Das Projekt "Trees, Resilience and Livelihood Recovery in the Tsunami-affected Coastal Zone of Aceh and North Sumatra (Indonesia)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Tropische Agrarwissenschaften (Hans-Ruthenberg-Institut), Fachgebiet Pflanzenbau in den Tropen und Subtropen (490e) durchgeführt. Post-Tsunami call for coastal protection forest has been quick and loud, as presence of trees could certainly have reduced loss of human lives. Coastal zone management has to provide environmental protection and meet economic targets of livelihood options based on sea plus land-based activities. Tree crops and trees preferred by farmers contribute to both. Pre-Tsunami 40-60 percent of the economy of West Aceh and Nias depended on tree crops. Our aim is to help rebuild a green infrastructure that enhances the resilience of the coastal population in the face of multiple stresses. We start with assessing damage to trees, changes in land suitability and impacts on the production-marketing chain and will follow up with activities supporting short term recovery (using existing trees) and preparing for the opportunities of rehabilitated infrastructure. Lessons learnt on resilience will be shared as international public goods.
Das Projekt "D 2.3: Efficiency of smallholder animal husbandry depending on intensity of management and genetic potential of livestock - Community driven breeding programmes: Optimisation of planning procedures" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Hohenheim, Institut für Tierproduktion in den Tropen und Subtropen durchgeführt. In the mountainous regions of North Vietnam, smallholder farmers try to sustain and improve their livelihoods under conditions of growing population density and land pressure. Livestock husbandry appears as major development opportunity for them. Yet, 'mountainous regions' are heterogeneous, comprising areas near town with favourable access to markets and infrastructure but higher land pressure and remote areas, disadvantaged concerning market and infrastructure access but disposing of larger cropping and pasture areas. Low and unsteady resource availability in marginal areas limits the possibilities for intensification of livestock production. One solution is to increase production efficiency through improved resource utilisation. In animal production this can be realised through the development of sustainable livestock breeding and management programmes, using genotypes with high productive adaptability. Such programmes will have different structures depending on short- and medium-term resource availability, production objectives and production intensity of respective smallholder production systems.Based on the results of phase 1 and 2, D2.3 focuses on planning procedures for livestock breeding and management programmes for four combinations of production systems and species/genotypes, namely production of lean pork with exotic higher-yielding breeds in demand-driven systems, production of branded pork from local Ban pigs including remote, resource-driven pig producers, production of beef in farming systems of different scale, organisational set-up and remoteness, and production of goat meat as niche product in systems in transition. The four programmes will respond to the large heterogeneity of smallholder production systems in the project area. In fulfilment of its research objectives, D2.3 relies on cooperation with sub-projects E4.1 (Product marketing) concerning the design of a pork marketing and quality control system in the frame of village breeding and pork marketing programmes, G1.2 (Innovations and sustainability strategies) and C4.1 (Land use modelling) on integrated modelling concerning the identification of most sustainable development paths for farms of different production intensity, scale, organisational set-up and remoteness, F2.3 (Livelihood risks) for characterisation of smallholder farms using key indicator regarding adoption of technologies in livestock husbandry, A1.3 (Participatory research) on adoption of optimised breeding strategies by farmers, and D5.2 (Aquaculture) on conflicts and complementarities in the use of feed resources for investigated livestock species and fish/aquaculture.
Das Projekt "Statistical-dynamical methods for scale dependent model evaluation and short term precipitation forecasting (STAMPF)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Berlin, Institut für Meteorologie WE03, Fachrichtung Dynamik der Atmosphäre, Arbeitsgruppe Theoretische Meteorologie durchgeführt. Das Ziel des Projektes ist die skalenabhängige Evaluierung von Niederschlagsprognosen der DWD-Modellkette (LM/GME) bezüglich dynamischer Parameter und Wolkeneigenschaften. Ein neu entwickelter dynamischer Zustandsindex (DSI), die mit der spezifischen Feuchte gewichtete Divergenz sowie Wolkentyp, Bedeckung und Höhe der Wolkenobergrenze sind die Evaluierungsparamater. Der DSI wurde aus den ursprünglichen Gleichungen abgeleitet und beschreibt die Abweichungen von einem verallgemeinerten dynamischen Gleichgewicht, verursacht durch Instationarität und diabatische Prozesse. Die Evaluierung konzentriert sich auf die Wechselwirkungen zwischen der synoptischen und konvektiven Skala, die häufig die Ursache für extreme Niederschlagsereignisse sind. Sie untersucht die Beziehung zwischen den synoptisch-skaligen Prozessen und der konvektiven Parameterisierung. Eine Voraussetzung der Evaluierung ist eine vom Modell unabhängige feldmäßige Analyse des täglichen Niederschlages und der Wolkenparameter in der Gitterauflösung des LM/GME. Ein schon existierendes Analyseschema der synoptischen Beobachtungen wird weiter verbessert und erweitert durch Satellitendaten. Diese liefern kontinuierliche Wolkendaten und Niederschlagsraten. Die Genauigkeit der analysierten Felder wird mit Hilfe moderner statistischer Methoden abgeschätzt. In einem weiteren Schritt werden die getesteten dynamischen Parameter zu einer quasi-prognostischen Niederschlagsvorhersage oder als Prediktoren für einen MOS-Ansatz verwendet.
Das Projekt "Public health impacts from European alpine transit traffic" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Bern, Institut für Sozial- und Präventivmedizin, Abteilung Internationale Gesundheit & Umwelt, Ressort Umwelt und Gesundheit durchgeführt. Background: Within the framework of MONITRAF, work package 5 deals with road traffic related effects on the alpine space from the sustainability point of view. Public health impacts will be evaluated among other topics. Established methods to quantify public health impact from road traffic exist for large scale assessments on a national base (e.g. trinational impact assessment study for Switzerland, Austria and France). Such assessments are done by transferring the results from large scale cohort studies on the exposure situation of the region of interest. Methodologically more demanding are small-scale impact assessments along the transit axis. The application of such established large scale assessments is methodologically questionable. However, an alternative method has not been recognized as a number of scientific questions have not been solved yet. Objectives: Main goal of the public health project is to coordinate ongoing studies on health effect from transit traffic: Department for Hygiene, Microbiology and Social Medicine, Innsbruck; Dr. Lercher: Brenner Basistunnel; Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, Basel, Dr. Hazenkamp & Dr. Rapp: Gotthard Transitverkehr; Published health impact assessment studies of air pollution and noise will be analysed and applicability of the methods in the given context will be evaluated and the data prerequisite will be clarified. Available data which is needed for an impact assessment will be evaluated. Based on data availability and methodological considerations a method to assess public health impact from transit traffic will be proposed. Work steps: - To obtain an overview of ongoing research activities in Innsbruck and Basel (e.g. to organize a joint meeting). - To summarize published results from those ongoing studies and to give an overview of future results which can be expected. - Systematic literature search of traffic related health impact assessment studies and evaluation of their methodologies with respect to applicability within MONITRAF. - Evaluation of exposure concepts or indicator measurements which may serve as base for a health impact assessment study of air pollution (e.g. different kind of pollutant, long term mean levels, short term pollution levels, distance to the road, effect of air pollution intervention studies) - Evaluation of exposure concepts or indicator measurements which may serve as base for a health impact assessment study of noise (mean dB(A), variation, distance to the road, etc.) - Coordination of the module 'noise and air quality' of work package 5 with respect to the assessment of possible useful indicator measurements from a health effect perspective as well as the availability of such data. - To clarify the data availability for suitable health impact assessment study methods. - To propose a suitable method for a health impact study of alpine road traffic and design the study.
Das Projekt "Basis for the design of timber structures" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Baustatik und Konstruktion, Gruppe Risiko und Sicherheit durchgeführt. The aim of this research project is to establish the basis for deriving a consistent set of probabilistic models for strength and stiffness related timber material properties and to calibrate corresponding partial safety factors such that the level of structural reliability for timber structures is equivalent to the safety of concrete and steel structures. This seen in the light of the ongoing revision of the national Swiss codes for the design of structures. CONCLUSIONS/PERSPECTIVES: The statistical characteristics of strength related short term timber material properties are assessed and treated in consistency with the implemented quality control and selection for grading procedures. The suggested probabilistic modelling seems to provide the required framework for establishing a basis for codification of design and assessment by means of quantifying the efficiency of the different quality control and selection for grading procedures. It is envisaged that different quality control and selection for grading procedures may be described by means of their regression characteristics and probability of acceptance curves corresponding to different grading criteria. It also has been demonstrated how an optimal (in terms of monetary benefit) set of timber grades can be identified through the solution of an optimization problem. An approach for the probabilistic modeling of the effect of load duration is presented. The method is exemplified for calibrating the design code short term strength modification factor kmod for different characteristics of the applied loading process. The considered damage model takes basis in fracture mechanical considerations and is able to take both creep and fatigue effects into account. The damage model is calibrated against duration of load tests. Furthermore, the damage model has been investigated and compared with a simpler model not including the effect of fatigue. A proposal for a proper representation of the duration of load effect in the probabilistic model code of the Joint Committee on Structural Safety will be subject of further investigations.
Das Projekt "Nano-HEALTH - Nano-structured materials for drug targeting, release and imaging - WP 5: Safety and nanotoxicology" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH durchgeführt. The term 'Nanotoxicology' was introduced in 2004 by Donaldson and colleagues who realized that nano-scale particles behave very differently from their larger counterparts. The effects of the exposure and the mechanism of toxicity are much better documented for environmental combustion-derived NPs than for NPs designed for medical use. Within Nano-Health safety and toxicology will be addressed using a panel of in-vitro screening assays to prevent further development of toxic nanoparticles. Diverse aspects of toxicity including cytotoxicity, hemocompatibility and genotoxicity will be addressed. NPs with no obvious toxicity in the dose range of interest will be screened for in-vivo toxicity in rats and mice. For these applications standardised protocols will be used and adapted to the application of NPs. Tests investigating organ specific toxicity will be added if indicated by blood analysis or histopathological evaluation of in-vivo experiments. The effect on the immune system is studied in more detail to characterise the allergenic potential of NPs. As particles after a single exposure may be retained in the body for a prolonged time a new testing system will be developed addressing chronic cytotoxicity. The relationship between in vitro and in vivo toxicity will be explored for selected particles. One of the results will be a standardized toolbox of in-vitro assays to address acute and chronic toxicity of nanoparticles.
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