Filtern
Erscheinungsjahr
Dokumenttyp
- Dissertation (126)
- Bachelorarbeit (22)
- Masterarbeit (14)
- Habilitation (1)
Schlagworte
- Nachhaltigkeit (21)
- Biodiversität (6)
- Landwirtschaft (6)
- Sustainability (6)
- Energiewende (4)
- Transformation (4)
- Governance (3)
- Pestizid (3)
- Steuerungsprozesse (3)
- Ökosystem (3)
Institut
- Fakultät Nachhaltigkeit (163) (entfernen)
Das 21. Jahrhundert als "urban century" bietet neben vieler positiver Aspekte auch zahlreiche Herausforderungen im Stadtraum. Neben Stressfaktoren wie Lärm und Umweltverschmutzung nehmen Extremwetterereignisse wie Hitze und Starkregen zu, muss also eine Klimafolgenanpassung erfolgen und muss zusätzlicher Wohnraum für mehr Menschen geschaffen werden. Erholungs- und Aktivitätsräume stehen zudem in Konkurrenz zum Ausbau der Infrastruktur. Die Herausforderungen bedingen die Notwendigkeit für transdisziplinäre Diskurse und Arbeitsweisen im Rahmen einer klimawandelgerechten Stadtentwicklung. Mit diesem Hintergrund setzt sich die Arbeit zum Ziel Potenziale zu erarbeiten, die sich in Lüneburg für eine Begrünung der Innenstadt bieten, um dem sich wandelnden Klima zu begegnen, sowie herauszuarbeiten welche Akteuren, Schlüsselfaktoren und Schlüsselelemente die Umsetzung von Begrünungsmaßnahmen einschränken oder stärken. Mit der Methode der Konstellationsanalyse sollen zukunftsgerichtete und zentrale Handlungsfelder verdeutlicht werden. Es soll die Basis für eine erfolgreiche und nachhaltige Arbeitsweise sowie Zusammenarbeit im Bereich der Klimafolgenanpassung in Lüneburg gelegt werden.
Im Kontext der Problematik von Fehlinformationen in der populärwissenschaftlichen Literatur widmet sich diese Arbeit in einer Fallstudie drei häufig verkauften Büchern Peter Wohllebens. Untersucht wird, wie nah diese Werke sich am aktuellen Stand der Forschung orientieren und wie gut die getätigten Aussagen nachvollziehbar sind. Für die Untersuchung wurde der Inhalt der Bücher codiert und die resultierenden 8899 Codiereinheiten quantitativ und qualitativ-vergleichend analysiert. Ergänzt wurde dies durch die qualitativ-vergleichende Analyse von drei Schwerpunktthemen. Aus den Ergebnissen wird geschlussfolgert, dass Wohllebens Nähe zum wissenschaftlichen Diskurs unter Einschränkungen ausreichend und die Nachvollziehbarkeit seiner Aussagen mangelhaft ist. Basierend auf diesen Erkenntnissen werden mögliche Maßnahmen und Handlungsfelder für eine Erhöhung der wissenschaftlichen Qualität populärwissenschaftlicher Werke diskutiert. Es werden weitere potentielle Forschungsmöglichkeiten für ein besseres Verständnis der Situation in den Populärwissenschaften identifiziert und vorgeschlagen.
Organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticizers (OPEs) have been utilized for decades as plasticizers and, to a lesser extent, as flame retardants in various consumer products to improve their material properties. The research presented in this thesis investigated the occurrence, distribution and transport of OPEs with a focus on the coastal and estuarine environment. Due to the wide range of physicochemical properties of OPEs, the environmental fate and behaviour of OPEs was investigated over a range of compartments, starting from the atmospheric occurrence to the aquatic phase and the behaviour in sediments. The aim was to gather information on the OPE contamination situation in the coastal and estuarine environments, to identify specific contamination patterns for source assessment and to investigate the distribution behaviour of OPEs between gas- and particle-phases to evaluate their environmental transport mechanism. To achieve these scientific goals, sensitive and robust chemical analytical methods for the detection and quantification of OPEs in a variety of environmental samples using gas-chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry were developed. Water samples were removed along the Elbe and Rhine Rivers to test the hypothesis of whether specific point sources, such as wastewater treatment plants, are the major input pathways for OPE contamination in rivers. A total of 65 water samples, including an intensive measurement campaign during the flood event in 2013 at the Elbe, was taken and analysed for OPEs. No obvious point sources were identified along either of the rivers analysed. No significant increase or decrease in the OPE concentrations or a change in patterns were observed over a transect of over 300 km at the Elbe, with an increase in water discharge of 2.5. This finding suggested that the OPE input in large rivers is primarily driven by diffuse sources, such as surface runoff, or by minor point sources rather than local point sources. To examine the specific pattern of OPE contamination in individual rivers and estuaries, 37 sediment samples from 8 rivers in Europe and China were analysed. With this analytical data, a fingerprint analysis of the OPE patterns identified could be conducted. All the rivers investigated in Europe displayed a very similar fingerprint. In contrast, the fingerprint from China differed significantly from the one in Europe. For example, in China, the OPE restricted in Europe, Tris(2-chloroethly)phosphate, was found to be one of the major OPE components, while Tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate, a major compound in Europe, was negligible in China. The investigation showed that the fingerprinting analysis is a useful tool to identify different regions or characterize specific rivers regarding their OPE contamination. In addition, it could be shown that legislative restriction and processes have an impact on local or even EU-wide contamination patterns. At a coastal site next to the German city of Büsum, 58 air samples were taken over one year. Using the newly developed analytical method, it was possible to analyse the gas, as well as the particle phase, of the samples collected with very low detection limits for OPEs. In contrast to expectations, no annual trend in OPE concentrations, phase distributions or patterns was observed, but the investigation of the phase distribution challenged the previous scientific consensus that OPEs occur as primarily bound to particles in the atmosphere. Several compounds were detected in significant amounts in the gas phase. To validate these novel results, a model analysis based on the chemical properties of OPEs was conducted using three different phase distribution models. The results from the environmental data were strongly supported by the simulations, and the formal knowledge could be refuted. Consequently, the atmospheric transport assumptions and estimations about the long-range transport of OPEs have to be reassessed because compounds in the gas phase undergo other types of transport degradation and elimination mechanisms than particle-boundones. The novel findings presented in this thesis challenged an important aspect regarding the perceived scientific knowledge about the behaviour of OPEs in the environment and call on the scientific community to reassess the environmental behaviour of OPEs. The insights presented on the patterns highlight the impact of environmental policies and regulatory mechanisms to work towards the final goal of a good environmental status and the avoidance of adverse effects of discarded chemicals on humans and the environment.
In der Wasser- und Abwasseruntersuchung hat der Summenparameter eine heraus-ragende Bedeutung. Sowohl in der gesetzlichen Überwachung als auch der Bemes-sung von Abwasserbehandlungsanlagen werden Belastungen vielfach über die Zu-sammenfassung von Einzelstoffen in Stoffgruppen ausgedrückt. Stoffgruppen lassen sich mit Hilfe von Summenparametern zuverlässig und im Vergleich zu Einzelstoffen mit geringerem Aufwand bestimmen. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit werden die Verfahrens-grundlagen der Summenparameter und ihre Verwendung in der Wasser- und Abwas-seruntersuchung erläutert. Ein bedeutender wie auch umstrittener Summenparameter ist der AOX - Adsorbier-bare organisch gebundene Halogene (AOX). Bedeutend ist er deshalb, weil er ein ord-nungs- und abgaberechtlich relevanter Abwasserparameter ist. Umstritten ist er unter anderem, weil er ursprünglich für andere Zwecke als die Abwasseruntersuchung ent-wickelt wurde. Seinerzeit war der AOX ein Überwachungsparameter für Trinkwasser. Als Abwasserparameter dient er zur Erfassung einer im Abwasser unerwünschten Stoffgruppe, der besorgnisauslösende Eigenschaften wie Persistenz, Bioakkumulier-barkeit und Toxizität (PBT-Eigenschaften) zugeschrieben wird. Im zweiten Teil der Ar-beit wurden exemplarisch am Parameter AOX die Zusammenhänge zwischen Stoff-parametern und besorgnisauslösenden Eigenschaften bzw. Wirkungen der ausge-wählten parameterausmachenden Substanzen untersucht. Die Untersuchungsergeb-nisse wurden vor allem in Zusammenhang mit der Ermittlung und Verankerung von Mindestanforderungen für das Einleiten von Abwasser bewertet.
Biozide Wirkstoffe sind Chemikalien, die zum Schutz der menschlichen oder tierischen Gesundheit oder zum Schutz von Materialien vor Schädlingen eingesetzt werden. Monitoringergebnisse lassen vermuten, dass diese Wirkstoffe auch häufig im Innenraum von Haushalten eingesetzt werden und von dort vor allem über Abwasserleitungen und Kläranlagen in die Umwelt gelangen, wenn sie in Kläranlagen nicht eliminiert werden. Die Produkte, aus denen die Wirkstoffe aus Haushalten in das Abwasser gelangen, sind bislang jedoch nicht identifiziert worden. Aus diesem Grund konnten die daraus resultierenden Umweltbelastungen nicht eingeschätzt und keine entsprechenden Emissionsminderungsmaßnahmen umgesetzt werden. In dieser Arbeit wurde deshalb untersucht, in welchen Haushaltsprodukten biozide Wirkstoffe eingesetzt werden und in das Abwasser gelangen. Zudem sollte erforscht werden, was die Haushaltsmitglieder über Biozidprodukte wissen und wie sie mit ihnen umgehen. Ziel war es, die Anwendungen von bioziden Wirkstoffen in Haushalten zu identifizieren, von denen die höchsten Umweltbelastungen zu erwarten sind, und geeignete Emissionsminderungsmaßnahmen abzuleiten. Um die Anwendung biozider Wirkstoffe in Haushalten zu untersuchen, wurde zunächst durch eine Befragung in Haushalten eines dörflichen Wohngebietes ermittelt, was die Haushaltsmitglieder über Biozidprodukte wissen und wie sie die damit verbundenen Risiken im Vergleich zu anderen Haushaltsprodukten einschätzen. Zudem wurde für jeden der teilnehmenden Haushalte ein Inventar der vorhandenen Produkte erstellt. Dabei wurden neben den Biozidprodukten auch Wasch- und Reinigungsmittel und Körperpflegeprodukte untersucht. Ähnliche Erhebungen fanden zusätzlich in Haushalten in urbanen Gebieten statt. Die aufgrund der inventarisierten Produkte zu erwartenden Stoffe wurden im Laufe eines Jahres durch ein speziell abgestimmtes Monitoringprogramm im Abwasser des dörflichen Wohngebietes in Tages- und Stundenmischproben untersucht. Alle Proben wurden nach der Probenahme aufgearbeitet und mittels Flüssigchromatographie gekoppelt mit einem Triple-Quad-Massenspektrometer analysiert. Dabei wurden die Konzentrationen von 14 Wirkstoffen gemessen: 1,2-Benzisothiazol-3(2H)-on (BIT), C12-Benzalkoniumchlorid, Carbendazim, 5-Chlor-2-methyl-2H-isothiazol-3-on (CMIT), Dichloroctylisothiazolinon (DCOIT), N,NDiethyl-meta-toluamid (DEET), Diuron, Icaridin, 2-Octyl-2H-isothiazol-3-on (OIT), Piperonylbutoxid (PBO), Triclosan, Tebuconazol, Terbutryn und Tetramethrin. Vielen Befragten war nicht bewusst, dass sie Biozidprodukte nutzen. Der Begriff "Biozid" war oft nicht bekannt und wurde inhaltlich häufig falsch verstanden. Die Auswertungen der inventarisierten Produkte und der darin enthaltenen bioziden Wirkstoffe zeigten, dass ein Großteil der Wirkstoffe nicht aus Biozidprodukten in das Abwasser gelangt, sondern aus Körperpflegeprodukten und Wasch- und Reinigungsmitteln. Insgesamt 64 % der Anwendungen von bioziden Wirkstoffen in den inventarisierten Produkten wurden nicht unter der Umweltrisikobewertung der Verordnung (EU) 528/2012 über die Bereitstellung auf dem Markt und die Verwendung von Biozidprodukten berücksichtigt, was zu einer erheblichen Unterschätzung der Umweltrisiken führt. Die Ergebnisse der Abwasseruntersuchungen deuten ebenfalls darauf hin, dass biozide Wirkstoffe aus Wasch- und Reinigungsmitteln, Körperpflegeprodukten und Biozidprodukten gleichermaßen in das Abwasser eingetragen werden. Die Messergebnisse können gut mit den Produktinventaren in Verbindung gebracht werden. Einige Wirkstoffe scheinen maßgeblich durch Biozidprodukte eingetragen zu werden. Auch Konservierungsmittel wurden regelmäßig nachgewiesen. Für Triclosan hingegen ist gemäß den Inventaren Zahnpasta vermutlich die Produktgruppe, die in dem untersuchten Wohngebiet maßgeblich für den Eintrag ins Abwasser verantwortlich ist. Diese Arbeit zeigt zum ersten Mal, welche Produkte im Haushalt eine wichtige Quelle für biozide Wirkstoffe im Abwasser sind. Sie müssen mit einbezogen werden, wenn Emissionen an der Quelle reduziert werden sollen. Es sollten Maßnahmen ergriffen werden, die über die Produktzulassung von Biozidprodukten hinausgehen, um die Emissionen so gering wie möglich zu halten. Diese Maßnahmen sollten sich nicht darauf beschränken, die Bevölkerung über Biozidprodukte aufzuklären und zu sensibilisieren. Stattdessen sollten Maßnahmen früher in der Wertschöpfungskette ansetzen, wie zum Beispiel beim Design der Wirkstoffe oder der Formulierung der Produkte, um so Einträge biozider Wirkstoffe in die Umwelt zu verringern.
Whereas the extant literature discusses what Sustainability-Oriented Innovations (SOIs) are and why firms develop them, little is known about how they are developed. To enable firms to innovate for sustainability, it is essential to know more about the processes underlying SOI development, which are considered as very difficult, with many firms failing. Drawing on several academic papers and relying on qualitative research methods, the thesis uses the Fireworks model to examine how innovation processes unfold at established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main contribution of the thesis is to advance the Fireworks model to the context of SOIs unfolding at SMEs. The findings reveal that SOIs unfold in an emergent, somewhat chaotic way, that duration and outcome are uncertain, that the overall journey is composed of multiple intertwined innovation paths, of which several will likely lead to setbacks. To manage this complex process, the thesis suggests to set four management foci: (1) to create a dedicated organizational unit for exploration, (2) to create conditions allowing intelligent learning for efficient exploration, (3) to carry out in-depth investigation of the related technological innovation systems, and (4) to plan carefully the re-integration of the innovation into the core business for commercialization.
Companies are invited to contribute to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability management accounting (SMA) has an important role to play in achieving them. However, if companies are to address the SDGs and linkages beyond organizational boundaries, SMA needs a broader scope than is conventionally assumed. Therefore, the author advances a multi-level framework that addresses context, action-formation, and transformative contributions (CAT) in the following directions: first, an innovative systematic method that allows screening company-related SDGs and assessing corporate contributions to selected SDGs is introduced; second, management control systems are integrated to support managers in guiding employee behavior to make contributions to the SDGs; and, third, self-reinforcing mechanisms of the path-dependence theory are incorporated to serve as a guide to identifying barriers to individuals and groups becoming involved in SMA. This advanced CAT framework contributes to corporate practice and research by providing a multilevel framework that offers concrete management guidance for SMA to address the SDGs. It also facilitates analysis of both enabling and inhibiting factors at the organizational level. The advanced CAT framework has several implications for SMA: it promotes backcasting from the SDGs for benchmarking purposes, integrates different social, environmental, and economic issues, facilitates future-oriented action and transformation planning, addresses different layers such as the company as well as individuals and groups within it and enables to identify barriers hindering individuals and groups from becoming involved in SMA.
Einsatz der Planarchromatographie mit wirkungsbezogener Detektion zur Untersuchung von Wässern
(2018)
Unter Wirkungsbezogener Analytik (WBA) wird die Kopplung eines chromatographischen Trennverfahrens mit einem biologischen Testsystem verstanden. Der Vorteil bei dieser Herangehensweise ist, dass die zuvor getrennten Probeninhaltsstoffe anhand ihrer Aktivität mit einem in vitro-Testsystem detektiert werden. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass die Hochleistungsdünnschichtchromatographie (HPTLC) besonders geeignet für die WBA ist. Bislang konnte nicht gezeigt werden, dass die WBA mit HPTLC auch als routinefähige Methode eingesetzt wurde. In dieser Arbeit erfolgte eine Optimierung der Detektion der Endpunkte Biolumineszenzhemmung (Aliivibrio fischeri), antibiotische Wirkung (Bacillus subtilis), Neurotoxizität (Acetylcholinesterase) von der HPTLC-Platte hinsichtlich Routinefähigkeit. Zusätzlich konnte in ersten Versuchen gezeigt werden, dass es möglich ist, direkt gentoxische Verbindungen mittels des umu-Tests auf der HPTLC-Platte nachzuweisen. Für die einzelnen Biotests sind unterschiedliche Inkubationszeiten notwendig. Dies führt aufgrund von Diffusion auf der HPTLC-Platte zu einer Bandenverbreiterung. Es wurden unterschiedliche Methoden und Arbeitsweisen zur Verminderung der Diffusion erprobt und optimiert. Eine Möglichkeit ist die mechanische Eindämmung durch die Einbringung einer Gaze in eine verfestigte Calciumalginatschicht. Optimiert wurde dieses Verfahren am Bacillus subtilis-Hemmtest. Für Enzymtests ist eine vergleichsweise kurze Inkubationszeit notwendig. Daher tritt hier eine geringere Bandenverbreiterung auf, womit eine mechanische Einschränkung der Diffusion nicht geeignet ist. Um die auftretende Bandenverbreiterung möglichst gering zu halten, wurde besonders die Aufbringung des Substrats optimiert. Dies geschah am Beispiel des HPTLC-Acetylcholinesterasehemmtests. Die Ermittlung der unterschiedlichen bandenverbreiternden Einflussfaktoren erfolgte mittels statistisches Versuchsplanung. Anhand der gewonnenen Erkenntnisse konnte die Methode soweit optimiert werden, dass die bei der Detektion von AChE-Inhibitoren auftretende Bandenverbreiterung sehr gering gehalten werden kann. Aufgrund der hohen Empfindlichkeit des Verfahrens lassen sich selbst geringe Spuren von Verunreinigungen in Referenzsubstanzen detektieren. Besonders für den Routineeinsatz der WBA mit der HPTLC ist die Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse erforderlich. Dazu wurde anhand des HPTLC-Leuchtbakterienhemmtests mit Aliivibrio fischeri eine Auswertestrategie erarbeitet. Die Ermittlung der Biolumineszenzhemmung findet analog zum Küvettentest statt und kann ortsaufgelöst als Hemmwert-Chromatogramm dargestellt werden. Die Darstellung der Hemmung in einem Hemmwert-Chromatogramm gleicht die Stauchung der Peaks aufgrund des sigmoiden Verlaufs der Dosis-Wirkungsbeziehung teilweise aus. Durch die nichtlineare Beziehung zwischen Konzentration bzw. Flächenmasse und Wirkung der unbekannten Substanzen ist es für den Vergleich von Proben notwendig, einen Bezugspunkt zu setzen. Bewährt hat sich dafür der EC50-Wert. Da aber in den meisten Fällen die Konzentration unbekannt ist, wird als Bezugspunkt das Auftragevolumen gewählt, welches erforderlich ist um eine Hemmung von 50% auszulösen. Der Kehrwert des berechneten Auftragevolumens für 50% Hemmung stellt das reziproke Iso-Hemmvolumen (RIHV) dar. Dieser RIHV-Wert hat sich für den Probenvergleich in verschiedenen Anwendungen bewährt. Das Prinzip der Auswertung kann vom HPTLC-Leuchtbakterientest mit Anpassung auf den HPTLC-Bacillus subtilis-Hemmtest übertragen werden. Für den Vergleich der Wirkung auf die Acetylcholinesterase-Hemmung wird in Anlehnung zum RIHV, das reziproke Iso-Aktivitätsvolumen (RIAV) herangezogen. Hier wird das Auftragevolumen, welches notwendig ist, eine Aktivität der AChE von 50% zu erreichen, als Kehrwert angegeben. Zur Ermittlung der Messunsicherheit der Chromatographie und der detektierten Wirkung wurden parallel zu den Proben Referenzverbindungen untersucht. Bei der Überwachung einer gesicherten Deponie über einen Zeitraum von 4,5 Jahren konnte gezeigt werden, dass es sich bei der Hochleistungsdünnschichtchromatographie mittels automatisierter Mehrfachentwicklung (HPTLC/AMD) um ein reproduzierbares Chromatographiesystem handelt. Bei der Anwendung des Leuchtbakterien-, Bacillus subtilis- und des Acetylcholinesterase-Hemmtests auf verschiedene Deponie- und Abwasserproben wurden über einen Zeitraum von sieben Monaten Standardabweichungen von 5-9% Hemmung für die testspezifischen Referenzsubstanzen ermittelt. Als Ergebnis der Validierung wurden der HPTLC-Aliivibrio fischeri-, der HPTLC-Bacillus subtilis- und der HPTLC-Acetylcholinesterase- Hemmtest am 24.03.2015 von der deutschen Akkreditierungsstelle (DAkkS) akkreditiert. Zur Ermittlung potenziell gentoxischer Substanzen wurde der umu-Test ausgewählt. Mit dem umu-Test auf der HPTLC-Platte ist es derzeit möglich, die aus der DIN 38415-3 bekannte direkt wirkende gentoxische Substanz 4-Nitroquinolin-N-oxid (4-NQO) auf der HPTLC-Platte nachzuweisen. Für einen erfolgreichen Nachweis von indirekt wirkenden Substanzen, die erst nach der Aktivierung durch Stoffwechselenzyme gentoxisch wirken, war es nicht möglich, das erforderliche Metabolisierungssystem auf der HPTLC-Platte aufrecht zu erhalten. Zur Durchführung der WBA ist für die meisten Wasserproben (z. B. Oberflächenwasser oder Grundwasser) eine Anreicherung erforderlich. Parallel zu den Arbeiten mit den biologischen Testsystemen erfolgte die Optimierung der Anreicherung von organischen Verbindungen aus Wasserproben. Für die Festphasenextraktion (SPE) wurden verschiedene Materialien bei den pH-Werten 2, 7 und 9 mit Substanzen unterschiedlicher Polarität getestet. Die besten Wiederfindungen über den gesamten Polaritätsbereich erzielte die Phase "Agilent Plexa" (Polydivinylbenzol) mit einer angepassten Elutionsabfolge. Bei der Auswahl des Materials und der Anpassung der Elutionsabfolge wurde auch auf einen möglichst geringen Blindwert für den Biolumineszenz-Hemmtest mit Aliivibrio fischeri geachtet. Damit wurde eine für die WBA geeignete Anreicherungsmethode gefunden. Zur Verbesserung der Extraktionsausbeute von polaren Verbindungen mittels Flüssig-Flüssig-Extraktion (LLE) wurde die Mikro-LLE mit dem in allen Verhältnissen mit Wasser mischbaren Extraktionsmittel Acetonitril getestet. Die im Blindwert auftretenden störenden Substanzen konnten durch Ausheizen des zur Phasentrennung erforderlichen Natriumchlorids erheblich reduziert werden. Bei den Untersuchungen zur Wiederholbarkeit mit einer Deponiesickerwasserprobe und der Detektion der Biolumineszenz von Aliivibrio fischeri waren nur geringe Abweichungen der Hemmwerte detektierbar. Aufgrund der zu erwartenden komplexen Zusammensetzung von Proben aus dem Deponiebereich ist eine Gradientenelution für die HPTLC/AMD notwendig. Anhand von Referenzverbindungen und Extrakten aus verschiedenen Deponien wurde die HPTLC/AMD-Trennung für ein Screening optimiert. Mit diesem Screening-Gradient ist es möglich, die wirkenden Probenbestandteile über die gesamte Trennstrecke zu verteilen. Zusätzlich fand noch eine Entwicklung einer isokratischen HPTLC-Trennung für eine schnelle Beurteilung von Proben statt, wobei bei dieser Methode Abstriche bezüglich der Trennleistung gemacht werden mussten. Zudem konnte gezeigt werden, dass der aufwendige Identifizierungsprozess durch spezifische postchromatographische Derivatisierungsreaktionen auf der HPTLC-Platte unterstützt werden kann. Dazu wurde der Bratton-Marshall-Nachweis von primären Aminen optimiert. Durch den Nachweis von austauschbaren Protonen mittels des H/D-Austausches lassen sich die denkbaren Strukturen deutlich einschränken. Für einen nahezu vollständigen H/D-Austausch hat sich die Kopplung von HPTLC und Massenspektrometer (MS) als besonders geeignet gezeigt, da hier nur wenige Milliliter an deuterierten Lösemitteln benötigt werden. Erprobt wurden die optimierten Methoden an verschiedenen Wässern, welche aus Kläranlagen und aus dem Umfeld von Deponien stammen. Durch die Einführung des RIHV- bzw. RIAV-Wertes ist es möglich Wässer von verschiedenen Probennahmestellen, z. B. Deponiesickerwässer, anhand ihrer Wirkung vergleichend zu beurteilen. Auch kann damit die Veränderung des Wirkungsmusters über einen Aufbereitungsprozess beobachtet werden. Die Untersuchungsergebnisse zeigen zudem, dass auch bei der WBA Feldblindproben entscheidend sind, um Proben sicher beurteilen zu können.
This dissertation addresses the question of how sustainability curricula can be implemented and established in higher education institutions. Universities – as hubs for knowledge generation, innovation, and education – provide a central leverage point for sustainably developing society at large. Therefore, the institutionalization of sustainability curricula is not only socially demanded, but also stipulated in numerous political statements from the international community (e.g., those of the UN and UNESCO) and operationalized via Sustainable Development Goal No. 4: "Quality Education". Previous findings on how such implementation can be successful and what factors support or inhibit the process have come primarily through case studies of individual higher education institutions. These studies have been largely descriptive rather than analytical and leave open questions about the generalizability of their findings. The present dissertation addresses this research gap. Through a meta-study (i.e., an analytical comparison of existing case studies), generalizable findings on the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are explored. In the first step, a case universe was collected in order to provide a database for deeper analyses. In two further analysis steps that built on the case universe from Step 1, certain factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula (Step 2) and specific implementation patterns (Step 3) were examined. The presented findings add a complementary empirical perspective to the discourse on the establishment of education for sustainable development (ESD) at higher education institutions. First, the case studies that specifically address the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are reviewed and analyzed here for the first time as part of a research landscape. This research landscape reveals where research on such implementation processes has been or is being conducted. On this basis, both researchers and funders can reflect on the status quo and plan further research or funding endeavors. Second, this dissertation offers the opportunity to compare a multitude of individual case studies and thus to develop new and generalizable insights into the implementation of sustainability curricula. The empirical analysis uses 133 case studies to identify key factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula and to add a complementary perspective to the discourse, which has thus far been dominated by theoretical considerations and individual case studies. The analysis thereby offers a new perspective on generalizable influencing factors that appear to be important across different contexts. Thus far, specific patterns of implementation processes have been infrequently studied, and with few datasets. This dissertation analyzes the complex interplay between over 100 variables and provides one of the first research attempts at better understanding the processes that lead to the deep-rooted and comprehensive implementation of sustainability curricula. Internal and external practitioners of higher education institutions can find examples and evidence that can be useful in planning the next steps of their sustainability curriculum implementation. This dissertation offers generalizable empirical findings on how universities can succeed in recognizing their own responsibility to that end and in realizing this transformation through the implementation of ESD.
Metals fulfill crucial functions in areas as diverse as renewable energy, digitization and life style appliances, mobility, communication, or medicine. In the context of sustainability, achieving a more sustainable metal use means (i) minimizing the adverse effects associated with metal production and use and (ii) sustaining the availability of metals in a way that benefits present and future generations. Urgent need to act to avoid bottlenecks as well as meeting the challenge of possible conflicts of use among those areas of application calls for appropriate strategy making to intervene in the complex field of metal production and use that involves various, often interlinked operating levels, actors, and spatial and temporal scales. This dissertation focuses on strategies as a means to intervene in a system. It pursues the question, which design features could guide future strategy making to foster sustainability along the whole metal life cycle, and especially, how a better understanding of temporalities, i.e. understanding time in a diverse sense, could improve strategy design and help to bridge the assumed "transformation-material gap". This research converges the results from four research studies. A conceptual part explores the role of temporalities for interventions in complex and interlinked systems, which adds to the conceptual basis, on which the empirical part builds up to explore present and future interventions in metal production and use. The research revealed three essential needs that future strategies must tackle: (i) managing the complex interlinkages of processes and activities on various operational levels and spatial and temporal scales, (ii) providing clear guidance concerning the operationalization of sustainability principles, and (iii) keeping activities within the planet’s carrying capacity and embracing constant change as an inherent system characteristic. In response to these needs, the author developed three guidelines with two design features each (one relating to content, and one to the process of formulating and implementing the strategy) to guide future strategy making. The results show that time matters in this respect. If considered in close relation to space and diversely understood in the sense of temporalities, it serves to (i) understand the impact (duration and magnitude) of an intervention, (ii) recognize patterns of change that go beyond establishing linear, one-dimensional connections, and (iii) design interventions in a way that considers the resilience of a system. These findings can contribute to closer considering our understanding of transformation processes towards sustainability in future interventions in metal production and use.
European species-rich grasslands are threatened both by land use intensification as well as land abandonment. The studies shown in this thesis tested the possible use of ecological knowledge to ensure hay productivity whilst maintaining diversity of grasslands, with a view to informing ecological restoration. The overall approach was to understand interactions between plants, to study diversity effects on productivity, and mainly investigate how plant functional groups that arrive first in the system can create priority effects that influence community productivity both above- and belowground. A grassland field experiment was established and monitored for four years, in order to verify the effects of manipulating the order of arrival of different plant functional groups, as well as the sown diversity level on productivity and methane yield. The overall findings were: a) sowing legumes first created priority effects aboveground (higher biomass) and belowground (lower root length), plants invested less in roots and more in shoots, b) priority effects were more consistent below than aboveground, c) sown diversity did not affect aboveground biomass, d) the order of arrival treatments indirectly affected methane yield by affecting the relative dominance of plant functional groups. Since the researchers lack information on how legumes and non-legumes interact spatially belowground, (particularly related to root foraging) a controlled experiment was performed, using two grass species and one legume. The identity and location of the neighbours played a role in interactions, and the order plants arrived modulated it. When the focal species (grass) was growing with a legume it generally equated to the same outcome as not having a neighbour. Roots from the focal species grew more toward the legume than the grass neighbour, indicating a spatial component of facilitation. Since these studies involved root measurements, a method study was also conducted to verify how comparable and accurate are root length estimates obtained from different techniques. Results showed that the use of different methods can lead to different results, the studied methods did not have the same accuracy, and the automated methods can underestimate the root length. Overall, the results allow to conclude that different groups of plants arriving before others affected above and belowground biomass, roots may be key drivers during the creation of these priority effects, and interaction outcomes between plants depended on neighbour identity and location, modulated by the order they arrive in. The results suggest that priority effects can be used by sowing different species or plant functional groups at different time to steer a community to a desired trajectory depending on the restoration goal. However, there is a need to test contingency, potential, and long term impacts of such possible tools for restoration.
This thesis aims at contributing to the better understanding of the roles of international and domestic institutional and governance patterns for corporate sustainability practices. By combining governance and new institutionalism approaches it bridges the gap between the close look at specific corporate sustainability (CS) policies and the broader view on institutional frameworks. The qualitative comparative approach aims to provide deeper insights on the implementation of different governance schemes by transnational corporations ((TNC). Finally, the conclusions might allow for the development of a) recommendations for the balancing of TNCs' CS management between global and domestic requirements, and b) policy recommendations in the field of CS governance. The overarching research question is as follows: What role do national governance patterns play in comparison to global governance practices in shaping the corporate sustainability (CS) management of transnational corporations (TNCs)? In order to further operationalize this research objective, it is structured into three subquestions: (1) What are relevant institutional factors and global governance patterns for corporate sustainability/ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? (2) What are relevant institutional factors and national governance patterns for corporate sustainability/CSR in Germany, the US, and India? (3) How do these national and global governance patterns influence TNCs' CS management? The first two questions aim at tracing the institutional framework and governance patterns at both national and international levels by identifying norms, stakeholder expectations, prevalent modes of governance and actors involved in governance processes. On this basis, the third question targets TNCs' reaction to internationally varying governance patterns. Here, it is of main interest how relevant governance instruments are perceived by business actors and to which extent their sustainability management at the companies' headquarters and subsidiaries reflect global and national institutional and governance patterns. In order to answer these questions, literature research and a structured qualitative analysis have been conducted. The concepts of CS and CSR build the basis to analyze how TNCs and their subsidiaries manage their social and ecological corporate responsibilities. Against this conceptual background, the research question is approached empirically by the means of an international comparison. Three institutionally highly diverse countries were chosen: Germany, India and the US. India, an emerging market economy, was included to increase the diversity of the sample and to close the research gap indicated above. In order to identify the differences in governance for CS in these three countries, document analyses and 42 guideline-based interviews with experts from governments, NGOs, trade unions and trade associations were carried out. At the same time, global governance instruments for corporate sustainability – which are already relatively well researched - were identified by analyzing the relevant secondary literature. In a second step, in order to explore how TNCs strategically deal with the multitude of different governance approaches at their headquarters and subsidiaries, three case studies of Germany-headquartered transnational corporations in the chemical and engineering industries (Siemens, BASF and Bayer) have been conducted.
Ein wesentlicher Beitrag zur rationalen Verwendung unserer Energieresourcen kann durch die konsequente Nutzung diskontinuierlich anfallender Wärmeenergie erbracht werden, was aufgrund der zeitlichen Verschiebung von Wärmeangeboten und Wärmebedarf auf direktem Wege oft nicht möglich ist. Dies gilt sowohl für die Nutzung anfallender Abwärme aus Kühlprozessen als auch den ökonomiaschen Einsatz von Solarenergie. Dazu ist erforderlich, mit Hilfe eines effizienten Energiespreichers den überschüssigen Energieanfall zu verlagern.
Transforming the International Food Supply – Sustainable Practices in Small Intermediary Businesses
(2021)
The global food system faces many complex challenges, and there is general agreement that a transformation is needed. While localizing food has been proposed as a means to this end, changing global food supply chains may also lead to sustainable food systems. Because most food systems today have an international dimension and are likely to remain connected, on one way or another, to other ones across the globe, it is necessary to find solutions to problems such as exploitation or environmental degradation. Addressing this challenge and the related gap in the literature, this study examines the emerging practices of small intermediary food businesses, which act between agricultural producers and consumers, and may have the potential to advance sustainability in international food supply. Including a systematic review of the literature on food systems change (Study#1), this dissertation adopts a transformational sustainability research methodology, which is solution-oriented, aims to integrate system, target and transformation knowledge, and is characterized by a transdisciplinary research practice. It conceptualizes challenges of international food supply and empirically investigates entrepreneurial solution approaches to address these challenges (Study#2). Two transdisciplinary research projects with small coffee businesses located in Germany, Mexico, and the U.S. were conducted to examine how these approaches could be implemented (Study#3, Study#4, Workshop reports 1+2). Overall, this study shows that challenges in international food supply chains can be conceptualized as negative effects of large geographical and relational distances. It also identifies five entrepreneurial solution approaches specified by twelve sustainability-oriented design principles to address these negative effects. Creating relational proximity between supply chain actors, that is, strong relationships based on knowledge and care, seems to be a key factor to advance sustainability in international food supply.The results also suggest that by building such strong relationships and changing the fundamental principles of international food trade, small intermediary businesses could be important agents in food system transformations.
One of the Colombian strategies to diversify and decarbonize the energy sector is encouraging the use of non-conventional renewable resources (NCRR). This thesis measures the environmental rebound effect (ERE) when increasing the shares of wind power into the Colombian power grid in the residential (household) sector. For doing so, a process-based Life Cycle Assessment (P-LCA), an environmental extended input output (EEIO) model and re-spending models (almost ideal demand system AIDS) were applied. Direct rebound effect was measured thought the elasticity price of the electricity demand; furthermore, the environmental savings for increasing the shares of wind power into the grid were calculated via P-LCA. For doing so, a P-LCA for a wind farm in Colombia was performed, whereas the information for other energy resources (Hydro, Coal, Gas, Solar and Thermal) where collected from Ecoinvent 3.4 database. To calculate the environmental indirect rebound effect the monetary savings obtained for the environmental efficiency were calculated. For doing so, an AIDS was applied to obtain the marginal budget shares (MBS). Combining the MBS obtained with the EEIO model the monetary savings were translated into environmental indicators. The ERE is presented for ten impact categories (climate change (CC), acidification (A), ecotoxicity (E), marine eutrophication (MEUT), terrestrial eutrophication (TEUT), carcinogenic effects (CE), non-carcinogenic effects (NCE), ozone layer depletion (OD), photochemical ozone creation (POC), and respiratory effects, inorganics (RES)). Moreover, a sensitive analysis was conducted to measure the variability of the ERE to different values of the direct rebound effect and different percentages of price efficiency. The results show that the inclusion of the environmental rebound effect has generally a non-negligible impact on the overall environmental indicators across all studied years. Such impacts ranging across impact categories from 5% (eutrophication) and 6,109% (photochemical oxidant creation) for the combined model, whereas for the single model the values fall on the ranges of 1% (eutrophication) and 9,277% (photochemical oxidant creation). Further, a sensitivity analysis of the elasticity price of the electricity and the price of the electricity reveals that the ERE varies in different ways, specifically, changes in these parameters could vary the impacts, respectively, by up to about <1% and 38%. Backfire effects are present for 8 of the 10 environmental impacts studied in different magnitudes across the years, depending meanly of the savings available to re-invest.
The agreement on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 was a milestone in the common history of international development and sustainability governance. However, in order to be effective, it is necessary to identify and to define suitable instruments that can be applied in order to fulfill the ambitious goal catalogue. Therefore, the underlying thesis examines the concept of Village Savings and Loan associations (VSLAs) with regard to its mechanisms that operate towards an attainment of the respective goal category. VSLAs are self-government, autonomous and democratically organized Microfinance Institutions (MFIs). They consist of a maximum of 25 mostly female members, who know and trust each other. The work is carried out within a qualitative-empirical research design applied in central Cameroon, which has to some extent exemplary character for sub-Saharan Africa. In this manner, guided experts interviews were conducted with VSLA-presidents as well as with field officers that are creating and accompanying VSLAs. A first part addresses the historical evolution of the SDGs and the theoretical and actual implications of Microfinance and the VSLA-methodology. After considering the methodological proceeding, the results are presented, discussed and summarized in a conclusion. All in all, 22 mechanisms for the attainment of nine SDG-categories are identified and described. Of particular importance is the key role of the credits to trigger fruitful activities that generate financial wealth, economic growth and employment. Furthermore, the savings of the members are an important factor for the school enrollment of the members´ children. Additionally, a combination of the credits and the solidarity fund improves the medical treatment of the members and their families. In contrast to that, direct mechanisms supporting the nutritional situation or gender equality in the research field are found to have a limited importance. Moreover, none of the identified mechanisms targets the environmental sphere of the SDG-catalogue. This is weighty in light of an increasing noticeability of the impacts of climate change for the involved population group. Nonetheless, the VSLA-concept is a simple way to effectively address the social and the economic aspects of the SDG-catalogue. In this manner, a further development of the instrument could include the canalization of the capital of international de-velopment cooperation through the VSLAs as democratic and transparent grassroots-institutions.
The worldwide decline of plant and insect species during the last decades has far-reaching consequences for the functionality of ecosystems and their inherent processes. Pollination as one of them is an indispensable ecosystem service for human wellbeing. However, an increasing number of pollinator and plant species are threatened by multiple, interacting, and sometimes synergistic causes that are becoming a growing threat to ecosystem functioning. Given the loss of plant species diversity, it is increasingly difficult for pollinators to find food throughout the year. Therefore, this study analyses the influence of plant diversity on pollinators. The study was conducted in the course of the Jena Experiment, which is a long-term biodiversity experiment (since 2002) with 60 plant species, common to Central European Arrhenatherum grasslands. With a plant diversity gradient of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and 60 plant species per plot, time-series data resulted from a wide range of ecosystem processes, ranging from productivity, decomposition, C-storage, and N-storage to herbivory, and pollination. These were studied to investigate the mechanisms underlying the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem processes. Chapter 2 studies the spatio-temporal distribution of pollinators on flowers along an experimental plant diversity gradient. In particular, the spatial pollinator behaviour was examined. Chapters 3 and 4 continues on the chemical composition of flower nectar (nectar) of various plant species. The chemical composition of the nectar was analysed for the two most important macronutrients, carbohydrates (C) and amino acids (AA), using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Subsequently, their contents were analysed in terms of concentration, proportional content and the ratio of carbohydrates to amino acids (C:AA). In Chapter 3, the nectar of 34 plant species from the grasslands of the Jena Experiment was compared. In Chapter 4, nectar was investigated in the context of diversity effects on the example of the plant species Field Scabious, Knautia arvensis. It was analysed to what extent the nectar quality (nutrient content) differs between plant individuals of one species. Overall, these studies indicate how fragile plant-pollinator interactions are but also how important plant species-rich grasslands are to support plant-pollinator interactions. Increased plant species diversity is essential to ensure the availability of flowering resources throughout the year. Pollinators, such as honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees, and hoverflies can use the niches in time and in vertical space complementarily. However, in plant species-poor grasslands there may be more niche overlaps, which is probably due to a reduced availability of resources. This points to the need to include different plant species belonging to different plant families, whose nectar may have evolved in response to morphological flower traits and metabolic pathways. Therefore plant species diversity can supply pollinators with nectar differing in carbohydrate and amino acid content and thus differing in quality. Also C-AA ratios have proven to be a useful measurement to reveal differences between plant species. In addition, C:AA ratios were not differing in nectar of K. arvensis individuals growing in different plant species richness levels, although their nectar seemed to be more attractive in mixtures with 16 plant species, likely due to higher content of essential and phagostimulatory amino acids than in plant species-poor mixtures.
A central aspect of sustainability governance is collaboration, which has been lauded for its benefits but also criticized for its challenges. The potential benefits of collaboration have apparently been recognized also in the context of EU agriculture. Yet, there has been a lack of holistic consideration of how collaboration can be systematically integrated and promoted in the governance of EU agriculture. Sustainable agriculture cannot only be encouraged through changes in the overall governance system but also through the support of existing and emerging small-scale collaborative initiatives for sustainable agriculture. Indeed, there has been substantial research on the conditions that influence success of similar collaborative initiatives. However, the knowledge resulting from this research remains rather scattered and does not allow for the identification of overall patterns. Additionally, little of this research specifically focuses on sustainable agriculture. What is more, the promotion of collaboration for sustainable agriculture is further complicated by the lack of clarity of the meaning of sustainable agriculture, which is an inherently ambiguous and contested concept. This cumulative dissertation aims to address these gaps by contributing to a better understanding of how collaboration can be facilitated and designed as a means to govern for and advance sustainable agriculture. For this purpose, the dissertation addresses three sub-aims: 1) Advancing the understanding of the concept of sustainable agriculture; 2) scrutinizing the current governance system regarding its potential to facilitate or hamper collaboration; 3) assessing conceptually and empirically how actor collaboration can be facilitated as a means to govern for sustainable agriculture, both from a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. In doing so, this dissertation focuses on EU agriculture and applies a mix of methods, ranging from qualitative to quantitative dominant. The findings of this dissertation highlight that collaboration has been underappreciated and even hampered as an approach to governing for sustainable agriculture. In contrast, this dissertation argues that collaboration offers one promising way to promoting and realizing agriculture and emphasizes the need to integrate different approaches to collaboration and to sustainable agriculture.
Excessive fertilizer use leads to nutrient imbalances and losses of these to the environment through leaching, runoff and gaseous emissions. Nutrient use efficiency (NUE) in agriculture is often low and improving it could increase the sustainability of agricultural systems. The main aims of this thesis were to gain a better understanding of plant-soil-microbe interactions in order to improve agricultural NUEs. The studies included experimentally tested how crops respond to addition of high carbon amendments, fertilizer application rates and timing, and crop rotations. Furthermore, methods for measurement of roots were compared and a protocol for measurement of roots was developed. The first experiment simulated an agricultural field using mesocosms. In this setting, the researchers tested the effect of 4 previous crops (precrops), which either had or did not have a symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)/rhizobia, on the focal crop (winter barley). They also tested the addition of high carbon amendments (wheat straw/sawdust) for immobilization of residual soil nitrogen (N) at harvest of the previous crop. Overall, the findings were that non-AMF precrops had a positive effect on winter barley yield compared to AMF precrops. Wheat straw reduced N leaching, whereas sawdust addition had a negative effect on the yield of winter barley. The second experiment tested the effect of different fertilizer (N/phosphorus (P)) application timings on plant traits grown in rhizoboxes. Overall, delaying N application had a more detrimental effect on plant biomass than delaying P application. The root system increased its root length initially due to N-deficiency, but was quickly thus N-limited that root length was relatively lower than the control group. Because of the many root related measurements in the second experiment, a step-by-step method for measuring root traits under controlled and field conditions was developed and included in this thesis. This method paper describes precisely how root traits of interest can be measured, and helps with deciding which approach should be taken depending on the experimental design. Additionally, the authors compared the bias and accuracy of several popular root measurement methods. Overall, these results highlight the importance of crop choice in crop rotations and the plasticity of root systems in relation to nutrient application. The results show high carbon amendments could reduce nitrate leaching after the harvest of crops, especially those with high risk of nitrate leaching, although they had only small impacts on yield.
This thesis deals with sustainability in African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and the influence of language in achieving sustainable development. Several authors highlight the existing imbalance of sustainability research in higher education, with most publications focusing on the so-called Global North. Little is known about sustainability in the so-called Global South, and in African educational institutions in particular. The first article of this thesis investigated existing sustainability activities in African HEIs. Rather than focusing on the shortcomings, the paper took a positive stance, opposing the predominant language of deficits in research on Africa. In the Delphi study conducted, 32 experts from 29 HEIs in 16 African countries described the sustainability activities they are engaging in. Experts provided information about their experiences in their respective HEI, while language and culture emerged as areas in need of further research. The second article therefore focused on the relationship between language and education for sustainable development in African educational institutions, and systematically reviewed scholarly literature regarding this connection. Authors of the reviewed 33 papers approached this connection mainly on a theoretical and philosophical level, focusing on education and Africa as a whole rather than specified forms of education in specific countries. The third article examined the views of Tanzanian higher education students and graduates regarding language and sustainability. Participants explained how they integrate sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into their research and how they approach translations in the process. In the ensuing interviews, participants estimated that only a fraction of people outside of academia are aware of sustainability and the SDGs, rendering the achievement of target 4.7 unlikely. This thesis therefore contributes to a better understanding of the current challenges in implementing sustainability and the SDGs in African educational institutions. It highlights the need to integrate (local) African languages in order for sustainability activities as well as the SDGs to be successful.
Das Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es, die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die Entwicklung des Vorlandes als Ergebnis der sich ändernden hydraulischen Bedingungen zu untersuchen. Die Untersuchung beschäftigt sich mit der Entwicklung des Vorlandes, da dieses Gebiet stark abhängig von Wasserstandsänderungen ist. Diese werden möglicherweise durch Klimawandel verstärkt und können folglich die zahlreichen Funktionen des Vorlandes beinträchtigen. Diese Problematik erfordert die Durchführung einer Untersuchung, die zunächst die durch die Variationen der Wasserstände betroffenen physikalischen Prozesse im Fluss und in den Flussauen analysiert und anschließend eine Methodologie für die Analyse der zukünftigen Entwicklung des Vorlandes herleitet. Beispielhaft wurde ein Bereich an der unteren Mittelelbe in Niedersachsen, Norddeutschland für die Untersuchung ausgewählt. Zu diesem Zweck befasst sich die Untersuchung im ersten Teil mit der aktuellen Diskussion über den Klimawandel und mit den bestehenden Schwierigkeiten, zu einer belastbaren zukünftigen Prognose des Ausmaßes der klimatischen Veränderungen zu gelangen. Anschließend konzentriert sich die Untersuchung auf die Interaktionen zwischen Abflüssen, Vegetation und Sedimenten, die die Flussmorphodynamik bedingen. In diesem Teil der Untersuchung werden die Konzepte des Equilibriums des Flusses und der Anpassung des Gerinnes erläutert. Diese beschäftigen sich mit der Reaktionskette, die aufgrund des Klimawandels im Fluss und in den Flussauen ausgelöst werden kann. Darauffolgend werden die mathematischen Beziehungen für die Darstellung der physikalischen Prozesse, die bei Veränderungen der Abflüsse, der Vegetation und Sedimentation stattfinden, und die entsprechenden Wechselwirkungen erläutert. Zu ihnen gehören Gleichungen zur Darstellung der Flusswasserbewegung, des Widerstandes, der Sedimentation, der Grundwasserbewegung und der Bodenwasserbewegung. Ein Aspekt, der entlang der gesamten Untersuchung hervorgehoben wird, ist die enge Beziehung zwischen den Fluss- und Flussauenprozessen und der in diesen Zonen bestehenden Vegetation. Ein weiterer Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit ist die Untersuchung der mathematischen Modelle, die eine Analyse des zukünftigen Verhaltens des Vorlandes ermöglichen. Mithilfe dieser Untersuchung werden die Vorteile der eindimensionalen Modellierung für die Prognose der Entwicklung dieses Gebiets deutlich. Hinsichtlich Modellierungen von längeren Zeiträumen, z.B. über 100 Jahre, wie in der vorliegenden Arbeit, liefert die eindimensionale Modellierung schnellere Ergebnisse mit weniger Rechnerleistung. Die Untersuchung im ersten Teil der Dissertation führt zur Erkenntnis, dass sich das Verhalten des Vorlandes aus der Interaktion zwischen Fluss- und Flussauenmorphologie und der Auenvegetation ergibt. Diese Interaktionen bestimmen letztlich die zukünftigen Wasserstände und somit die hydraulischen Bedingungen für diese Zone. Für die Analyse des zukünftigen Verhaltens des Vorlandes unter Einfluss des Klimawandels wird eine Methodologie vorgeschlagen, die als Dynamische Interaktion von Modellen bezeichnet wird. Diese Methodologie prognostiziert die Entwicklung des Vorlandes als Ergebnis der Interaktion zwischen Fluss- und Flussauenmorphologie und der Vegetation. Um diese Prognose durchzuführen, werden drei eindimensionale Modelle verwendet, die eine Darstellung des Verhaltens der Fluss- und Flussauenmorphologie und der Vegetation ermöglichen. Die Fluss- und Flussauenmorphologie wird durch ein eindimensionales Flussmodell und ein eindimensionales Sedimenttransportmodell dargestellt. Für die Bestimmung der Verteilung der Vegetation wird zunächst die Bodenwasserbewegung modelliert. Mit diesen Ergebnissen wird durch den Zusammenhang zwischen Bodenwasserstand, Überflutungstoleranz der Pflanzen und Geländehöhe die Variation der potenziellen Flächen für die Pflanzengesellschaften, ein in dieser Dissertation entwickeltes Konzept, analysiert. Der Einfluss des Klimawandels wird durch die Variation von Abflüssen im Flussmodell, im Sedimenttransport- und Bodenwasserbewegungsmodell, sowie bei der Analyse von Veränderungen der Vegetation, berücksichtigt. Dazu werden die durch regionale Klimamodelle prognostizierten zukünftigen Niederschläge in die Berechnung der zukünftigen Abflüsse durch eine in dieser Dissertation entwickelten Modifikation des stochastischen Modells AutoRegressive-Moving-Average (ARMA) eingeschlossen. Die ausgearbeiteten Entwicklungsprognosen der verschiedenen Modelle werden miteinander verknüpft, um zukünftige Wasserstände und Überflutungen und damit die neuen hydraulischen Bedingungen für das Vorland zu prognostizieren. Im zweiten Teil dieser Dissertation wird die vorgeschlagene Methodologie der Dynamischen Interaktion von Modellen in einem Fallbeispiel angewandt. Dafür wurden zwei Messstationen an der Elbe zwischen Elbe-km 511 und 515 installiert, die auch im Rahmen des Projekts KLIMZUG-NORD verwendet wurden. Diese Messstationen ermöglichten innerhalb von 2 Jahren die Erhebung von mehr als 300.000 Felddaten. Diese Informationen erlauben es, die Entwicklung des Vorlandes (2021-2050) in einer regulierten Flussstrecke der Elbe (Mittelelbe) zu prognostizieren. Dazu werden zunächst die bedeutenden Charakteristika des Untersuchungsgebiets dargestellt und nachfolgend Material und Methoden erläutert, die für die Analyse der Entwicklung des Vorlandes im Untersuchungsgebiet erforderlich sind. Die Flussmorphologie wird für den Zeitraum 2001-2100 modelliert, da eine Tendenz bei möglichen Variationen in einem kurzen Zeitraum nur schwer wahrgenommen werden kann. Die jeweiligen Modelle werden u.a. mithilfe erhobener Felddaten, Daten aus der Literatur, Klimadaten aus den Stationen des Deutschen Wetterdiensts (DWD), projizierten Daten des regionalen Klimamodells REMO, Daten des hydrologischen ATLAS von Deutschland, Abflussdaten des Pegels Neu Darchau (Elbe-km 536,4), Geschiebe-Schwebstoffdaten des Wasser- und Schifffahrtsamts (WSA) und der Bundesanstalt für Gewässerkunde (BfG), Wassertemperaturdaten der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für die Reinhaltung der Elbe (ARGE-ELBE) und das Digitale Geländemodell (DGM) kalibriert. Die durch das stochastische Modell ARMA/Variation erhaltenen Berechnungen der zukünftigen Abflüsse, die die Prognose der regionalen Klimamodelle berücksichtigen, werden mit den durch die BfG-Modelle erhaltenen Ergebnissen verglichen, um die Problematik der Vielfalt von klimatischen Prognosen anzugehen. Die BfG-Modelle wurden im Rahmen des Projekts Klimaveränderung und Wasserwirtschaft (KLIWAS) entwickelt. Die Anwendung der Methodologie der Dynamischen Interaktion von Modellen auf das Untersuchungsgebiet ermöglicht die Annahme, dass in den nächsten 30 Jahren aufgrund des Klimawandels (Zunahme der Winterniederschläge) ein Anstieg der Wasserstände und Überflutungsrisiken im Vorland dieses Gebiets auftreten wird. Dieser prognostizierte Zustand des Vorlandes basiert hauptsächlich auf Veränderungen der Vegetation, da diese zu neuen Rauigkeitswerten (Manning-Werten) und dadurch zum Anstieg der Wasserstände führen. Schließlich werden in dieser Dissertation die Anwendung und Bedeutung der vorgeschlagenen Methodologie für die Analyse der Entwicklung des Vorlandes anderer Flüsse und Regionen außerhalb Mitteleuropas behandelt.
Crowdfunding is considered a promising instrument for transforming existing socio-technical regimes by financing radical innovations of such entrepreneurs. However, this potential has not yet been fully explored. Therefore, this dissertation addresses the overarching research question of how sustainable entrepreneurs can exploit the full potential of investment-based crowdfunding to develop from niche operators to actors in the socio-technical regime. Five journal articles and one book chapter are included in this PhD project, which use a wide range of quantitative methodologies. In the framework paper, the findings are conceptually evaluated on a meta-level by applying the multi-level perspective. The key insights can be assigned to four categories, including the financing and marketing function, the target group, and the project presentation. The analysis shows that investment-based crowdfunding is suitable to equally fund and market the business ideas of environmental entrepreneurs, since the quest for entering the mass market is highest for such ventures. In contrast, purely social entrepreneurs tend to conduct crowdfunding projects on a smaller scale and probably aim to stay in the niche. Nevertheless, profit-oriented social entrepreneurs are still encouraged to use investment-based crowdfunding for funding and marketing purposes. The prominent display of environmental effects (e.g. the amount of compensated greenhouse gases) and financial incentives (e.g. high interest rates) has a high impact on the investment decision of individuals on investment-based crowdfunding platforms. The case of fairafric is used as a best practice example to demonstrate how crowdfunding can be a stepping stone for sustainability-oriented niche actors to enter the mass market. The fair-trade and organic chocolate manufacturer has undergone six crowdfunding campaigns which enabled it to grow and build a strong community of supporters. The outcomes of this dissertation clarify how sustainable entrepreneurs can unleash the potential of investment-based crowdfunding for financing and marketing purposes.
Polen weist insbesondere im Süden und Osten des Landes, aber auch in seinen anderen Landesteilen, eine kleinteilige Agrarstruktur auf. Eine solche kleinteilige Agrarstruktur ist in den Augen der polnischen Agrarpolitik ein unerwünschtes Phänomen. Entsprechend misst sie der Veränderung der kleinteiligen Agrarstruktur Polens zu größeren Einheiten hin eine hohe Priorität bei. Vor dem Hintergrund vielfältiger sozial-ökologischer Krisenphänomene, die oftmals mit einer intensiven, industriellen und großskaligen Landwirtschaft verbunden sind, stellt sich jedoch die Frage, ob solche Bestrebungen im Hinblick auf Nachhaltigkeit, der sich die polnische Agrarpolitik und die Politik für die Entwicklung ländlicher Räume ebenfalls verpflichtet, zielführend sind. Um dieser Frage nachzugehen, wurde für die vorliegende Dissertation in zwei landwirtschaftlich besonders kleinteilig strukturierten Regionen Polens (Wojewodschaft Lubelskie und Wojewodschaft Podkarpackie) eine empirische Studie unter Betreiberinnen und Betreibern von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben durchgeführt. Ziel der Studie war es zu untersuchen, welche Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen sich in kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben finden und ob diese Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen den vielfältigen landwirtschaftsbezogenen sozial-ökologischen Krisenphänomenen entgegenwirken können. Den theoretischen Hintergrund der Arbeit bilden die Nachhaltigkeitsdebatte, das Konzept der gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnisse der Sozialen Ökologie sowie wachstumskritische Positionen (insbesondere die Ansätze von Suffizienz und Subsistenz). Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studie zeigen, dass die Lebenswirklichkeiten und Wirtschaftsweisen von Betreiberinnen und Betreibern von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben sehr vielfältig sind. Die befragten Landwirtinnen und Landwirte verfolgen in ihren Betrieben unterschiedliche ökonomische Modelle - einige von ihnen sind ökonomisch erfolgreiche Landwirtinnen und Landwirte im Vollerwerb, andere haben sich bewusst für Nebenerwerbslandwirtschaft entschieden, und noch andere schließlich betreiben Landwirtschaft aus einer ökonomischen Notwendigkeit und einem Mangel an Alternativen heraus. Doch trotz der unterschiedlichen ökonomischen Modelle, die die befragten Landwirtinnen und Landwirten in ihren Betrieben verfolgen, liegen ihrem Handeln gleichermaßen der Wunsch nach Existenzsicherung und der Wunsch nach Autonomie als wesentliche Motivation zugrunde. Insgesamt zeigen die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studie einige der Herausforderungen für Betreiberinnen und Betreiber von kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Betrieben auf, die aus den gegenwärtigen institutionellen und politisch-wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für die Landwirtschaft resultieren. Ebenso zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass die Wirtschaftsweisen, die in den untersuchten kleinen Betrieben vorgefunden wurden, nur bedingt zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ländlicher Räume beitragen können. Die Ergebnisse der empirischen Studie zeigen insbesondere die Dringlichkeit auf, die gegenwärtigen politisch-wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für die Landwirtschaft zu ändern und naturerhaltende Wirtschaftsweisen auch finanziell attraktiv zu machen, wenn diese einen Beitrag zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung ländlicher Räume leisten sollen.
The aim of this paper is to determine how a carbon footprint label for grocery products can be designed to facilitate a sustainable consumption behaviour. Therefore, a mixed-method approach was used consisting out of a review of relevant literature and an explorative quantitative survey with n=158 participants. It was found that consumers generally have a positive attitude towards carbon labelling, but they lack understanding of the term, its underlying concepts and the emissions caused by grocery products. In regard to the design criteria of a carbon label, labels with a coloured scale are preferred most by consumers. Also, the mechanisms of consumer behaviour imply that not all parts of the behaviour are visible and controllable for individuals themselves. The concluding concept proposal summarises important criteria of a carbon labelling system that has the goal to educate consumers and facilitate a lower carbon consumption behaviour, such as a simple visual design, the use of a colour scale, a design enabling a comparison, the provision of a link to further information, the public enforcement of the system and overall uniformity.
Hochtemperatur-Aquiferwärmespeicher erleichtern Wärmesystemen durch eine saisonale Lastverschiebung die Erschließung und Integration von erneuerbaren Wärmequellen. Ein mittleres Temperaturniveau von >50 Grad Celsius ermöglicht zumeist eine direkte Entladung ohne einen anschließenden Temperaturhub über eine Wärmepumpe. Aufgrund der thermischen Trägheit von ATES-Systemen ist die Berücksichtigung von Lastfalländerungen durch jährlich variierende Lastprofile besonders in der Einschwingphase sinnvoll. Da es bis zu 20 Jahre dauern kann, bis der Aquifer einen quasistationären Zustand erreicht, konnte in Langzeitstudien ein großer Einfluss von unterschiedlichen Lastprofilen auf energetische und finanzielle Simulationsergebnisse nachgewiesen werden. Zur Verbesserung der Investitionsplanung wurde ein Verfahren entwickelt, das sowohl die Prognosefähigkeit als auch die Prognosegenauigkeit von Energiesystem- und Wirtschaftlichkeitsanalysen erhöht, indem über einen wahrscheinlichkeitsbasierten Ansatz (Monte-Carlo-Temperaturschätzung) Normalverteilungsfunktionen für gewünschte Auswertungsgrößen (z.B. Kapitalwert) abgeleitet werden können. Aus 2000 Simulationsjahren wurde über konzeptspezifische Verteilungsfunktionen der wahrscheinlichste Eintrittsfall abgeleitet und zu einem repräsentativen Szenario aggregiert. Das aggregierte Szenario mündet in ein konzeptspezifisches Gleichungssystem, das mit den Freiheitsgraden Energiepreise, Kalkulationszinssatz und Förderanteil gelöst wird. Im Gegensatz zu der etablierten Methode, die Wirtschaftlichkeitsberechnung im Anschluss an eine energetische Systemsimulation anzuhängen, wurde in dieser Arbeit ein holistisches Modell in TRNSYS entwickelt, das für jeden Simulationszeitschritt simultan Energie- und Zahlungsströme berechnet. In dem Modell konnten Verbesserungen in der Prognosegenauigkeit um den Faktor 20 nachgewiesen werden. Mit dem neuen Verfahren kann die Frage der Wirtschaftlichkeit nicht nur mit ja oder nein beantwortet werden, sondern zusätzlich mit der jeweiligen Eintrittswahrscheinlichkeit belegt werden.
Aufgrund ihrer Struktur sind insbesondere urbane Strukturen von Klimafolgen wie z.B. Hitze, Stürme oder Starkregen betroffen. Der Raum- und Umweltplanung kommt dabei hinsichtlich der sozial-ökologischen Naturverhältnisse eine wichtige Rolle zu, sofern sie die Aufgaben der Krisenbewältigung annehmen und verantwortungsvoll wahrnehmen will. Auch die Hansestadt Lüneburg steht zukünftig vor einigen Herausforderungen. Durch den allgemeinen Trend der Urbanisierung und als Teil der Metropolregion Hamburg gilt Lüneburg als beliebter Wohnraum. Die vorliegende Arbeit lenkt den Blick auf die Klimafolgenanpassung bei Starkregen in der Stadtplanung allgemein und auf die Hansestadt Lüneburg. Zunächst werden die der Ausarbeitung zugrundegelegten Begriffe sowie die Bedeutung von Starkregenereignissen in der Stadtplanung definiert und näher erläutert. Darauf folgt die Darstellung der zur Beantwortung der Forschungsfrage verwendeten Methoden. Anschließend werden in der empirischen Forschung das bisherige Auftreten von Starkregen analysiert, bestehende Adaptionsstrategien norddeutscher Städte und Regionen aufgezeigt, ein Zukunftsausblick auf Grundlage wissenschaftlicher Prognosen gegeben und konkrete, auf die Hansestadt Lüneburg bezogene Analysen und Szenarien erstellt, bevor ein Resümee der empirischen Forschung gezogen werden kann. Abschließend wird das methodische Vorgehen reflektiert, die Ergebnisse diskutiert und ein kurzer Ausblick auf zukünftige Herausforderungen gegeben.
In response to the challenges of the energy transition, the German electricity network is subjected to a process of substantial transformation. Considering the long latency periods and lifetimes of electricity grid infrastructure projects, it is more cost-efficient to combine this need for transformation with the need to adapt the grid to future climate conditions. This study proposes the spatially varying risk of electricity grid outages as a guiding principle to determine optimal levels of security of electricity supply. Therefore, not only projections of future changes in the likelihood of impacts on the grid infrastructure were analyzed, but also the monetary consequences of an interruption. Since the windthrow of trees was identified a major source for atmospherically induced grid outages, a windthrow index was developed, to regionally assess the climatic conditions for windthrow. Further, a concept referred to as Value of Lost Grid was proposed to quantify the impacts related to interruptions of the distribution grid. In combination, the two approaches enabled to identify grid entities, which are of comparably high economic value and subjected to a comparably high likelihood of windthrow under future climate conditions. These are primarily located in the mid-range mountain areas of North-Rhine Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. In comparison to other areas of less risk, the higher risk in these areas should be reflected in comparably more resilient network structures, such as buried lines instead of overheadlines, or more comprehensive efforts to prevent grid interruptions, such as structural reinforcements of pylons or improved vegetation management along the power lines. In addition, the outcomes provide the basis for a selection of regions which should be subjected to a more regionally focused analysis inquiring spatial differences (with respect to the identified coincidence of high windthrow likelihoods and high economic importance of the grid) among individual power lines or sections of a distribution network.
Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit Zukunft, Narrativen und globalem Klimawandel in den zwei Bereichen Umweltwissenschaften und Science Fiction. Es werden zwei Arten dargestellt, in die Zukunft zu blicken: Einerseits werden Szenarien in den Umweltwissenschaften genutzt, um globale Modelle aufzustellen. Hierfür wird erläutert, was die Szenariotechnik ist und welche Merkmale sie hat. Andererseits werden Science Fiction und kreative Zukunftsvorstellungen diskutiert. Die beiden Themenfelder werden durch zwei Beispiele konkretisiert: Die "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways" (SSPs) und die Anthologie "Everything Change" (herausgegeben von Milkoreit, Martinez, Eschrich, 2016). Im Diskussionskapitel wird auf Narrative, Perspektive, Diversität, Umweltkommunikation, Komplexität und Zukunft eingegangen. Insgesamt wird das Fazit gezogen, dass die beiden Beispiele gegensätzliche Ziele haben, aber komplementäre Wirkung erzielen können. Mit einem Beispiel aus der partizipativen Forschung wird verdeutlicht, dass eine Kombination der beiden Felder dazu beitragen kann, sinnvolle Handlungsoptionen gegenüber dem Klimawandel zu entwickeln.
This cumulative dissertation investigates food policy councils (FPCs) as potential levers for sustainability transformation. The four research papers included here on this recent phenomenon in Germany present new insights regarding the process of FPCs' emergence (Emergence paper), the legal conditions which affect their establishment (Legal paper), the different roles of FPCs in policy-making processes (Roles paper) and FPCs' potential to democratise the food system (Food democracy paper). Drawing on and contextualizing the results of the four individual studies, the framework paper uses the leverage points concept originally developed by Meadows (1999) and adopted by Abson et al. (2016) as a lens to discuss FPCs’ potential as levers for sustainability transformation. This conceptual background includes three so-called realms of leverage, which are considered to be of particular importance in transformational, solution-oriented sustainability science: first, the change, stability and learning in institutions (re-structure), second, the interactions between people and nature (re-connect) and third, the ways in which knowledge is produced and used (re-think). Framing the findings of the four research papers in terms of these three realms, the framework paper shows that FPCs could serve as cross realm levers, i.e. as interventions that simultaneously address knowledge production, institutional reform and human-nature interactions.
The smallholder-dominated landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia support a unique biodiversity with great importance to local livelihoods and high global conservation value. These landscapes, however, are severely threatened by deforestation, forest degradation and the adverse effects of farmland management regimes. These changes have fundamentally altered the structure of the landscapes and threaten their biodiversity and ecosystem services. Managing biodiversity and related services in such rapidly changing landscapes requires a thorough understanding of the effects of land use change and the reliance of local communities on biodiversity. This dissertation examines woody plant biodiversity patterns and services and presents several recommendations regarding biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services in smallholder-dominated landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. Using a social-ecological systems approach, the author conducted four studies on the complex interactions of local people and woody plant diversity. First, he investigated the effects of human-induced forest degradation on woody plant species. His results suggest that forest biodiversity has been affected by the combined effects of coffee management intensity, landscape context and history at the local and landscape level. Specifically, richness of forest specialist species significantly has decreased with coffee management intensity and in secondary compared to old growth forests, but increased with current distance from forest edge in both primary and secondary forests. These findings highlight the need to maintain undisturbed forest sites to conserve forest biodiversity. Second, the author examined legacy effects of past agricultural land use on woody plant biodiversity. The results show that historical distance seems to be the most important variable affecting woody plant composition and distribution in farmland sections of the landscapes. The author found evidence for immigration credits for generalist and pioneer species but not for extinction debts for forest specialist species which might be rapidly paid off in farmland. The results suggest not only an unrecognized conservation value of old farmland but also a disturbing loss of forest specialist species. To slow this trend, it is necessary to shift to a cultural landscape development approach and to restore forest specialist species in the landscapes. Third, the author evaluated the supply of potential multiple ecosystem services and the relationships between the diversity of woody plant and ecosystem service in the three major land use types, namely forests with and without coffee management and farmland. The results revealed a high multifunctionality of landscapes and showed that ecosystem services significantly increase with woody plant diversity in all types of land use. These findings suggest that the woody plant diversity and multifunctionality in southwestern Ethiopian landscapes has to be maintained. Fourth, the author explored farmers' woody plant use to assess their dependency on and maintenance of woody plants and also considered the influence of property rights and management in this context. He found that local farmers used 95 species for eleven major purposes from all major land uses across the landscapes. He also found that most of the widely used tree species regenerated successfully throughout the landscapes, including in farmland. Local people felt, however, that their property and tree use rights were limited, especially in forests, and that some of the most widely used plant species, including important timber species, appeared to have been overharvested in forests. The results suggest that many species are important for local livelihoods, but a perceived low sense of property rights also seems to adversely affect the management of woody plants, particularly in forests. By focusing on woody plants and their ecosystem services to local people, this dissertation documents a dramatic loss of native forest biodiversity and rapid changes in the cultural landscapes of southwestern Ethiopia. Overall, the findings suggest the need for preservation of intact forest sites and for cultural landscapes development to safeguard biodiversity and multifunctionality of the landscapes in the future. This, in turn, requires holistic and integrated approaches that involve local people and recognize their basic needs of woody plants and their property rights to foster the management of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Maintaining primary forests in and using cultural landscape approaches to the rapidly changing rural setting of southwestern Ethiopia would also contribute to the global effort to halt biodiversity loss.
Auf Grund der stetig wachsenden Menge an Daten gewinnt die automatische Datenanalyse durch Algorithmen zunehmend an Bedeutung. Im Speziellen trägt die Analyse von Texten ohne manuelles Zutun zu einer erheblichen Erleichterung der Extraktion von relevanten Informationen bei. Sprachliche Informationen können neben der Zuordnung zu Kategorien auf Regeln und Muster untersucht werden. Diese Art der Untersuchung fällt in den Bereich des Text Minings, und in der vorliegenden Arbeit geht es darum, eine qualitative Inhaltsanalyse zum Thema Nachhaltigkeit nachzuempfinden. Es soll geprüft werden, in wie weit automatisierte Verfahren in der Lage sind, Ergebnisse einer bereits bestehenden Untersuchung zu erzielen. In der Durchführung werden mit der Open Source-Software RapidMiner vier Prozesse erstellt, die darauf abzielen, Zeitungsartikel auf ihren Inhalt zu analysieren. Unter anderem werden eine Assoziationsanalyse und eine Klassifikation realisiert, deren Ziel es ist, den Kontext und die Verwendung des Begriffes der Nachhaltigkeit in den Medien zu untersuchen. Die vorliegende Studie will prüfen, ob automatisierten Methoden im Vergleich zu manuellen Verfahren hinreichende Ergebnisse liefern können, sodass die hiesigen Resultate an denen der zu Grunde gelegten Studie von Fischer und Haucke gemessen werden sollen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Realisierung einer Inhaltsanalyse mit RapidMiner möglich ist und zu erheblichen Zeiteinsparungen gegenüber konventionellen Verfahren führt. Sie zeigen jedoch auch, dass sich die Minderung des Aufwandes in der Ergebnisqualität widerspiegelt und somit der alleinige Einsatz von Text Mining Verfahren zur Analyse von spezifischen Kontexten noch nicht ausreichend ist.
Sustainability transitions research proposes fundamental changes of societal systems' organisation to overcome persistent societal challenges, such as climate change or biodiversity loss, and allowing systems to become more sustainable. This thesis adresses an underlying tension in sustainability transitions research: between transitions as an open-ended process of fundamental change and the normative direction of this change: sustainability. In doing so, three themes are in the focus of the research: individual agency, normativity and transdisciplinary collaboration. Thereby, the thesis aims to strengthen process-oriented and potentially transformative approaches to sustainability transition research, in contrast to primarily descriptive-analitical approaches. Transition management as a recent and salient example of transdisciplinary transition research is chosen to provide research framework and application context. Based on conceptual-theoretic, empirical case study and reflexive work, three main results are contributed: First, a psychologically enriched understanding of individual and sustainability related agency in conceptual and empirical understandings of transition management is developed. This builds on two perspectives: a psychologically enriched capability approach as well as the analysis of social effects (social learning, empowerment and social capital development) of transition management to capture sustainability oriented agency increases. As second main result, normative considerations, namely sustainability, are included into transition management on conceptual and empirical levels. Therein, substantive, procedural and intentional aspects of sustainability are combined: Substantive aspects are covered by proposing capabilities, behavioral freedoms to live a valuable life, as normative yardsticks to measure developments. Procedural aspects include a detailed understanding of facilitating a learning journey towards making sustainability meaningful in the local transition management cases and setting up experiments for its realiziation. Intentional aspects are addressed by linking social effects of transition management to awareness, motivations and feelings of responsibility towards sustainability. As a third main result, the transdisciplinary collaboration in transition management of creating an arena as an interactive learning space is conceptualized and explored, as well as the roles of the researchers therein. Key issues of this learning space, the community arena, are drawn out and ideal-type roles and activities of researchers in addressing these issues are proposed and empirically analysed. As synthesis of thesis results, ten principles of sustainability transition management are proposed.
Süßwasserökosysteme stellen für menschliche Gesellschaften verschiedene Ökosystemdienstleistungen wie zum Beispiel Trinkwasser oder Fischressourcen bereit. In der modernen Landwirtschaft kommen große Mengen von Agrochemikalien zum Einsatz, die in die Fließgewässer gelangen und dort zur Schädigung des Ökosystems führen können. Die vorliegende Arbeit trägt wichtige Erkenntnisse zur Abschätzung von Exposition und Effekten bei, die aus dem Eintrag von Pestiziden in Fließgewässerökosysteme resultieren können. Dabei wird eine der umfangreichsten Feldstudien zu den Auswirkungen der Pestizidbelastung in kleinen landwirtschaftlichen Fließgewässern vorgestellt. Die Feldstudie wurde an 29 Bächen in zwei Gebieten Finnlands und Frankreichs durchgeführt und umfaßte die Aufnahme der Zusammensetzung der Invertebratengemeinschaften und eines wichtigen Ökosystemprozesses, dem Blattabbau. Des Weiteren wurde ein Pestizidmonitoring für Verbindungen durchgeführt, die nach den Ergebnissen behördlicher Untersuchungen in ökotoxikologisch relevanten Konzentrationen in den Gewässern vorkommen. Nach der Einleitung (Kapitel 1), werden in den Kapiteln 2-4 neue Methoden zur Erfassung der Pestizidbelastung von Fließgewässern vorgestellt und bewertet. Die Ergebnisse aus der Feldstudie zu den Auswirkungen von Pestiziden werden im Kapitel 5 präsentiert. Im 2. Kapitel wird eine neue Methode zur Erfassung von schwebstoffadsorbierten Pestiziden vorgestellt, bei der die Extraktion mit der beschleunigten Lösemittelextraktion (ASE) durchgeführt wurde. Die Methode zeigte gute Ergebnisse bezüglich Exaktheit und Genauigkeit der Wiederfindung bei der Extraktion 10 polarer und semi-polarer Pestizide verschiedener chemischer Klassen. Bei der Anwendung der Methode auf Schwebstoffproben aus den französischen Bächen wurden Konzentrationen gefunden, die auf Invertebraten toxisch wirken könnten. Zusätzlich wurde in dieser Studie die Geeignetheit von deuterierten Standards der Analyten zur Verwendung als interne Standards während der Extraktion, Aufreinigung und Analytik untersucht. Dabei zeigte sich, daß bei deuterierten Standards mit weniger als 10 Deuteriumatomen Unterschiede im Verhalten zur nicht-deuterierten Verbindung auftreten können. Das folgende Kapitel stellt ein Kalibrationsexperiment zur Ermittlung von Sammelraten für den Chemcatcher® Passivsammler mit polarer Empfängerphase vor. Sammelraten für Passivsammler werden benötigt, um nach der Ausbringung in Gewässern zeitlich-gewichtete Durchschnittskonzentrationen (engl. TWA) berechnen zu können. Für den Chemcatcher® bewegten sich die Sammelraten im Bereich von 0.1 bis 0.5 L pro Tag. Das Kalibrationsexperiment ergab zudem, daß der Chemcatcher® ohne diffusionslimitierende Membran für Felduntersuchungen mit bis zu 14 Tagen Expositionszeit geeignet ist. Die ermittelten Sammelraten werden im 4. Kapitel verwendet, um TWAs für die Freilandexposition des Chemcatchers® in den französischen Bächen zu berechnen. Ferner wird die Leistungsfähigkeit des Chemcatchers® mit zwei weiteren Verfahren zur Erfassung von gewässerbezogener Pestizidbelastung verglichen. Dabei zeigte sich, daß die Probenahme der Wasserphase mit dem Chemcatcher® oder einem ereignisbezogenen Wasserprobenehmer bei polaren und semipolaren Pestiziden ein angemesseneres Bild der Belastung liefert als die Probenahme der Schwebstoffphase. Das 5. Kapitel ist den Auswirkungen von Pestiziden gewidmet und präsentiert eine Risikoabschätzung für die Auswirkungen der Pestizideinträge in die französischen und finnischen Gewässer. Zusätzlich werden potentielle Effekte auf den Blattabbau untersucht und die Anwendbarkeit des „Gefährdete Arten“ (SPEcies At Risk - SPEAR) Index für das länderübergreifende Biomonitoring beurteilt. Das Hauptergebnis der Studie ist, daß Pestizide selbst in Konzentrationen, die bisher als unbedeutend angesehen wurden, sowohl die Struktur der Invertebratengemeinschaften verändern als auch den Blattabbau hemmen können. Des Weiteren war der SPEAR Indikator geeignet, Effekte von Pestiziden über verschiedene Regionen hinweg nachzuweisen. Zusammenfassend weist diese Arbeit nach, daß Pestizide einen wichtigen Störfaktor für Fließgewässerökosysteme darstellen können und liefert Methoden zur Expositions- und Effektabschätzung die in zukünftigen Studien Anwendung finden könnten.
Diese Dissertation verfolgt einerseits das Ziel der umfassenden Sichtung der technischen, psychologischen, philosophischen und neurobiologischen Grundlagen der Künstlichen Intelligenz und damit die Etablierung einer epistemischen und ontologischen Eingrenzung der Technologie und andererseits das Ziel der moralphilosophischen Beurteilung und Risikobewertung. Die zentrale Hypothese unterstellt der Technologie, die überhaupt nur durch die rasanten Fortschritte der Natur- und Ingenieurwissenschaften und damit durch die Aufklärung ermöglicht wurde, eine Unterwanderung der zentralen Prinzipien und Werte der Aufklärung. Zu befürchten ist eine selbstverschuldete Unmündigkeit des Menschen durch die Künstliche Intelligenz. Wesentlich in der Argumentation ist das Aufgeben von menschlicher Autonomie zugunsten einer Technologie, die selbst nicht autonom sein kann, die Verlagerung von Verantwortlichkeiten in einen neu entstandenen rechtsfreien Raum, der Verlust der menschlichen Individualität und letztlich die Preisgabe der Menschenwürde durch den Übergang in ein "Reich ohne Notwendigkeit", aus dem es kein Entkommen gibt. Eine Ethik der Künstlichen Intelligenz muss, so die normative Schlussfolgerung, die Wahrung der menschlichen Autonomie, Verantwortlichkeit, Individualität und Würde in den Vordergrund stellen, sodass ein individueller und kollektiver Rückfall des Menschen in die Unmündigkeit verhindert wird.
Comparable collaborations between farmers and institutions with communal catering have been less in research focus so far. Within the region of Lüneburg, an example for such a regional-organic cooperation is not known yet. Thus,this work represents the starting point to fill the research gap within the field of sustainable food systems in urban living labs as part of the research project GLOCULL (Globally and Locally-sustainable food-water-energy innovation in Urban Living Labs). The work aims at building up such a regional-organic food cooperation between a local farmer and a kindergarten community catering servicebased on scientific insights and practical persons’ knowledge.
Die Agenda 2030 der Vereinten Nationen und diverse daraus abgeleitete Nachhaltigkeitsstrategien setzen einen zeitlich fest definierten Rahmen bis in das Jahr 2030. Für die Umsetzung dieser Strategien sind zwei Aspekte entscheidend - ein fundiertes inhaltliches Verständnis von politischer Strategie und ein darauf aufbauendes praxistaugliches Instrument, das den politischen Strategen bei einer erfolgreichen Umsetzung und Implementierung einer Strategie unterstützt. Diese Arbeit möchte zu beiden Aspekten einen Beitrag leisten. Zum einen wird aus der Zusammenführung von Theorie und Praxis die Natur des inhaltlichen politischen Strategiebegriffs erforscht. Zum anderen wird darauf aufbauend ein praxis- und erfahrungsorientiertes Anwendungsmodell entwickelt, das typische potentielle Herausforderungen und entsprechende potentielle Handlungsoptionen je Strategieabschnitt benennt. Durch die Subsumierung von Erfahrungswissen unterstützt das Modell dabei vor allem das praktische Urteilsvermögen des politischen Strategen bei der Erreichung politikstrategischer Ziele. Um zu dem praxisrelevanten Anwendungsmodell zu gelangen ist es notwendig, sich zuvor Klarheit über die besonderen Anforderungen und Herausforderungen des speziellen politischen Strategiebegriffs zu verschaffen. Die politische Umwelt mit ihren spezifischen Mechanismen unterscheidet sich fundamental von den bisher bekannten Strategiefeldern Militär und Betriebswirtschaft. Da eine Strategie immer die konkrete Umweltsituation und die individuellen Situationsmerkmale berücksichtigen muss, ist - wie diese Arbeit zeigt - eine simple Übertragung strategischer Allgemeinplätze aus Militär und Ökonomie von vornherein zum Scheitern verurteilt.
The world wide population growth and the increasing water scarcity endanger more and more the human society. Water saving measures alone will not be sufficient to solve all associated problems. Therefore, people in arid countries might come back to any kind of water available. In this context the way people regard wastewater must change in terms that it has to be recognized as a water resource. The reuse of wastewater, treated and untreated, for irrigation purposes in agriculture is already established in some semi-arid and arid countries. Countries with absolute water scarcity like Israel might not only be forced to reduce their water consumption, but even to transfer reused water to other sectors. Concerns of authorities and the general public about potential health risks are completely understandable. The health risks of wastewater are mainly originating from pathogens which are negatively correlated with its treatment. Therefore, the quality of a wastewater effluent derived from mechanical-biological treatment can be further improved by additional treatment steps like soil aquifer treatment (SAT). This process is adopted at the Israeli Shafdan facility in the south of Tel Aviv. Conventionally treated wastewater is applied on surface basins from where it percolates into the coastal plain aquifer which supplies approximately one quarter of Israel ́s drinking water. After a certain residence time in the subsurface the water is recovered by wells surrounding the recharge area. Although the pumping regime creates a hydraulic barrier to the pristine groundwater, concerns exist that a contamination of the surrounding drinking water wells could occur. So far, little is known about the removal of organic trace pollutants during the SAT process in general and for the Shafdan site in particular. Consequently, the need arose to study the purification power of the SAT process in terms of the removal of organic trace pollutants. For this purpose reliable wastewater tracers are essential to be able to differentiate between degradation and sorption processes on the one hand and dilution with pristine groundwater on the other hand. Based on their chemical properties, their worldwide usage in a variety of foodstuffs and beverages, and first data about the fate and occurrence of sucralose, artificial sweeteners came into the focus as promising tracer candidates.
Thus, in the present work an analytical method for the simultaneous determination of seven commonly used artificial sweeteners in different water matrices, like surface water and wastewater, was developed (see chapter 2). The method is based on the solid phase extraction (SPE) of the analytes by a styrene-divinylbenzene (SDB) copolymer material, and the analysis by liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization tandem mass-spectrometry (LC-ESI- MS/MS). The sensitivity in negative ionization mode was considerably enhanced by postcolumn addition of the alkaline modifier tris(hydroxymethyl) aminomethane. In potable water, except for aspartame and neohesperidine dihydrochalchone, absolute recoveries >75 % were obtained for all analytes under investigation, but were considerably reduced due to matrix effects in treated wastewater. The widespread distribution of the artificial sweeteners acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate, and sucralose in the aquatic environment was proven. Concentrations in two German wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) influents ranged up to 190 μg/L for cyclamate, several tens of μg/L for acesulfame and saccharin, and about 1 μg/L for sucralose. For saccharin and cyclamate removal rates >90 % during wastewater treatment were observed, whereas acesulfame and sucralose turned out to be very persistent. As a result of high influent concentrations and low removal rates in WWTPs, acesulfame was the dominant sweetener in German surface waters with concentrations up to 2.7 μg/L. The detection of acesulfame and sucralose in recovery wells in the Shafdan SAT site in Israel in the μg/L range was a promising sign for their possible use as anthropogenic markers. As acesulfame and sucralose showed a pronounced stability in WWTPs and were detected in recovery wells of the SAT site in Israel it became worthwhile to assess their tracer suitability compared to other organic trace pollutants suggested as anthropogenic markers in the past (see chapter 3). Therefore, the prediction power of the two sweeteners was evaluated in comparison with the antiepileptic drug carbamazepine (CBZ), the X-ray contrast medium diatrizoic acid (DTA) and two benzotriazoles (1H-benzotriazole (BTZ) and its 4-methyl analogue (4TTri)). The concentrations of these compounds and their ratios were tracked from WWTPs with different treatment technologies, to recipient waters and further to river bank filtration (RBF) wells. Additionally, acesulfame and sucralose were compared with CBZ during advanced wastewater treatment by SAT in Israel. Only the persistent compounds acesulfame, sucralose, and CBZ showed stable ratios when comparing influent and effluent
concentrations of four German WWTPs with conventional wastewater treatment. However, by the additional application of powdered activated carbon in a fifth WWTP CBZ, BTZ, and 4-TTri were selectively removed resulting in a pronounced shift of the concentration ratios towards the nearly unaffected sweeteners. Results of a seven months monitoring program along the rivers Rhine and Main showed an excellent correlation between CBZ and acesulfame concentrations (r2 = 0.94), and still good values when correlating the concentrations with both benzotriazoles (r2 = 0.66 - 0.82). In RBF wells acesulfame and CBZ were again the compounds with the best concentration correlation (r2 = 0.85).
Though the loss of biological diversity is an ecological phenomenon, it also has a social dimension. This makes the study of the social landscape, encompassing the multitude of perspectives and aspirations by different stakeholders, highly relevant for better navigating trade-offs between biodiversity conservation and other land use objectives. Engaging with and addressing contextual understandings of biodiversity is vital to develop socially palatable solutions for biodiversity loss. This dissertation, therefore, takes a place-based approach to studying biodiversity conservation trade-offs and seeks to understand how the perspectives and aspirations of different stakeholders shape them. First, it aims to identify shared viewpoints as ensembles of perceptions and meanings about human-nature relations and biodiversity. Second, it aims to understand how biodiversity is valued and constructed in stakeholders’ aspirations towards their landscape. To this end, a convergent mixed methods approach and case study design are used. Two cases were selected that face different underlying drivers of land-use change, resulting in loss of biodiversity. The Muttama Creek Catchment area is a farming landscape in south-eastern Australia where the ongoing intensification of agricultural production threatens native biodiversity. In the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve in north-eastern Germany, land abandonment and the resulting loss of the biodiversity-rich wet meadows presents a key challenge for biodiversity conservation. Narratives and discourses provide conceptual lenses through which the author studies biodiversity conservation trade-offs. Drawing on Q-methodology, this dissertation identifies biodiversity-production discourses for the first case study and cultural landscape narratives for the second case study. Moreover, based on a participatory futures approach, the Three Horizons Framework, it elicits narratives of change that highlight opportunities for biodiversity conservation in farming landscapes. The findings highlight that despite some overlap in how stakeholders perceive biodiversity, contrasting problem framings and different biodiversity priorities present hindrances to concerted action to protect biodiversity and for collaboration. The findings also identify shared values among stakeholders. However, there is polarity and contestation around the role and importance of biodiversity in rural development.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognize the importance of the inextricable link between social and ecological systems and human quality of life (QoL) and biodiversity. Therefore, understanding the feedback and interactions between biodiversity, nature’s contributions to people (NCP), and QoL plays a central role in advancing toward sustainability. In this context, the social-ecological systems (SES) approach has advanced on the subject, particularly in recent decades; however, much remains to be done to comprehensively understand these relationships and interactions, especially at local decision-making scales. In this thesis, through the lenses of the SES approach, the researcher investigates connections between biodiversity, NCP, and QoL in a tropical dry forest (TDF) on the Western coast of Mexico. This place is one of the best-known Neotropical TDF and has been the focus of SES research in the past 20 years, making it an excellent case study for exploring these connections. First, to approach the need for dialogue among different global and local scales and between global and local frameworks, the thesis identifies five key components of the SES dynamics-(1) ecological supply, (2) co-production of NCP, (3) management, (4) demand, and (5) benefits - and three local decision-making scales of analysis: individual plot, smallholder, and land tenure or governance units. A literature review was performed on the social-ecological indicators for the last 11 years in the Chamela-Cuixmala region to operationalize this framework. Second, this thesis uses social-ecological information to identify social-ecological systems units (SESU) spatially explicitly. A methodology was provided to spatially identify the components of social-ecological systems that environmental conditions and management practices have shaped at three previously stated relevant decision-making scales: plots owned by individuals, plot owners, and governance units. To do so, the research group identified and characterized: (1) ecological clusters (EC), (2) social-management clusters (SC), and (3) SESU in a TDF in western Mexico. The findings suggested that decision-makers (ejidatarios, i.e., type of ownership (related to agrarian reform), that in most cases the land allocated is small-smallholders) are bounded by the topographical characteristics and the public policies that determine communal (or private) governance and the number of resources available to them. Finally, the thesis examines the self-perceived QoL across the different SESU, finding 48 QoL items, which were grouped into six categories: 1) social capital, 2) economic capital, 3) agency, 4) nature, 5) peasant non-work activities, and 6) government and services; and two additional dimensions referred to obstacles and enablers of QoL. The researchers found that the more land cover transformation, the more enablers, and obstacles of QoL are identified; emphasis was put on economic capital to achieve QoL. As management is intensified and governance fosters individualism across SES, the higher the Current Welfare Index, and the lower the self-perceived material and non-material satisfaction.
This dissertation contributes to research on generating actionable knowledge for coastal governance to enhance the resilience of coastal social-ecological systems (SES) to climate change. It does this by providing theoretical, methodological and empirical insights on three research questions (RQs). These are: (1) what is a more actionable concept for applying the concept of resilience in coastal governance?; (2) what methods and approaches are suitable to generate actionable knowledge for coastal governance?; (3) what obstacles to knowledge co-production exist for early-career researchers (ECRs) and how can they be overcome? The RQs are addressed in five publications. For answering RQ1, the dissertation applies a research synthesis to bring together common themes and challenges documented in resilience, climate change and environmental governance literature. For answering RQ2, different methods and approaches for generating actionable knowledge are proposed and tested using a case-study in the SES of Algoa Bay, South Africa. These include (i) the analysis of stakeholder agency; (ii) the application of a stakeholder analysis; and (iii) the combination of a capital approach framework, and fuzzy cognitive mapping. Finally, for answering RQ3, the thesis provides a perspective on the obstacles that especially ECRs face, and actions that are needed to create the conditions under which knowledge co-production processes can be successful. This is done by applying a multi-method approach combining an online survey and workshop targeted at ECRs in the marine sciences. Key findings suggest that system and transformative knowledge are particularly important when applying the concept of resilience in coastal governance to generate actionable knowledge. The different methods and approaches that are proposed and tested contribute to generating both system and transformative knowledge. Firstly, they provide an overview of the capacities of different stakeholders to act, shed light on current collaboration and knowledge exchange, and enable the identification of different governance processes for coastal governance and climate change adaptation (system knowledge). Secondly, results have implications for how to improve knowledge exchange and identify leverage points that can enhance overall governance performance, thus providing recommendations on actions and processes that can enhance climate resilience in the case-study area (transformative knowledge). It is also highlighted how knowledge co-production can contribute to generating system and transformative knowledge together with stakeholders, and what actions are needed to build the capacities to translate knowledge into action. Additionally, the findings of this dissertation put forward actions that are needed at different organisational levels of the academic system to facilitate knowledge co-production processes with stakeholders involved in coastal governance. The results of this dissertation have implications for stakeholders and decision-making in the case-study area, as well as for environmental governance, climate change adaptation and broader sustainability research. Implications for stakeholders include recommendations for implementing formal commitments to share climate information across levels and sectors, establishing the role of information providers in the municipality, and reinforcing human capital within the local municipality in Algoa Bay. Findings also suggest the need for a more integrated approach to climate change adaptation in coastal planning and management frameworks. It also suggests that the conservation of environmental assets presents an important bottleneck for resilience management and needs to be further prioritised within decision-making. Implications for research include the applicability of methods beyond the context of this dissertation; a more actionable concept for approaching resilience in (coastal) governance systems; and a more critical reflection on how transformative research is conducted, and what academic foundation is needed so that it can fulfil its societal goal.
Neben den Folgen der industriellen Landwirtschaft lassen sich weltweit degradierte Böden, massives Artensterben und ein zunehmender anthropogener Klimawandel verzeichnen. Um diesen Trend zu brechen, muss Landwirtschaft neu gedacht und transformiert werden. Dafür bedarf es innovativer und vor allem nachhaltiger Landnutzungskonzepte. Einen Beitrag zu einem solchen zukunftsfähigen Landnutzungskonzept können Waldgärten leisten. Dabei handelt es sich um mehrschichtige Systeme, welche multifunktional die natürliche Struktur von Wäldern und Waldrändern imitieren. Auf diese Weise können verschiedene Funktionen erfüllt werden, wie beispielsweise die Produktion von vielfältigen Lebensmitteln. Bisher ist das Konzept des Waldgartens in Deutschland noch nicht weit verbreitet. Es wurde bisher wenig wissenschaftliche Forschung auf dem Gebiet betrieben, und in Deutschland existieren bisher nur wenige Waldgärten. In anderen Ländern bestehen hingegen schon länger erste Erfahrungen oder auch schon lange Traditionen mit Waldgärten. Im Folgenden wird die Fallstudie Hof an den Teichen vorgestellt, zusammengefasst, welche Vorarbeiten bereits stattgefunden haben, und das Forschungsziel und die Forschungsfragen hergeleitet.
Human activities have become a major driver of global change, so that global society and economy are facing consequences such as climate change, increasing scarcity of resources, environmental pollution and degradation as well as disturbances of ecosystem functioning and services.In order to meet these main challenges in an appropriate way, adequate starting points and solutions must be pursued at all levels to shift the current socio-economic pathway from an unsustainable to a safe operating and thus sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. One of the application concepts in industrial contexts is Industrial Symbiosis (IS), which deals with the set-up of advanced circular/cascading systems, in which the energy and material flows are prolonged for multiple material and energetic (re-)utilization within industrial systems in order to increase resource productivity and efficiency, while reducing environmental impacts. The overarching goal of the research project was to identify and develop approaches to enable the evolution of Industrial Symbiosis (IS) in Industrial Parks (IPs). IS is a collaborative cross-sectoral approach to connect the resource supply and demand of various industries in order to optimize the resource use through exchange of materials, energy, water and human resources across different companies, while generating ecological, technical, social and economic benefits. Many Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools have been developed to facilitate IS, but they predominantly focus on the as-is analysis of the IS system, and do not consider the development of a common desired target vision or corresponding possible future scenarios as well as conceivable transformation paths from the actual to the defined (sustainability) target state. This gap shall be addressed in this work, presenting the software requirements engineering results for a holistic IT-supported IS tool covering system analysis, transformation simulation and goal-setting. This study also aims to present the conceptual IT-supported IS tool and its corresponding prototype, developed for the identification of IS opportunities in IPs. This IS tool serves as an IS facilitating platform, providing transparency among market players and proposing potential cooperation partners according to selectable criteria (e.g. geographical radius, material properties, material quality, purchase quantity, delivery period). Therefore a quantitative indicator system was compiled and recurring patterns were identified to utilize this knowledge in the comprehensive IT-supported IS tool. So this IS tool builds the technology-enabled environment for the processes of first screening of IS possibilities and initiation for further complex business-driven negotiations and agreements for long-term IS business relationships.
Wood-pastures have been present in Europe for thousands of years. This form of grazed landscape, combining herbaceous vegetation with trees and shrubs, has often co-evolved with its human users into complex social-ecological systems (SES). Wood-pastures are associated with high cultural and biodiversity values and are an example of the sustainable use of resources. However, due to their often relatively labour-intensive management and low productivity, large areas of wood-pastures have been lost over the last century. The loss of these areas means not only the loss of biodiversity on both local and landscape scales, but also the loss of traditional farming and cultural heritage in some regions. Across the European Union, wood-pastures are facing different problems and are embedded in different social systems and ecological environments. Yet they are all affected by global change and common European policies. To understand the challenges for wood-pastures in a changing world, a holistic approach combining different disciplines is needed. This dissertation therefore is analyzing wood-pastures across Europe as a Social-ecological System, combining ecology and social science with the aim to identify the barriers and drivers for wood-pastures persistence into the future.
Transformative learning is increasingly set to become an essential component in sustainability transformation. Despite, little has been done to systematically explore the contribution to sustainability transformation. This learning theory developed decades ago independently of sustainability discourses; however, it provides an analytical framework for understanding the learning processes, outcomes and conditions in individual and social learning towards sustainability transformation. Against this background, the following research question arises: To which extent can transformative learning lead to sustainability transformation? This doctoral work aims to explore transformative learning processes, outcomes, and conditions occurring and advancing towards sustainability transformation of the textile-fashion industry in Mexico. Taking an exploratory approach, the methods employed were literature reviews to untangle concepts and to construct theoretical pillars to support the empirical research design and data analysis. For data collection, snowball-sampling techniques were used to explore the practice field of the textile-fashion industry in Mexico. Qualitative interviews were employed to gather data about the learning experiences of actors. Qualitative and quantitative methods were required to perform the respective data analysis, the qualitative codification of interviewees' responses. Analysis of social media content was also utilised to understand the communication and business practices of projects involved in the transformation of the textile-fashion sector. As a result, this work comprises three articles, one a systematic literature review and two empirical research articles, investigating the transformative learning processes of entrepreneurs in the development of sustainability niches. As for the findings of this doctoral work, the use of transformative learning in sustainability transformation requires a careful study of the theory and its conceptual elements. Regarding the case study, transformative learning is inherent in forming and developing sustainability niches as entrepreneurs venture into them: It is individual prior learning, expectations and actions that initiate the path of sustainability transformation while disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, and discourse accelerate them. Through these stages, it is when individual learning turns into social learning. On the other hand, based on the multi-level perspective, the interplay between the niche, regime and landscape levels generates a space for sustainability transformation and transformative learning.
Tropical forests worldwide support high biodiversity and contribute to the sustenance of local people’s livelihoods. However, the conservation and sustainability of these forests are threatened by land-use changes and a rapidly increasing human population. This dissertation, therefore, aimed to characterize biodiversity patterns in the moist Afromontane forests of southwestern Ethiopia and to examine how biodiversity patterns are affected by land-use and land-use changes (mediated by coffee management intensity, landscape attributes and housing development) in a context of a rapidly growing rural population. To achieve this goal, the author takes an interdisciplinary approach where, first, she examined the effects of coffee management intensity on diversity patterns of woody plants and birds, spanning a gradient of site-level disturbance from nearly undisturbed forest interior to highly managed shade coffee forests. Results showed that specialized species of woody plants (forest specialists) and birds (forest specialists, insectivores and frugivores) were affected by coffee management intensity. The richness of forest specialist trees and the richness and/or abundance of insectivores, frugivores and forest specialist birds decrease with increasing levels of disturbance. Second, the author investigated the effects of landscape context on woody plants, birds and mammals. Community composition and specialist species of woody plants and birds were sensitive to landscape context, where woody plants responded positively to gradients of edge-interior and birds to gradients of edge-interior and forest cover. Further results showed that a diverse mammal community, with 26 species, occurs at the forest edge of shade coffee forests and that the leopard, an apex predator in the region depended on large areas of natural forest. A closer examination of leopard activity patterns revealed a shift in the diel activity as a response to human disturbance inside the forest, further highlighting the importance of natural undisturbed forests for leopards in the region. Together, these findings demonstrate the value of low managed shade coffee forests for biodiversity, and importantly, emphasize the irreplaceable value of undisturbed natural forests for biodiversity. Third, the researcher investigated the effects of prospective rural population growth (mediated by housing development) on the forest mammal community. Here, population growth was projected to negatively influence several mammal species, including the leopard. Housing development that encroached the forest entailed worse outcomes for biodiversity than a combination of prioritized development in already developed areas and coffee forest protection. Fourth, to understand the motivations behind high human fertility rates in the region, she examined the determinants of women fertility preferences, including their perceptions on social and biophysical stressors affecting local livelihoods such as food insecurity and environmental degradation. Fertility preferences were influenced by underlying social norms and mindsets, a perceived utilitarian value of children and male dominance within the household, and were only marginally affected by perceptions of social and biophysical stressors. The findings suggest the need for new deliberative and culturally sensitive approaches that engage with pervasive social norms to slow down population growth. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates the key value of moist Afromontane forests in southwestern Ethiopia for biodiversity conservation. It indicates the need to promote coffee management practices that reduce forest degradation and highlights that high priority should be given to the conservation of undisturbed natural forests. It also suggests the need to integrate conservation goals with housing development in landscape planning. A promising approach to achieve the above conservation priorities would be the creation of a Biosphere Reserve and to promote the ecological connectivity between the larger forest remnants in the region. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of placed-based holistic approaches in conservation that consider both proximate and distal drivers of forest biodiversity decline.
Smartphones make intensive use of precious metals and so called conflict minerals in order to reach their high performance in a compact size. In recent times, sustainability challenges related to production, use and disposal of smartphones are increasingly a topic of public debate. Thus, established industry actors and newly emerging firms are driven to engage in more sustainable practices, such as sustainable sourcing of materials, maintenance services or take-back schemes for discarded mobile phones. Many of these latter efforts can be related to the concept of a circular economy (CE). This thesis explores how CE-related value creation architectures (VCAs) in the smartphone industry contribute to slowing and closing resource loops in a CE. In order to analyze these new industry arrangements, transaction cost theory (TCT) is used as a guiding theory for a make-or-buy analysis. Combining TCT with the concept of a CE is a novel research approach that enables the empirical analysis of relationships between focal actors (e.g. manufacturers) and newly emerging loop operators (e.g. recycling firms) in the smartphone industry. Case studies of such VCAs are conducted with case companies drawn from the Innovation Network on Sustainable Smartphones (INaS) at Leuphana Universtity of Lüneburg and analyzed regarding their involved actors, partnerships, circular activities, motivation and perceived barriers. Evidence from the conducted case studies suggests that asset specificity for circular practices increases for higher order CE-loops such as maintenance or reuse, therefore long-term partnerships between focal actors and loop operators or vertical integration of CE practices are beneficial strategies to reach a sophisticated CE. Similarly, circular practices that go beyond recycling require a strong motivation, either through integration in the focal firm´s quality commitment or through business model recognition. It is further suggested that the circular design of products and services could reduce necessary transaction costs and thus overall costs of a circular economy. Four different integration strategies for circular economy practices have been derived from the conducted case studies. These are: 1) vertically integrated loops, 2) cooperative loop-networks, 3) outsourcing to loop operators and 4) independent loop operators. This work thus provides evidence that circular economy activities do not necessarily have to be managed by focal actors in the value chain. Rather, circular practices can also be put forward by specialized loop operators or even independent actors such as repair shops.