: WG 1: Theory of soil-structure interaction; WG 2: Test methods and test results; WG 3: Field measurements, case histories and damages.
Das Projekt "Konzeption und Aufbau eines Wildtierportals in Zusammenarbeit mit LWF, BBV und BJV" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Bayerische Landesanstalt für Landwirtschaft (LfL), Abteilung Information und Wissensmanagement durchgeführt. Die Wildschweinpopulationen in Bayern steigen seit einigen Jahren stetig an. Wildschäden in der Feldflur nehmen deutlich zu. Damit einhergehen Konflikte unter den betroffenen Landwirten, Grundbesitzern und Jägern. Gegensätzliche Schuldzuweisungen sind die Folge, die Lage in Bayern spitzte sich regional und auf Landesebene zu. Daher ist es dem Staatsministerium für Ernährung, Landwirtschaft und Forsten ein großes Anliegen, konfliktlösend auf allen Ebenen zu agieren und alle Akteure in die Diskussion einzubinden. Vorrangig geht es um die Veröffentlichung von staatlichen Informationen über die Jagd und das Angebot von Wissensplattformen im Internet. Erst wenn alle Beteiligten am Wissen über die konkrete Situation vor Ort teilhaben, können Probleme gelöst werden. Daher sollen gezielt regionale Arbeitsgemeinschaften eingebunden und unterstützt werden.
Das Projekt "Integrated pest management strategies incorporating bio-control for European oilseed rape pests" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Göttingen, Institut für Pflanzenpathologie und Pflanzenschutz durchgeführt. Crop protection in oilseed rape, a major European crop, currently relies on pesticides and lags behind recent scientific advances. MASTER will construct and evaluate, through a trans-European collaborative experiment, economically viable and environmentally less harmful Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Strategies for the crop that maximise biological control of pests and minimise pesticide use, through enhancement of naturally occurring natural enemies of the pests. Indicators of crop performance, pest and damage incidence and cost-benefits will be used in evaluation. Guidelines for End-users and a Phenological Model for Decision Support will be produced. New information on the pest/natural enemy community in the crop ecosystem and new insight into the socio-economic processes affecting new technology adoption by farmers will be acquired.
Das Projekt "AFSC Alberta - Crop damage monitoring with satellite data" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von BlackBridge AG durchgeführt.