Das Projekt "Climate indicators on the local scale for past, present and future and platform data management" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Philipps-Universität Marburg, Fachgebiet Klimageographie und Umweltmodellierung durchgeführt. Predicting future climate change is in itself already difficult, especially in such complex ecosystems as the Andean mountain rain and dry forest as well as the Paramo. The common tools to simulate global climate change are global circulation models (GCM). Because of their coarse resolution they are not able to capture atmospheric processes affecting the local climate. For this reason a dynamical downscaling approach will be used to develop a highly resolved spatial and temporal Climatic Indicator System (hrCIS) to derive ecologically relevant climate change indicators affecting the ecosystems of South Ecuador. A local-limited area model (LAM) will be used to (i) generate a highly resolved gridded climatology for present day (hrCISpr) based on reanalysis data and (ii) to generate a highly resolved gridded climatology for projected future (hrCISpf) based on the new Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) scenario data. The output of the LAM for present day will be validated with in-situ measurement data and satellite-derived products to ensure the accuracy of the model for the simulations of the projected future. On the basis of statistical analysis of both climatologies changes in climate indicators such as air temperature and precipitation regime will be described. The proper storage, curation and accessibility of environmental data is of crucial importance for global change research particularly for monitoring purposes. This proposal will offer an adequate data management system for the Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Monitoring and Research. This will be archived by extending the web-based information management system FOR816DW (a data warehouse for collaborative ecological research units) with features like automatic upload interfaces, a workbench for integrative analysis and an user defined alert system, which will facilitate environmental monitoring for scientist as well as stakeholders. Beside the development of these innovations a main objective is the transfer of knowledge and information (know how, source code, and collection data) to our partners in Ecuador. For this, and to bring together the existing data sources, we cooperate with university and non-university parties in the joint establishment of a Data access platform for environmental data of the region. This will include considerations on long-term accessibility, which is envisaged by a data transfer to the planned German national data infrastructure GFBio.
Das Projekt "Life Cycle Management of wood in Switzerland: methods, tools and environmental decision support" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Integrative Biologie durchgeführt. Ecological use of wood resources in Switzerland In this project, researchers develop decision-making aids on environmental policy issues for actors in politics and industry. In so doing, they consider the entire life cycle of wood: from forestry via manufacturing and multiple use of wood products (cascade use) through to its use as a source of energy, or its disposal. Background Rising prices of resources and environmental problems call for an efficient use of renewable resources both for material and energetic applications. Thus future generations will not be able to afford to underuse the resource wood, as is still the case today. In order to make better use of wood, models are needed that not only incorporate mass fluxes, but also provide a comprehensive and spatially resolved assessment of the environment. Aim The aim of the project is to develop strategies that facilitate the sustainable and efficient use of wood resources in Switzerland. For this purpose, the researchers are studying existing and potential future value chains with the help of dynamic and spatially-resolved material flow and life-cycle analyses, improving methods for the assessment of ecological impacts of forestry and wood use as well as evaluating new technologies and giving feedback to their developers within the scope of NRP 66. The insights gained in the project will help the researchers to develop and assess different wood usage scenarios, from which they will derive strategies for decision-makers in politics, industry, forestry and research. Significance The project will result in a software tool which can be used to test nascent technologies in respect of their ecological consequences. First users of the new tool will be researchers developing new technologies and products in NRP 66 partner projects. Based on the knowledge gained through the research work, political strategies for an ecologically sound management of wood as a resource will be proposed.