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Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift analysiert die Konstruktion schützenswerter "Natur/en" in Gebieten "neuer Wildnis" aus Perspektiven der Sozialen Ökologie sowie der Geschlechterforschung. Das zentrale Erkenntnisinteresse zielt auf den Umgang mit und die Zuschreibungen auf Neobiota in Gebieten "neuer Wildnis". Ziel ist es, herauszuarbeiten, wie in der Konstruktion "fremder Natur/en" in "neuer Wildnis" gesellschaftliche Naturverhältnisse und Geschlechterverhältnisse wechselseitig miteinander verwoben sind und inwiefern in dieser Vermittlung dichotome und hierarchisierende Trennungen wirksam werden. Die empirische Basis der Untersuchung bilden zwei Literaturreviews sowie eine qualitative Interviewstudie zu Naturverständnissen in zwei Untersuchungsgebieten "neuer Wildnis". Dabei werden Neobiota als Ausdruck gesellschaftlicher Naturverhältnisse analysiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Neobiota in "neuer Wildnis" einerseits als Bestandteil dynamischer Naturentwicklung und schützenswerter Prozesse akzeptiert und nicht (mehr) aufgrund ihrer "Fremdheit" abgewertet werden. "Neue Wildnisse" können mithin als sozial-ökologische Vermittlungsräume gelesen werden, in denen sich die Konstruktion des Schützenswerten verschiebt und hierarchisierende Trennungen abgebaut werden. Andererseits werden Neobiota in Gebieten "neuer Wildnis" oftmals aufgrund ihrer "Ungezähmtheit" und Unkontrollierbarkeit von Eingriffen und Pflegemaßnahmen zur (Wieder-)Aneignung von Kontrolle über "fremde Natur/en". Die potentielle Beherrschbarkeit von Natur bleibt mithin auch in Gebieten "neuer Wildnis" grundlegende Voraussetzung für ihre Schutzwürdigkeit. Damit festigen sich in den Zuschreibungen auf Neobiota hierarchisierende Trennungen und reproduzieren die Konstruktion von "Natur" und "Weiblichkeit" als sich gegenseitig stabilisierendes Unterordnungsverhältnis.
Siliziumorganische Substanzen sind aus dem Alltag kaum wegzudenken. Sie kommen in vielfältiger Form vor und finden durch ihre Stabilität in vielen Produkten des Haushalts und der Industrie Anwendung. Eine Freisetzung in die Umwelt ist unvermeidbar. Siliziumorganische Substanzen konnten bereits in allen Umweltkompartimenten (Luft, Wasser, Boden) analytisch nachgewiesen werden. Welche Risiken von dieser Stoffgruppe ausgehen, ist noch nicht abschließend geklärt. Dennoch gibt es Hinweise auf negative Auswirkungen auf Mensch und Umwelt. Deshalb sollten Strukturen in siliziumorganischen Substanzen untersucht werden, die einen Abbau in der Umwelt begünstigen, um die Akkumulation dieser Stoffe in der Umwelt zu verringern. Dafür wurden diverse biotische und abiotische Abbautests mit unterschiedlichen siliziumorganischen Substanzen durchgeführt. Der Fokus der vorliegenden Arbeit lag vor allem in der biologischen Abbaubarkeit der Substanzen. Es wurden die Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)-konformen Tests Closed-Bottle-Test (CBT, OECD 301D) und Manometrischer Respirationstest (MRT, OECD 301F) durchgeführt. Die Hydrolysierbarkeit wurde mithilfe des Hydrolysetests OECD 111 bei unterschiedlichen pH-Werten untersucht. Bei bestimmten Substanzgruppen ohne biologischen Abbau wurde das Verhalten der Substanzen bei Bestrahlung mit verschiedenen Bestrahlungsquellen untersucht. Die Analyse der Primärelimination der siliziumorganischen Substanzen erfolgte je nach Substanzeigenschaften mithilfe der Hochleistungsflüssigkeitschromatografie gekoppelt mit einem Spektrometer mit ultraviolettem und sichtbarem Licht (HPLC-UV/Vis) oder der Gaschromatografie gekoppelt mit einem Massenspektrometer (GC-MS). Die Transformationsprodukte wurden hingegen mithilfe der Flüssigkeitschromatografie gekoppelt mit einem Mehrfach-Massenspektrometer (LC-MSn) analysiert. Für eine umfassende Bewertung des biologischen Abbaus von siliziumorganischen Substanzen wurden ein Vergleich mit analogen Kohlenstoffverbindungen und eine Aufstockung mit Daten aus der Datenbank der Europäischen Chemikalien Agentur (ECHA) durchgeführt. Die Gruppierung der Substanzen nach ihren Strukturmerkmalen wurde hinzugezogen, um Rückschlüsse auf die Abbaubarkeit zu ziehen. Eine besser biologisch abbaubare Grundstruktur brachte für die Benzenderivate keine Verbesserung der biologischen Abbaubarkeit. Dennoch hatte die Einführung von +M-Gruppen am Aromaten einen positiven Einfluss auf die Geschwindigkeit und den Grad des photolytischen Abbaus. Die Bestrahlungsquelle hatte ebenfalls einen deutlichen Einfluss auf die Eliminierungsrate während des Photolyseexperiments. Mit einer Veränderung der Wellenlängen in den kurzwelligen Bereich und der daraus resultierenden energiereicheren Strahlung konnten die Substanzen schneller und teilweise vollständig primär eliminiert werden. Bei allen Abbaupfaden hatte die Hydrolyse eine entscheidende Rolle und wurde als einer der Hauptabbauprozesse charakterisiert. Bei einer Verbindung wurde im Nachgang an die biotischen und abiotischen Abbautests eine ausführliche Aufklärung der elf gebildeten Transformationsprodukte vorgenommen. Um den Einfluss von Silizium in organischen Substanzen auf die biologische Abbaubarkeit zu untersuchen, wurde der direkte Vergleich von siliziumorganischen Substanzen und deren Kohlenstoffanaloga im CBT durchgeführt. Dabei hat sich gezeigt, dass drei von fünf Kohlenstoffverbindungen und keine siliziumorganische Verbindung als leicht biologisch abbaubar eingestuft werden konnten. In allen bis auf einen Fall konnten für die Kohlenstoffverbindungen höhere Abbauraten im CBT beobachtet werden. Die Hydrolyse wurde als erforderlicher Schritt vor dem biologischen Abbau von siliziumorganischen Substanzen identifiziert. Das siliziumfreie Produkt der Hydrolyse bestimmte den Grad des biologischen Abbaus. Die gute biologische Abbaubarkeit der einen siliziumorganischen Verbindung resultierte aus der leicht hydrolysierbaren Silizium-Stickstoff-Bindung und der leichten biologischen Abbaubarkeit des siliziumfreien Hydrolyseproduktes. Die siliziumhaltigen Reaktionsprodukte der Hydrolyse waren nicht biologisch abbaubar. Bioabbaudaten aus eigenen Experimenten, aus vorhergehenden in der Arbeitsgruppe durchgeführten analogen Arbeiten und aus der ECHA-Datenbank wurden zusammengetragen, um einen Datensatz zu generieren. Die 182 Substanzen des Datensatzes wurden hinsichtlich ihrer Struktur gruppiert, um allgemeine Erkenntnisse für die biologische Abbaubarkeit von siliziumorganischen Verbindungen abzuleiten. Es gab Gruppen mit Substanzen, die überhaupt nicht biologisch abbaubar waren (z. B. zyklische, lineare und verzweigte Siloxane). Gruppen, die Substanzen mit Ethern, Estern, Oximen, Aminen und Amiden enthielten, waren hydrolyseanfällig, sodass auch leicht biologisch abbaubare Zwischenprodukte gebildet werden konnten. Die siliziumfreien Hydrolyseprodukte waren meist biologisch abbaubar, während die siliziumhaltigen Hydrolyseprodukte persistent waren. Allgemein hat sich gezeigt, dass Modifikationen am Molekül einen positiven Einfluss auf die Abbaubarkeit haben können. Beispielsweise können Heteroatome eine Veränderung der Polarität bzw. der Elektronendichte hervorrufen, was die Photolyse- und Hydrolysefähigkeit und folglich auch den Bioabbau zum Positiven verändern kann. Das Einführen solcher Heteroatome oder funktioneller Gruppen in Polysiloxanketten kann demnach ein vielversprechender Ansatz für leichter abbaubare siliziumorganische Verbindungen sein. Nicht abbaubare Stoffe sollten vermieden werden, wenn sie nach ihrer Verwendung in die Umwelt gelangen.
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.
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.
TIME for REFL-ACTION: Interpersonal Competence Development in Project-based Sustainability Courses
(2021)
This dissertation investigates interpersonal competence development in project-based sustainability courses. Visions of a sustainable, safe, and just future cannot be reached by one individual alone. Thus, future change agents need to be able to collaborate and engage with stakeholders, to approach the manifold crises, challenges, problems, and conflicts we are facing together, and to promote and push forward sustainability transitions and transformations. Therefore, this research investigates three project-based sustainability graduate courses by comparing and contrasting teaching and learning outcomes, processes, and environments. A comparative case study approach using a Grounded Theory-inspired research design which triangulates several qualitative methods and perspectives is applied to allow for generalizable insights. Thereby, this dissertation provides empirically-informed insights which are further discussed in relation to selected teaching and learning theories. This leads, first, to a discussion of practical implications within (and beyond) sustainability higher education; and second, provides a theoretical foundation for interpersonal competence development in project-based learning settings – so that educating future change agents can gain momentum. Findings of this research show that embracing conflicts when they occur (i.e. before they provoke cascading effects in the form of further conflicts down-the-road) is an effective strategy to help further develop interpersonal competence. This requires a conflict-embracing attitude. Attitude, in general, seems to be key in interpersonal competence and competence development overall. Self-reflection, if not explicitly required by outside influences (such as instructors), arises naturally from a self-reflective attitude, and is shown to provide the basis for developing interpersonal competence. This research introduces the term "Refl-Action" which stresses the importance of pairing "learning by doing" (as is often the focus in project-based learning settings) with conscious moments of "reflecting about the doing". More specifically, the research presented here identified four learning processes for interpersonal competence development: receiving input, experiencing, reflecting, and experimenting. Based on the empirical data, when the four processes are purposefully combined, following a meaningful sequence attitudes, knowledge, and skills in collaborative teamwork and impactful stakeholder engagement, are fostered (two facets of interpersonal competence). Each of the four learning processes is set in motion through various interactions students engage in during project-based sustainability courses: student-student (labeled "peer"), student-instructor (labeled "deliberate"), student-stakeholder (labeled "professional"), and student-mentor (labeled "supportive") interactions. When these interactions are made explicit subjects of inquiry - i.e. the (inter-)action is linked with (self-)reflection – different learning processes complement one another: Interpersonal competence facets (collaborative teamwork and impactful stakeholder engagement) and domains (attitudes, knowledge, skills) are fostered. While, overall, interactions, processes, and conflicts have been identified as supportive for interpersonal competence development, trust has emerged as another variable inviting further investigation.
Since the early 2000s, ecosystem services strongly gained significance as a research topic. However, the temporal dimension of ecosystem services has not been taken into consideration, although this should be the basis for a sustainable long-term management of ecosystems and their services. Therefore, the author presents three articles in this thesis that deal with temporal aspects of ecosystem services. In two of them she also present a proposal for a framework for the classification of ecosystem services based on their temporal dynamics. In this dissertation she differentiates between two types of temporal aspects, both of which have in common that change takes place over a certain period of time. The concepts of transformation, transition and regime shift are used to describe changes in social or ecological systems as a whole, for example the transformation towards a more sustainable society. The temporal dynamics, on the other hand, relate to the temporal changes in ecosystem services themselves. The first article focuses on how the literature on ecosystem services incorporates social and ecological change. The second and third articles deal with the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services. While the second article presents a preliminary framework for categorizing the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services, the third article uses this framework to test how the temporal dynamics of ecosystem services are represented in the literature. Based on the insights from the three articles, the author concludes that most of the studies on ecosystem services only focus on one point in time. One reason for this is that most studies are conducted over a maximum of a four-year time span which does not allow to monitor dynamics over longer time spans.
Misophonia in the workplace
(2021)
This paper uses the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals’ inclusion of human well-being and disability rights as a base to examine the work experiences of individuals with the syndrome misophonia who have been employed in white-collar office jobs in the Global North, and how these experiences fit into the current discourse on making offices more inclusive and sustainable. It reports on common workplace triggers, coping mechanisms, and the condition’s perceived effects on misophonics, as well as the perceived barriers and carriers to making workplaces more accommodating to those with the condition. A mixed-methods approach was used to address these points. First, a survey was distributed virtually and 203 responses from misophonics who work(ed) in white-collar office jobs in the study region were collected. Next, ten of these survey takers participated in semi-structured, one-on-one interviews, which were then analyzed using qualitative text analysis. The results showed that many misophonics frequently encounter intense triggers (such as mouth sounds) at the office and that self-perceived levels of productivity, well-being, and workplace sociability can be adversely affected. Though opinions on bans of certain behaviors and items and on certain terminology were diverse, there was consensus on desiring more flexible policies, understanding from others, and quiet or private working spaces, including working from home. Lack of misophonia awareness within the general populace, human resources (HR), upper management, and to some degree, the medical community was identified as a persistent barrier to misophonic employees disclosing or asking for reasonable accommodations even when they felt their misophonia was severe, negatively affected them, and there were provisions that could support them. These experiences were similar to those of other invisible conditions and pointed to the need for workplaces striving to be more sustainable and inclusive to adapt their policies and office design decisions.
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.
Pestizide werden als Pflanzenschutzmittel im landwirtschaftlichen Bereich und als Biozide z. B. in der Industrie, in Haushalten und Kommunen eingesetzt. Bereits auf den behandelten Flächen und in den angrenzenden Gewässern können Pestizide Abbauprozessen durch u. a. Photolyse unterliegen. Diese Prozesse führen zur Entstehung von Transformationsprodukten (TP), deren Berücksichtigung bei der Umweltrisikobewertung für ein umfassendes Risikomanagement von großer Bedeutung ist. Doch gibt es über die in der Umwelt vorkommenden Transformationsprozesse und die dabei entstehenden TP immer noch Wissenslücken. Darüber hinaus sind die Eintragswege von TP, vor allem von Biozid-TP, in die angrenzenden Gewässer zum Teil unbekannt. Da eine Vielzahl von TP mit unterschiedlich starken ökotoxikologischen Effekten bewertet werden muss, besteht ein großer Bedarf an schnellen und umfassenden Methoden, um die stetig wachsende Anzahl an Chemikalien auf dem Markt erfassen zu können. Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist daher, das Verhalten und den Verbleib ausgewählter Pestizid-TP in der aquatischen Umwelt zu analysieren. Zu diesem Zweck wurden unterschiedliche Phototransformationsprozesse von Pestiziden sowie der Eintrag aus Fassaden über Regenwasserversickerungsanlagen (RVA) in angrenzenden Gewässern der Stadt Freiburg untersucht. Schlussendlich erfolgte die Identifizierung der ökotoxikologischen Eigenschaften von 45 Pestizid-TP in einem mehrstufigen Ansatz durch die Kombination experimenteller und computerbasierter Methoden. Inwiefern unterschiedliche Phototransformationsprozesse zu unterschiedlichen TP führen, wurde im ersten Teil der Arbeit durch einen Vergleich der Entstehung von TP durch direkte und indirekte Photolyse der Substanzen Penconazol, Terbutryn und Mecoprop untersucht. Weiterhin wurde der Abbau durch die Bestrahlung mit unterschiedlichen Xenonlampen untersucht. Im zweiten Teil der Arbeit wurde der Eintrag von Bioziden, die in Fassadenanstrichen Anwendung finden, und deren TP über Regenwasserversickerungsanlagen in das Grundwasser untersucht. Dabei wurden qualitative und quantitative Target-Screening-Methoden zum Nachweis und zur Quantifizierung bekannter und unbekannter TP der Biozide Diuron, Terbutryn und Octhilinon (OIT) in der aquatischen Umwelt mittels Flüssigkeitschromatographie mit gekoppeltem Massenspektrometer (LC-MS) kombiniert. Die ökotoxikologischen Eigenschaften von 45 Pestizid-TP wurden im dritten Teil dieser Arbeit in einem mehrstufigen Ansatz untersucht. Insgesamt zeigte sich, dass die Berücksichtigung von TP im Rahmen von Gewässerüberwachung und Risikobewertung eine genauere Abschätzung der Risiken durch Schadstoffe ermöglicht. Die in dieser Dissertation entwickelte Vorgehensweise, bei der TP zunächst im Labor erzeugt und bewertet und anschließend in aquatischen Systemen gezielt analysiert werden, kann einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Regulatorik des Einsatzes und der Zulassung von Pestiziden leisten.
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.
This doctoral dissertation aims to contribute to clarification of the potential of learning for water governance. The goal is to trace and understand the environmental impacts of learning through participation (research aim 1) and adaptive management (research aim 2), and the effect of learning on participation as a governance mode (research aim 3). For this goal, the researcher engages in a predominantly qualitative research design following the case study method. For every specific research aim cases are selected and analysed qualitatively according to conceptual categories and mechanisms which are defined beforehand. Quantitative studies are used to corroborate the results for research aim 1 and 2 in a mixed-method approach to enhance the validity of results. The empirical research context is European water governance, the implementation of the EU Water Framework and EU Floods Directive (WFD, FD) specifically. Eight cases of participatory decision-making across three European countries and five cases of adaptive management in Northern Germany for WFD implementation are examined to identify whether learning in these processes enhanced environmental outcomes. To detect whether governance learning by public officials occurred, the design of participatory processes for FD implementation in ten German federal states is assessed. The findings of research aim 1, understanding learning through participation and its effects on water governance, reveal that participatory planning led to learning through improved understandings at an individual and group level. Learning did, however, hardly shape effective outcomes. In the AM cases (research aim 2) managers and participants of implementing networks improved their knowledge as well as capacities, and spread the results. Nonetheless, environmental improvement was not necessarily linked to ecological learning. Regarding learning about participation as a governance mode (research aim 3) all interviewed public officials in German federal states reported some degree of governance learning, which emerged not systematically but primarily drawing on own experiences and intuition. These findings are condensed into three overarching lessons for learning in water governance: (1) Interactive communication seems to form the overall frame for participant and group learning. Framing of learning experiences turned out to play an important and potentially distorting role, for which professional facilitation and structured knowledge aggregation methods might be an im-portant counterbalance. (2) Learning did not automatically enhance environmental outcomes. It may thus not be an explanatory variable for policy outcomes, but a conditioning or intervening variable related to collective action, motivation for participation, and situating the issue at hand at wider societal levels. (3) The concepts of puzzling and powering might help understand learning as a source for effectiveness in the long-term when complemented with interest-based debates for creat-ing sufficient political agency of policy issues. Learning seen as puzzling processes might instruct acceptance and legitimization for new powering efforts. The perpetuation of learning in systematic ways and structures appears to characterize an alternative to this reflexive and strategic interplay, for which the water-related EU directives provide the basis.
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.
Das Bildungskonzept Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE) gilt als Schlüsselfaktor für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung. Die Stärkung der Kompetenzen von Multiplikatoren und somit Lehrkräften als Gestalter formaler Bildung ist ein Ziel auf dem Weg zu einer qualitativ hochwertigen Bildung. Es gilt, im Verlauf der Lehrkräftebildung Möglichkeiten zu schaffen, die Entwicklung relevanter Kompetenzen gezielt zu unterstützen, um effektivere Ergebnisse im Bereich BNE zu erreichen. Für den universitären Teil der Lehrkräftebildung geht dies einher mit einer entsprechenden Gestaltung von Lernumgebungen, durch die angehende Lehrkräfte relevante Kompetenzen zu Beginn ihres individuellen Bildungsweges entwickeln können. Darüber hinaus sollen durch entsprechende Fort- und Weiterbildungsformate auch bereits im Schuldienst tätige Lehrkräfte erreicht werden. Das als transdisziplinäres Format angelegte Entwicklungsteam Sachunterricht, bestehend aus Sachunterrichtslehrkräften, Vertretern außerschulischer Bildungsorte und Forschenden der Universität, bildet den Ausgangspunkt dieser Arbeit. Die vorliegende Arbeit fokussiert die Untersuchung von Möglichkeiten der Professionalisierung von (angehenden) Lehrkräften zu BNE im Kontext des Entwicklungsteams. Dazu wurde zunächst theoretisch-konzeptionell der Frage nachgegangen, welche Kompetenzen relevant für die Integration von BNE in Schule und Unterricht sind und wie Lehr-Lernsettings gestaltet werden sollten, um die Entwicklung entsprechender Kompetenzen zu unterstützen. Im Rahmen zweier empirischer Studien wurde anschließend einerseits die Kompetenzentwicklung seitens der Studierenden analysiert, die an einem durch das Entwicklungsteam begleiteten Seminar teilnahmen. Andererseits liegt der Fokus auf dem spezifischen Format des transdisziplinären Entwicklungsteams und es wurde untersucht, inwiefern wechselseitiges Lernen zwischen den Entwicklungsteammitgliedern initiiert werden und dies in einer Veränderung der pädagogischen Praxis resultieren kann. Aufgrund seiner hohen Anschlussfähigkeit an den bildungswissenschaftlichen Diskurs wurde das Modell der BNE-spezifischen professionellen Handlungskompetenz den konzeptionellen Überlegungen und den darauf aufbauenden empirischen Untersuchungen zugrunde gelegt. Die Gestaltung eines Lehr-Lern-Settings für angehende Lehrkräfte mit dem Ziel der Förderung entsprechender Kompetenzen wurde anhand des Konzepts der offenen Lernumgebung vorgenommen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zum einen, dass das in enger Zusammenarbeit mit dem Entwicklungsteam als offene Lernumgebung durchgeführte Seminar die Professionalisierung der Studierenden unterstützt und der Aufbau von (BNE-spezifischer) professioneller Handlungskompetenz durch kollaboratives Gestalten in Kooperation mit der Praxis ermöglicht wird. Zum anderen zeigt sich, dass die transdisziplinäre Zusammenarbeit ein wechselseitiges von- und miteinander Lernen zu BNE im Entwicklungsteam Sachunterricht fördert und Professionalisierungsprozesse sowohl seitens der Lehrkräfte als auch des außerschulischen Akteurs zumindest in einigen Bereichen angestoßen wurden.
A Matter of Connection: Competence Development in Teacher Education for Sustainable Development
(2021)
Based on a dual case study, this cumulative dissertation investigates how individual "education for sustainable development" (ESD) courses, as part of the teacher education programs at Leuphana University in Lüneburg/Germany and Arizona State University (ASU)/USA, actually foster students' ESD-specific professional action competence. Furthermore, this work sheds light on the link between learning processes and outcomes, to reveal which factors actually affect the achievement of ILOs and competence development. The findings of this study indicate that both courses under investigation eventually live up to their role and increased student teachers' competence and commitment to implement ESD in their future careers; yet, mainly due to their different thematic foci, to varying degrees. Additionally, the four Cs (personal, professional, social, and structural connections) were revealed as significant factors that support students' learning and should be considered when planning and designing course offerings in TESD, with the goal of developing students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
The principle of this thesis was to study the environmental fate of three highly used psychotropic drugs and this achieved through: 1) examining the biodegradability of TMI, DMI and CPTX, 2) studying the behaviour of TMP, DMI and CPTX in photodegradation tests using Xe and UV lamps with studying the effect of different environmental conditions on their UV-photodegradation behaviour, 3) monitoring the primary elimination of TMP, DMI and CPTX during photodegradation and biodegradation tests using HPLC, and measuring their degree of mineralization by means of dissolved organic carbon analyser (DOC), 4) elucidating the structures of the transformation products (TPs) which formed during the degradation of TMI, DMI and CPTX by using LC-MS/MS analysis, 5) analysing the biodegradability of their TPs by laboratory tests and in-silico assessments in order to determine the fate and persistence of these TPs in the aquatic environment, 6) conducting in-silico toxicity predictions for the selected psychotropic drugs and their TPs in human (carcinogenicity, genotoxicity and mutagenicity) and in eco-system (toxicity to microorganisms and toxicity in rainbow trouts). As an overall conclusion, the present work demonstrates that a combination of laboratory simulation tests, LC-MS/MS analysis and in-silico tools result in valuable new information regarding environmental fate of three important psychotropic drugs and their TPs. This dissertation also highlights that different environmental conditions such as temperature, initial drug concentration and pH can differently affect the degradation behaviour of pharmaceuticals even when they are highly structurally related. Therefore, one cannot conclude from one pharmaceutical to another but each one needs to be investigated individually and this present a great challenge for risk assessment kinetics of chemicals in the aquatic environment. The results presented here showed that the investigated pharmaceuticals and their TPs can negatively affect the environment which may be harmful to the ecosystem as they might have been present for decades in the aquatic environment without any knowledge of their environmental fate or connected risk. Therefore, further work needs to be done including analysis of environmental samples (e.g., surface waters), as well as laboratory toxicity tests to further expand knowledge on their exact environmental impact.
In zahlreichen, sowohl wissenschaftlichen als auch politischen Veröffentlichungen, wird die "Energiewende" als Transformationsprojekt eingeordnet. Zweifelsohne birgt eine Umstellung auf ein erneuerbares Energiesystem transformative Potenziale. Die Bedeutungsbestimmung von "Energiewende" oder auch Transformation bleibt in Politik und Forschung aber häufig unklar. Um dem zu begegnen, wird in der vorliegenden Studie die Bedeutung von "Energiewende", wie sie im Bundestag verhandelt wird, untersucht. Darauf aufbauend wird analysiert, ob und inwiefern die „Energiewende“ einem Anspruch als Transformationsprojekt gerecht werden kann, bzw. wie sich die Wirkrichtung der mit "Energiewende" verbundenen Politiken im Spannungsfeld beharrend – reformistisch – transformativ verorten lässt. Die besondere gesellschaftliche Bedeutung der Bundestags-Debatten um "Energiewende" leitet sich diskurstheoretisch unter anderem aus der ihnen zukommenden "Schaufensterfunktion" ab, wonach die Debatten strategisch auf eine außerparlamentarische Öffentlichkeit ausgerichtet sind. Hinzu kommt, dass sich der hier stattfindende Diskurs, bspw. in Gesetzen, unmittelbar materialisiert. Als Startpunkt der Untersuchung wird der Beginn der rot-grünen Regierungszeit gewählt (1998), da diese – u.a. wegen der Verabschiedung des Erneuerbaren-Energien-Gesetzes (EEG) und dem politischen Beschluss zum Atomausstieg – in besonderer Weise mit der "Energiewende" in Verbindung gebracht wird. Als Endpunkt dient die letzte vollständige Wahlperiode zum Zeitpunkt der Untersuchung. Die Diskursanalyse bezieht sich demnach auf die Bundestagsdebatten zur "Energiewende" zwischen der 14. und 18. Legislaturperiode (1998-2017). Das methodische Innovationspotenzial der Arbeit liegt insbesondere in der Verbindung aus einem Verfahren quantitativer, computerbasierter Diskursanalyse mit einer qualitativen Analyse. Als Ergebnis der Verknüpfung von Transformations- und Diskurstheorie wird ein methodisch komplexes Forschungsdesign präsentiert, das sich neben der Analyse des "Energiewende"-Diskurses auf weitere Bereiche der politischen Transformationsforschung übertragen lässt.
Sustainable landscape development is the main goal of decision makers worldwide. Achieving this goal in the long term leads to achieving social, economic and environmental sustainability. Remote sensing has been playing an essential role in monitoring remote areas. This study has employed part of the role of remote sensing in supporting the direction of decision makers towards sustainable landscape development. The study has focused on some of the main elements affecting sustainable environment: land uses, specifically agricultural land uses, water quality, forests, and water hazards such as floods. Three research programs were undertaken to investigate the role of Terrasar-x imagery, as a source of remote sensing data, in monitoring the environment and achieving the previous stated elements. The investigation was intended to investigate the effectiveness of TSX imagery in identifying the cropping pattern of selected study areas by employing a pixel-based supervised maximum likelihood classifier, as published in Paper I, assessment of the efficiency of using TSX imagery in determining land use and the flood risk maps by applying an object-based decision tree classifier as published in Paper II, and determination of the potential of inferential statistics tests such as the two samples Z-test and multivariate analysis, for example Factor Analysis, for identifying the kind of forest canopy, based on the backscattering coefficient of TSX imagery of forest plots, as presented in Paper III. Papers I and II covered two pilot areas in the Lower Saxonian Elbe Valley Biosphere Reserve “das Biosphärenreservat "Niedersächsische Elbtalaue" around Walmsburger Werder and Wehninger Werder. Paper III focused on the Fuhrberger Feld water protection area near Hanover in Germany. The inputs for this research were mainly SAR Imagery and the ground truth data collected from field surveys, in addition to databases, geo-databases and maps. The study presented in Paper I used two filters to decrease speckle noise namely De-Grandi as multi-temporal speckle filter, and Lee as an adaptive filter. A multi-temporal classification method was used to identify the different crops using a pixel-based maximum likelihood classifier. The classification accuracy was assessed based on the external user accuracy for each crop, the external producer accuracy for each crop, the Kappa index and the external total accuracy for the entire classification. Three cropping pattern maps were produced namely the cropping pattern map of Wehninger Werder in 2011 and the cropping pattern maps of Walmsburger Werder in 2010 and in 2011. The study showed that image filtering was essential for enhancing the accuracy of crop classification. The multi-temporal filter De-Grandi enhanced the producer accuracy by about 10% compared to the Lee filter. Furthermore, gathering and utilizing large ground truth data greatly enhanced the accuracy of the classification. The research verified that using sequence images covering the growing season usually improved the classification results. The results exposed the effect of the polarization and demonstrate that the majority of the classifications produced according to the crop calendar had higher total producer accuracy than using all acquisitions. The study demonstrated undertaken in Paper II applied the decision tree object-based classifier in determining the major land uses and the inundation extent areas in 2011 and 2013 using the Lee-filtered imagery. Based on the maps produced for the land uses and inundation areas, the hazard areas due to the floods in 2011 and 2013 were identified. The study illustrated that 95% of the inundated area was classified correctly, that 90% of vegetated lands were accurately determined, and around 80% of the forest and the residential areas were correctly recognized. The research undertaken in Paper III statistically analyzed the backscattering coefficient of the Lee-filtered TSX in some forest plots by the Factor Analysis and two sample Z-test. The study showed that Factor analysis tools succeeded in differentiating between the coniferous forest and the deciduous forest and mixed forest, but failed to discriminate between the deciduous and the mixed forest. On one hand, only one factor was extracted for each sample plot of the coniferous forest with approximately equal loadings during the whole acquisition period from March 2008 to January 2009. On the other hand, two factors were extracted for each deciduous or mixed forest sample plot, where one factor had high loadings during the leaf-on period from May to October, and the other one had high loadings during the leaf-off period from November to April. Furthermore, the research revealed that the two sample Z-test enabled not only differentiation between the deciduous and the mixed forest against the coniferous forest, but also discrimination between deciduous forest and the mixed forest. Statistically significant differences were observed between the mean backscatter values of the HH-polarized acquisitions for the deciduous forest and the mixed forest during the leaf-off period, but no statistically significant difference was found during the leaf-on period. Moreover, plot samples for the deciduous forest had slightly higher mean backscattering coefficients than those for the mixed forest during the leaf-off period.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Despite growing research on sustainability transformations, our understanding of how transformative transdisciplinary research can support local actors who foster change towards sustainability is still somewhat limited. To contribute to this research question, the investigator conducted research in a transdisciplinary case study in Southern Transylvania, where non-governmental organizations (NGO) drive sustainability initiatives to foster desired changes (e.g., supporting small-scale farmers or conserving natural and cultural heritage). Interactions with these local actors and reflections on the research question shaped the research of this dissertation. In paper 1, the author conducted a literature review on amplification processes that describe actions, which local actors can apply to increase the impact of their sustainability initiatives. In paper 2, he conducted a literature review on the application of indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in sustainability transformations research to understand whether this research engages with the conceptualization of transformations from local actors. The results show that ILK is generally applied to confirm and complement scientific knowledge in contexts of environmental, climate, social-ecological, and species change. In paper 3, the author derived principles that provide guidance for how to integrate sustainability initiatives from local actors in transformative transdisciplinary research. Based on his transdisciplinary research with the NGOs in Southern Transylvania and by using systems and futures thinking as an approach for analysis, he derived three principles that provide guidance for the co-design of sustainability intervention strategies that build on, strengthen, and complement existing initiatives from local actors. In paper 4, the author explored empirically how to identify relevant local actors for collaborations that seek to intervene in specific characteristics of a system (e.g., parameters or design of a system). He applied a leverage points' perspective to analyse the social networks of the NGOs in Southern Transylvania that amplify the impact of their initiatives. This dissertation as a whole contributes insights to three recommendations of how transformative transdisciplinary research can support local actors fostering change towards sustainability: First, by conducting research that studies and supports local actors who increase the impact of their sustainability initiatives via amplification processes (Paper 1 and 4); Second, by engaging specifically with the initiatives, networks, and knowledge from local actors, who foster bottom-up, place-based transformations (Paper 1-4); Third, by identifying and collaborating with local actors that are relevant for strategic systems interventions that build on, strengthen, and complement existing initiatives (Paper 3-4).
Die Kulturlandschaft im Alpenraum war in den letzten Jahrzehnten einem besonders starken Strukturwandel ausgesetzt. Als Region mit einem hohen Anteil an Grenzertragsstandorten lassen sich hier zwei gegenläufige Entwicklungen feststellen: zum einen findet eine Intensivierung der Landnutzung in Bereichen mit guter Zugänglichkeit und maschineller Nutzbarkeit statt, zum anderen kommt es häufig zu einem Rückgang der Nutzungsintensität oder Nutzungsaufgabe in Bereichen, in denen die landwirtschaftliche Bearbeitung schwierig ist. Die Auswirkungen auf die Biodiversität werden bei beiden Entwicklungen kritisch gesehen. Allerdings mangelt es an detaillierten Untersuchungen. Im Rahmen eines sechsjährigen Forschungsvorhabens wurden auf einer Weidefläche in den Allgäuer Alpen Laufkäfer, Spinnen und Vegetation untersucht. Auf der Fläche fand zu Beginn der Untersuchung eine Nutzungsänderung statt: ein großer Teil der vormals intensiv von Schafen beweideten Fläche wurde auf extensive Rinderbeweidung umgestellt. Kleine Teilflächen wurden aus der Nutzung genommen. Der Fokus dieser Dissertation liegt in den Untersuchungen der Laufkäfer. Hier wurde zunächst ein Erfassungsschema für Laufkäfer in schwer erreichbaren Gebieten der Alpen erarbeitet, um intensive und mehrjährige Untersuchungen logistisch durchführen zu können. Dabei wurden die Ergebnisse der Laufkäfererfassung über die gesamte Vegetationsperiode mit den Ergebnissen einer reduzierten Erhebung verglichen. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass eine Beprobung über jeweils zwei Wochen Anfang Juni und Anfang Juli den gesamten Datensatz hinreichend repräsentiert. Des Weiteren wurde untersucht, ob die Vegetation als Surrogat für die beiden untersuchten Arthropodengruppen (Spinnentiere und Laufkäfer) dienen kann, d.h. die Ergebnisse der Vegetation auf die anderen Artengruppen übertragbar ist. Dies wurde sowohl auf Ebene der Artzusammensetzung als auch des Artenreichtums für die drei Taxa geprüft. Zudem wurde überprüft, ob die unter vegetationskundlichen Aspekten abgegrenzten geschützten Lebensraumtypen auch besonders wertvolle Habitate für die Arthropodengruppen darstellen. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen, dass eine ausreichende Kongruenz nicht gegeben und damit die Übertragbarkeit von Ergebnissen bei der Vegetation auf die untersuchten Arthropodengruppen in den Gebirgslebensräumen nicht gewährleistet ist. Dies hat eine hohe praktische Relevanz, da im Rahmen von Managementplanungen für die FFH-Richtlinie als auch bei der Bayerischen Alpenbiotopkartierung überwiegend ein starker Fokus auf vegetationskundlichen Aspekten liegt und insbesondere artenreiche Arthropodengruppen meist nicht betrachtet werden. Abschließend wurde mittels gemischter Modelle (mixed effects models) untersucht, welche Veränderungen bei den Laufkäfern nach der Nutzungsänderung im Untersuchungsgebiet auftraten. Sämtliche errechneten Modelle zeigten Veränderungen der abhängigen Variablen über die Zeit: nach Aufgabe der intensiven Schafbeweidung nahmen die Arten- und Individuenzahlen sowie die Biomasse an Laufkäfern zu. Die Tiere wurden durchschnittlich größer und es traten mehr herbivore Laufkäfer auf. Auch konnten unterschiedliche Entwicklungen zwischen den Standorten beobachtet werden. Die beobachteten Veränderungen werden im Artikel detailliert diskutiert. Die meisten Veränderungen, insbesondere die Zunahme der Artenzahlen sowie der durchschnittlichen Körpergröße, deuten auf eine Erholung der Laufkäferfauna von der intensiven Schafbeweidung hin. Die Nutzungsumstellung und die aktuell praktizierte extensive Rinderbeweidung werden im Gebiet naturschutzfachlich positiv bewertet. Die Arbeit liefert eine gute Vorlage und fundierte Begründung, gerade auch im Alpenraum verstärkt Laufkäfer bei der Beantwortung naturschutzfachlicher Fragestellungen einzubinden.
Um das noch bestehende Reichweitenproblem von Elektrofahrzeugen zu lösen, sind Fahrzeugkonzepte wie Plug-in Hybridfahrzeuge sehr vielversprechend, sofern mit ihm überwiegend im Batteriebetrieb gefahren wird. Sie kombinieren die Vorteile des Verbrennungsmotors und des Elektromotors, sodass das lokale Emissionsproblem in Ballungszentren gelöst werden kann, ohne dass der Kunde dabei auf die Reichweite verzichten muss. Wenn das Fahrzeug allerdings überwiegend für Kurzstrecken genutzt wird, sind alterungsbedingte Veränderungen des Kraftstoffes möglich, da dieser länger im Tank verbleibt als üblich. In dieser Arbeit wird ein Konzept zur sensorischen Bestimmung der Qualität des Kraftstoffes vorgestellt. Hierzu wurde ein Prototyp entwickelt, in dem mithilfe des Real- und Imaginärteils der Permittivität alternde Kraftstoffe erkannt werden können. Dabei konnte durch das frequenzabhängige Permittivitätssignal des Sensors spezifisch zwischen nieder- und hochmolekularen Oxidationsprodukten in Kraftstoffen unterschieden werden. Da das Verbrennungs- und Emissionsverhalten des Motors von der Kraftstoffmischung vorgegeben ist, bietet eine zusätzliche sensorische Erfassung der Kraftstoffzusammensetzung weitere Optimierungspotenziale, um Emissionen zu reduzieren: So ist das Motormanagement im Fahrzeug zumeist auf Referenzkraftstoffe mit gleichbleibender Qualität abgestimmt. Variable Kraftstoffzusammensetzungen, die durch die Erdöllagerstätte und den zusätzlichen Konversionsverfahren zur Herstellung von fortschrittlichen Kraftstoffen vorgegeben sind, werden in dieser Anpassungsstrategie bisher nicht berücksichtigt. Als weitere Aufgabe wird in dieser Arbeit daher ein multisensorischer Ansatz verfolgt, wonach zusätzlich zur Kraftstoffalterung noch die Kraftstoffzusammensetzung erkannt werden kann. Insgesamt bietet die Sensorik das Potenzial zur kontinuierlichen Kraftstoffüberwachung in Plug-in Hybridfahrzeugen, um so einen Beitrag zum sicheren und nachhaltigen Betrieb solcher Fahrzeuge gewährleisten zu können.
Viable communication systems
(2020)
Society has come to the point that it requires a "Great Transformation" towards sustainability to ensure the viability of the planet for a vital society. The energy transition plays a central role for this transformation. For transforming the patterns of energy production and use in an energy transition as part of the "Great Transformation", this process of change now needs to strengthen its focus on information, communication, and knowledge systems. Human society needs to establish a knowledge system that has the potential to create usable knowledge for sustainability solutions. This requires organizing a communication system that is sufficiently complex, interconnected, and, at the same time, efficient for integrating reflexive, open-ended, inter- and transdisciplinary learning, evaluation, and knowledge co-production processes across multiple levels. This cumulative dissertation contributes to research in this direction by applying a systemic sustainability perspective on the content and organization of communication in the field of research on sustainable energy and the operational level of municipal climate action as part of the energy transition. Regarding sustainability, this thesis uses strong sustainability and its principles as a frame for evaluating the content of communication. Regarding the systemic perspective, the thesis particularly relies on the following theories: (i) the human-environment system model by R. Scholz as an overarching framework regarding interactions between humans and nature, (ii) social systems theory by N. Luhmann to reflect the complexity of society, (iii) knowledge management to consider the human character of knowledge and a practice-oriented perspective, and (iv) management cybernetics, in particular, the Viable System Model by S. Beer as a framework to analyze and assess organizational structures. Furthermore, the thesis leverages the potential of text mining as a method to identify and visualize patterns in texts that reflect prevalent paradigms in communication. The thesis applies the above conceptual and methodological basis in three case studies. Case Study 1 investigates the measures proposed in 16 municipal climate action plans of regional centers in Lower Saxony, Germany. It uses a text mining approach in the form of an Summary interpretation network analysis. It analyzes how different societal subsystems are connected at the semantic level and to what extent sustainability principles can be recognized. Case Study 2 analyzes and reflects paradigms and discursive network structures in international scientific publications on sustainable energy. The study investigates 26533 abstracts published from 1990 to 2016 using a text mining approach, in particular topic modeling via latent Dirichlet allocation. Case Study 3 turns again to the cases of municipal climate action in Lower Saxony examined in Case Study 1. It examines the involvement of climate action managers of these cities in multilevel knowledge processes. Using design principles for knowledge systems, it evaluates to what extent knowledge is managed in this field across levels for supporting the energy transition and to what extent local innovation potential is leveraged or supported. The three case studies show that international research on sustainable energy and municipal climate action in Germany provide promising contributions to achieve a transformation towards sustainability but do not fully reflect the complexity of society and still support a growth paradigm, in contrast to a holistic sustainability paradigm. Further, the case studies show that research and local action are actively engaging with the diversity of energy technologies but are lagging in dealing with the socio-epistemic (communication) system, especially with regard to achieving cohesion. Using the example of German municipalities, Case Studies 1 and 3 highlight the challenges of achieving coherent local action for sustainability and bottom-up organizational learning due to incomplete or uncoordinated multilevel knowledge exchange.
Die Energiewende steht im Zentrum aktueller gesellschaftlicher Debatten. Die Frage ist: Wie kann die gegenwärtige Klimakrise aufgehalten und gleichzeitig der Energiebedarf gedeckt werden? Einigkeit besteht darüber, dass eine Strategie zur Energiewende die Umstellung auf erneuerbare Energieträger beinhalten muss. Das Problem ist: Zentrale Begriffe wie "erneuerbare Energieträger " sind uneindeutig und deshalb besonders für naturwissenschaftliche Laien missverständlich. Ihnen wird dadurch die gesellschaftliche Teilhabe an der Debatte erschwert. Wie kann der naturwissenschaftliche Unterricht dazu beitragen, die oben benannten Missverständnisse aufzuklären? Er muss die Schüler dabei unterstützen, die naturwissenschaftlichen Schlüsselprinzipien der verschiedenen Energieträger und darauf aufbauend die Energiewende angemessen zu verstehen. Zu diesem Zweck muss der Unterricht entsprechend strukturiert werden. Welche Leitlinien sowohl die Lehrkräfte der Naturwissenschaften als auch die Entwickler der Unterrichtsmaterialien dabei beachten sollten: Das klärt die vorliegende Studie. Hierfür wird das Modell der didaktischen Rekonstruktion als Forschungsrahmen genutzt. Ausgehend von einem gemäßigt konstruktivistischen Lehr-Lernverständnis werden drei Unterfragen beantwortet: (1) Welche vorunterrichtlichen Vorstellungen bringen Schüler in den Unterricht mit? (2) Welche Vorstellungen haben Wissenschaftler? (3) Welche Unterschiede ergeben sich im Vergleich der Vorstellungen? Für die Beantwortung dieser Fragen wurden in der Erhebung problemzentrierte, leitfadengestützte Interviews mit 27 Achtklässlern geführt und Auszüge aus zwei wissenschaftlichen Gutachten ausgewählt. Mit einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse konnten in der Auswertung Inhaltsaspekte identifiziert werden, die Potenzial für die unterrichtliche Vermittlung haben. Mit dem so reduzierten Datenmaterial wurde eine systematische Metaphernanalyse durchgeführt. Damit wurden erfahrungsbasierte Muster hinter den Vorstellungen rekonstruiert. Aus dem systematischen Vergleich der Ergebnisse lassen sich Lernchancen und Lernhindernisse für das Verstehen von naturwissenschaftlichen Hintergründen der Energiewende ableiten. Diese werden in Form von Leitlinien für den naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht zusammengefasst. Diese Leitlinien können von Lehrpersonen und Entwicklern von Lehrmaterialien genutzt werden, um ein fachlich angemessenes Verstehen der naturwissenschaftlichen Schlüsselprinzipien der Energieträger und der Energiewende zu fördern.
Both sustainability and transdisciplinary research can change academic research, especially with regard to its relevance for, and relationship with, its environments. Transdisciplinary sustainability research (TSR), thus, offers the opportunity to change non-sustainable development paths of sciences themselves. In order to fully exploit this possibility, this PhD project addresses the question of how TSR, in the first place, does conceptualize and, in the second place, could conceptualize knowledge, research, and science. Firstly, this PhD project analyzes, from a discourse studies perspective, the term problem in TSR, against the background of discourses on sustainable development. Secondly, it explores the historical-analytical and transformative concept of the problematic. The results, firstly, show the consequences of a problem-solving focus for TSR, and secondly, differentiate it from a transformative direction of problematic designing, as a more appropriate view on the dimensions of transformation and their qualities of change that matter for TSR. This PhD project aims to contribute to a self-understanding of, and a philosophical communication about, TSR, as a research form in the sustainability sciences.
It is understood among research and policy makers that addressing unsustainable individual consumption patterns is key for the vision of sustainable development. Education for Sustainable Consumption (ESC) is attributed a pivotal role for this purpose, aiming to improve the capacity of individuals to connect to and act upon knowledge, values and skills in order to respond successfully and purposefully to the demands of sustainable consumption. Yet despite political, scientific, and educational efforts and increasing awareness in the general population, little has been achieved to substantially change behavioral patterns so far. As part of the explanation for this shortcoming, it has been argued that current ESC practices have neglected the personal dimension of sustainable consumption, especially the affective-motivational processes underlying unsustainable consumption patterns. Against this background, this cumulative thesis is guided by the question how personal competencies for sustainable consumption can be defined, observed, and developed within educational settings. Special attention is given to mindfulness practices, describing the practice of cultivating a deliberate, unbiased and openhearted awareness of perceptible experience in the present moment. Drawing upon an explorative, qualitative research methodology, the thesis looks at three different mindfulness-based interventions aiming to stimulate competencies for sustainable consumption, reaching out to a total number of 321 participants (employees and university students). In this thesis, the author suggests to define personal competencies for sustainable consumption as abilities, proficiencies, or skills related to inner states and processes that can be considered necessary or sufficient to engage with sustainable consumption (SC). These include ethics, self-awareness, emotional resilience, selfcare, access to and cultivation of personal resources, access to and cultivation of ethical qualities, and mindsets for sustainability. The thesis holds that the observation of personal competencies benefits from a combination of different methodological and methodical angles. When working with self-reports as empirical data, a pluralistic qualitative methods approach can help overcoming shortcomings that are specifically related to individual methods while increasing the self-reflexivity of the research. Moreover, it is suggested to let learners analyze their own personal statements in groups, applying scientific methods. The products of the group analyses represent data based on an inter-subjectively shared perspective of learners that goes beyond self-estimation of personal competencies. In terms of developing personal competencies for SC, it can be concluded that mindfulness practice alone is not sufficient to build personal competencies for SC. While it can stimulate generic personal competencies, individuals do not necessarily apply these competencies within the domain of their consumption. Nevertheless, mindfulness practice can play an important role in ESC, insofar as it lays the inner foundation to engage with sustainability-related issues. More precisely, it allows learners to experience the relevance of their inner states and processes and the influence they have on actual behaviors, leading to a level of selfawareness that would not be accessible solely through discursive-intellectual means. Furthermore, participants experience mindfulness practice as a way to develop ethical qualities and access psychological resources, entailing stronger emotional resilience and improved well-being. In order to unleash its full potential for stimulating personal competencies for SC, however, the findings of the thesis suggest that mindfulness practice should be (a) complemented with methodically controlled self-inquiry and (b) related to a specific behavioral change. In this vein, self-inquiry-based and self-experience-based learning – two pedagogical approaches developed during the period of research for this thesis – turned out to be promising pedagogies for educational settings striving to stimulate the development of personal competencies for SC.
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.
As modern society progresses, waste treatment becomes a pressing issue. Not only are global waste amounts increasing, but there is also an unmet demand for sustainable materials (e.g. bioplastics). By identifying and developing processes, which efficiently treat waste while simultaneously generating sustainable materials, potentially both these issues might be alleviated. Following this line of thought, this dissertation focuses on procedures for treatment of the organic fraction of waste. Organic waste is a suitable starting material for microbial fermentation, where carbohydrates are converted to smaller molecules, such as ethanol, acetic acid, and lactic acid. Being the monomer of the thermoplastic poly-lactic acid, lactic acid is of particular interest with regard to bioplastics production and was selected as target compound for this dissertation. Organic waste acted as substrate for non-sterile batch and continuous fermentations. Fermentations were initiated with inoculum of Streptococcus sp. or with indigenous consortium alone. During batch mode, concentration, yield, and productivity reached maximum values of 50 g L−1, 63%, and 2.93 g L−1 h −1. During continuous operation at a dilution rate of 0.44 d−1, concentration and yield were increased to 69 g L−1 and 86%, respectively, while productivity was lowered to 1.27 g L−1 h −1 . To fully exploit the nutrients present in organic waste, phosphate recovery was analyzed using seashells as adsorbent. Furthermore, the pattern of the indigenous consortium was monitored. Evidently, a very efficient Enterococcus strain tended to dominate the indigenous consortium during fermentation. The isolation and cultivation of this consortium gave a very potent inoculum. In comparison to the non-inoculated fermentation of a different organic waste batch, addition of this inoculum lead to an improved fermentation performance. Lactic acid yield, concentration, and molar selectivity could be increased from 38% to 51%, 49 g L−1 to 65 g L−1, and 46% to 86%, respectively. Eventually, fermentation process data was used to perform techno-economic analysis proposing a waste treatment plant with different catchment area sizes ranging from 50,000 to 1,000,000 people. Economically profitable scenarios for both batch and continuous operation could be identified for a community with as few as 100,000 inhabitants. With the experimental data, as well as techno-economic calculations presented in this dissertation, a profound contribution to sustainable waste treatment and material production was made.
Existing institutions no longer appear to be sufficiently capable to deal with the complexity and uncertainty associated with the wicked problem of sustainability. Achieving the required sustainability transformation will thus require purposeful reform of existing institutional frameworks. However, existing research on the governance of sustainability of sustainability transformations has strongly focused on innovation and the more "creative" aspects of these processes, blinding our view to the fact that they go hand with the failure, decline or dismantling of institutions that are no longer considered functional or desirable. This doctoral dissertation thus seeks to better understand how institutional failure and decline can contribute productively to sustainability transformations and how such dynamics in institutional arrangements can serve to restructure existing institutional systems. A systematic review of the conceptual literature served to provide a concise synthesis of the research on "failure" and "decline" in the institutional literature, providing important first insights into their potentially productive functions. This was followed up by an archetype analysis of the productive functions of failure and decline, drawing on a wide range of literatures. This research identified five archetypical pathways: (1) crises triggering institutional adaptations toward sustainability, (2) systematic learning from failure and breakdown, (3) the purposeful destabilisation of unsustainable institutions, (4) making a virtue of inevitable decline, and (5) active and reflective decision making in the face of decline instead of leaving it to chance. Empirical case studies looking at the German energy transition and efforts to phase out coal in the Powering Past Coal Alliance served to provide more insights on (a) how to effectively harness "windows of opportunity" for change, and (b) the governance mechanisms used by governments to actively remove institutions. Results indicate that the lock-in of existing technologies, regulations and practices can throw up important obstacles for sustainability transformations. The intentional or unintentional destabilisation of the status quo may thus be required to enable healthy renewal within a system. This process required active and reflective management to avoid the irreversible loss of desirable institutional elements. Instruments such as "sunset clauses" and "experimental legislation" may serve as important tools to learn through "trial and error", whilst limiting the possible damage done by failure. Focusing on the subject of scale, this analysis finds that the level at which failure occurs is likely to determine the degree of change that can be achieved. Failures at the policy-level are most likely to merely lead to changes to the tools and instruments used by policy makers. This research thus suggests that failures on the polity- and political level may be required to achieve transformative changes to existing power structures, belief-systems and paradigms. Finally, this research briefly touches on the role of actor and agency in the governance of sustainabilitytransformations through failure and decline. It finds that actors may play an important role in causing a system or one of its elements to fail and in shaping the way events are come to be perceived.
"Reallabore" erleben als junges Format transformativer Nachhaltigkeitsforschung gegenwärtig eine beeindruckende Konjunktur. Die Dissertation arbeitet den Reallabor‐Ansatz aus Perspektive der transdisziplinären Forschung methodisch aus. Die Basis hierfür bildet die Erfahrung mit dem Auf‐ und Ausbau von einem der ersten Reallabore in Deutschland: Das langfristig ausgelegte "Quartier Zukunft - Labor Stadt" in Karlsruhe transformiert in Kooperation mit der Zivilgesellschaft ein Quartier modellhaft in einen nachhaltigeren Lebensraum. Es setzt dabei gleichermaßen auf Bildung, Forschung und Praxis. Die vorgelegten Artikel der kumulativen Dissertation bilden verschiedene Stadien der Entwicklung der Reallaborforschung und der methodologischen Reflexion ab. Die ersten beiden Texte entwickeln eine praxisnahe Definition und ordnen Reallabore ein in verwandte Diskurse. Die folgenden beiden Artikel stammen aus der beginnenden Stabilisierung des Reallabordiskurses. Der eine stellt Ziele und Designprinzipien für Reallabore als Rahmen transformativer und transdisziplinärer Forschung dar, der zweite greift aktuelle Diskussionen um Lernprozesse konzeptionell auf. Die letzten zwei Artikel fokussieren auf die Ebene der Projekte im Reallabor am Beispiel der Transformativen Projektseminare, einmal in analytischer Perspektive, einmal in methodisch‐didaktischer. Der Rahmentext abstrahiert die Ergebnisse der zuvor publizierten Artikel entlang dreier Forschungsfragen: Was ist neu am Reallabor‐Ansatz? Welches Potenzial hat ein Reallabor für transdisziplinäre Forschung? Und welche Rolle spielt Lernen im Reallabor? Die methodologische Reflexion führt zu einem Verständnis von Reallaboren als Format zwischen Urban Living Labs und Transition Labs, das sich gegenüber diesen insbesondere durch Langfristigkeit, Bildungsziele und eine klare Trennung zwischen Labor und Experimenten auszeichnet. Aus der kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit Reallaboren wird eine doppelte Bezugnahme auf Transdisziplinarität herausgearbeitet, einerseits als Infrastruktur für transdisziplinäre Projekte, andererseits als in sich transdisziplinäres Unterfangen. Ausgehend von dieser Unterscheidung wird ein Vorschlag gemacht, an welche experimentellen Methodologien jenseits der klassisch‐naturwissenschaftlichen die transdisziplinäre Forschung, die bislang kaum experimentell arbeitet, anknüpfen kann. Das Reallabor unterstützt solche Experimente durch einen Rahmen aus materieller Infrastruktur, durch Kompetenzen der Beteiligten, durch Wissensbestände und soziale Vernetzung. Die Vernetzung über Projektgrenzen hinweg, ein weiteres wesentliches Charakteristikum eines Reallabors, dient dazu, parallele Experimente zu vernetzen und iterative Lernzyklen zu unterstützen. Diese Aspekte werden verbunden zum "Apfelmodell" transdisziplinärer Forschung im Reallabor, in dem das Reallabor als doppeltes Bindeglied fungiert, einerseits zwischen internen und externen Lernzyklen, und andererseits zwischen wissenschaftlichen, bildungsorientierten und praktischen. Durch die Interpretation der Abläufe im Reallabor als Lernprozesse wird ein Anschluss an Bildungsprozesse auf unterschiedlichen Skalen möglich. Neben Lernprozessen im Reallabor als Lernumgebung lässt sich das Reallabor als lernende Institution und als Kristallisationspunkt gesellschaftlicher Lernprozesse verstehen. Das Apfelmodell kann gleichermaßen im Kontext theoretischer Fragen im Transdisziplinaritätsdiskurs herangezogen werden als auch praktischen Zwecken dienen, insbesondere in der Planung von Reallaboren, in der quervernetzten Konzeption von Projekten darin, in der Evaluation und in der Kommunikation.
Der Konflikt um den Braunkohleabbau im Allgemeinen und den Hambacher Forst im Speziellen ist im Sommer 2018 in Deutschland erneut eskaliert und fand eine immer breitere Wahrnehmung in der Öffentlichkeit. Der Protest im und um den Hambacher Forst steht symbolisch für die Auseinandersetzungen um die deutsche Klimapolitik und damit für die Machtverhältnisse zwischen Staat, Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft. Akteure verschiedener Standpunkte mussten in diesem Konflikt ihre Position begründen. Dies führte zu einer Intensivierung der Diskussion um Legalität, Legitimität, Demokratie und Gerechtigkeit. Die scheinbare Diskrepanz zwischen einer rechtsstaatlichen Demokratie und dem zivilen Ungehorsam als einem möglichen Korrektiv führte zu der hier bearbeiteten Forschungsfrage: Ist der Einsatz von zivilem Ungehorsam am Fallbeispiel "Ende Gelände", Rheinisches Braunkohle Revier, legitim, wenn nicht sogar notwendig, um die Grundprinzipien des demokratischen Staates zu wahren? Als Grundlage für die Beantwortung der Fragestellung soll erörtert werden, ob in der rechtsstaatlichen, sozialen und repräsentativen Demokratie Deutschlands die Protestform des zivilen Ungehorsams legitim sein kann und, sofern dies der Fall ist, unter welchen Umständen diese Legitimität gegeben ist.
Wind energy is expected to become the largest source of electricity generation in Europe's future energy mix. As a consequence, future electricity generation will be exposed to an increasing degree to weather and climate. With planning and operational lifetimes of wind energy infrastructure reaching climate time scales, adaptation to changing climate conditions is of relevance to support secure and sustainable energy supply. Premise for success of wind energy projects is the ability to service financial obligations over the project lifetime. Though, revenues(viaelectricity generation) are exposed to changing climate conditions affecting the wind resource, operating conditions or hazardous events interfering with the wind energy infrastructure. For the first time, a procedure is presented to assess such climate change impacts specifically for wind energy financing. At first, a generalised financing chain for wind energy is prepared to (qualitatively) trace the exposure of individual cost elements to physical climate change. In this regard, the revenue through wind power production is identified as the essential component within wind energy financing being exposed to changing climate conditions. This implies the wind resource to be of crucial interest for an assessment of climate change impacts on the financing of wind energy. Therefore, secondly, a novel high-resolution experimental modelling framework with the non-hydrostatic extension of the regional climate model REMO is set up to generate physically consistent climate and climate change information of the wind resource across wind turbine operating altitudes. With this setup, enhanced simulated intra-annual and inter-annual variability across the lower planetary boundary layer is achieved, being beneficial for wind energy applications, compared to state-of-the-art regional climate model configurations. In addition, surrogate climate change experiments with this setup disclose vertical wind speed changes in the lower planetary boundary layer to be indirectly affected by temperature changes through thermodynamically-induced atmospheric stability alterations. Moreover, air density changes are identified to occasionally exceed the net impact of wind energy density changes originating from changes in wind speed. This supports the consideration of air density information (in addition to wind speed) for wind energy yiel assumptions. Thirdly, the generated climate and climate change information of the wind resource are transferred to a simplified but fully-fledged financial model to assess the financial risk of wind energy project financing with respect to changing climate conditions. Sensitivity experiments for an imaginary offshore wind farm located in the German Bight reveal the long-term profitability of wind energy project financing not to be substantially affected by changing wind resource conditions, but incidents with insufficient servicing of financial obligations experience changes exceeding -10% to 14%. The integration of wind energy-specific climate and climate change information into existing financial risk assessment procedures would illustrate a valuable contribution to enable climate change adaptation for wind energy.
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.
Thermal energy storage systems have a high potential for a sustainable energy management. Low temperature thermochemical energy stores based on gas-solid reactions represent appealing alternative options to sensible and latent storage technologies, in particular for heating and cooling purposes. They convert heat energy provided from renewable energy and waste heat sources into chemical energy and can effectively contribute to load balancing and CO2 mitigation. At present, several obstacles are associated with the implementation in full-scale reactors. Notably, the mass and heat transfer must be optimized. Limitations in the heat transport and diffusions resistances are mainly related to physical stability issues, adsorption/desorption hysteresis and volume expansion and can impact the reversibility of gas-solid reactions. The aim of this thesis was to examine the energy storage and cooling efficiency of CaCl2, MgCl2, and their physical salt mixtures as adsorbents paired with water, ethanol and methanol as adsorbates for utilization in a closed, low level energy store. Two-component composite adsorbents were engineered using a representative set of different host matrices (activated carbon, binderless zeolite NaX, expanded natural graphite, expanded vermiculite, natural clinoptiolite, and silica gel). The energetic characteristics and sorption behavior of the parent salts and modified thermochemical materials were analyzed employing TGA/DSC, TG-MS, Raman spectroscopy, and XRD. Successive discharging/charging cycles were conducted to determine the cycle stability of the storage materials. The overall performance was strongly dependent on the material combination. Increase in the partial pressure of the adsorbate accelerated the overall adsorbate uptake. From energetic perspectives the CaCl2-H2O system exhibited higher energy storage densities than the CaCl2 and MgCl2 alcoholates studied. The latter were prone to irreversible decomposition. Ethyl chloride formation was observed for MgCl2 at room and elevated temperatures. TG-MS measurements confirmed the evolution of alkyl chloride from MgCl2 ethanolates and methanolates upon heating. However, CaCl2 and its ethanolates and methanolates proved reversible and cyclable in the temperature range between 25°C and 500°C. All composite adsorbents achieved intermediate energy storage densities between the salt and the matrix. The use of carbonaceous matrices had a heat and mass transfer promoting effect on the reaction system CaCl2-H2O. Expanded graphite affected only moderately the adsorption/desorption of methanol onto CaCl2. CaCl2 dispersed inside zeolite 13X showed excellent adsorption kinetics towards ethanol. However, main drawback of the molecular sieve used as supporting structure was the apparent high charging temperature. Despite variations in the reactivity over thermal cycling caused by structural deterioration, composite adsorbents based on CaCl2 have a good potential as thermochemical energy storage materials for heating and cooling applications. Further research is required so that the storage media tested can meet all necessary technical requirements.
To improve the properties of thermochemical heat storage materials, salt mixtures were evaluated for their heat storage capacity and cycle stability as part of the innovation incubator project "Thermochemical battery" of the Leuphana university Lüneburg. Based on naturally occurring compound minerals, 16 sulfates, 18 chlorides and 5 chloride multi-mixtures, 18 bromides and 5 intermixtures between sulfates, chlorides and bromides were synthesized either from liquid solution or by dry mixing for TGA/DSC screening before continuing the heat storage evaluation with five different measurement setups at a laboratory scale. The TGA/DSC analysis served as a screening process to reduce the number of testing materials for the upscaled experiments. The evaluation process consisted of a three-cycle dehydration/hydration measurement at Tmax=100°C and Tmax=200°C. In case of the bromide samples a measurement of hydration conditions with Tmax=110°C and a water flow at e=18.68mbar, were added to the procedure to detect the maximum water uptake temperature. Also, a single dehydration to a temperature of Tmax=500°C was implemented to observe melting behavior and to easier calculate the samples’ stages of hydration from the remaining anhydrous mass. Materials which showed high energy storage density and improved cycle stability during this first evaluation were cleared for multi-cycle measurements of 10 to 25 dehydration and hydration cycles at Tmax = 100 to 120°C and the evaluations at m=20 to 100g scale. An estimate for the specific heat capacities at different temperatures of the materials which passed the initial stage was calculated from the TGA/DSC results as well. The laboratory scale measurement setup went through five stages of refining, which led to reducing the intended maximum sample mass from m=100g to m=20g. A switch from supplied liquid water to water vapor as the used reactant was also implemented in exchange for improved dehydration conditions. Introducing a vacuum pump for evaporating the water limited the influence of outside heat sources during hydration and in-situ dehydration was enabled as to not disturb the state the samples were settling in between measurements. Baseline calculation from blanc measurements with glass powder and attempts to calculate the specific heat capacity cp of the tested materials by 6 applying the Joule-Lenz-law to the measurement apparatus was another step of method development. The evaluation process of the laboratory scale tests at the final setting consisted of 1 to 5 cycle measurements of in-situ dehydration and hydrations with applied vacuum for t=30 minutes at p~30mbar. Upscaling the sample mass to m=20g allowed for a close observation of different material behaviors. Agglomeration, melting and dissolving of the m=10mg samples during the TGA/DSC analysis can be deducted from the recorded measurement curves and the state of the sample after measurement. However, at laboratory scale the visible volume changes, observed sample consistency after agglomeration and an automatic removal of molten and dissolved sample mass during the measurement allowed for a better characterization and understanding of the magnitude of the actual changes. This was done for the first time, particularly for mixed salts. Of the original number of 62 samples, 4 mixtures which passed the initial TGA/DSC screening namely {2MgCl2+ KCl}, {2MgCl2+CaCl2}, {5SrBr2+8CaCl2} and {2ZnCl2 + CaCl2} were chosen for further evaluation. The multi-cycle TGA/DSC measurements of {2MgCl2+ KCl}, {2MgCl2+CaCl2} and {5SrBr2+8CaCl2} showed an improved cycle stability for all three materials over the untreated educts. Of the four materials {2ZnCl2 + CaCl2} displayed the strongest deliquescence during hydration in the upscaled experimental setup. {2MgCl2+CaCl2} proved to be the most stable material regarding the heat storage density. The {MgCl2} content of the mixture is likely to partially or completely react to {Mg(OH)Cl} at temperatures of T>110°C, which however does not impede the heat storage density. {5SrBr2+8CaCl2} displayed a low melting point in hydrated state, causing a fast material loss. This makes it an undesirable storage material. A lower heating rate may still help to avoid an early melting. The {2MgCl2+KCl} mixture was the most temperature stable of the mixtures showing no melting or dissolving behavior. A reaction of the {MgCl2} component of the mixture to {Mg(OH)Cl} was not observed within the applied temperature range of T=25 to 200°C.
Climate change and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen affect biodiversity patterns and functions of forest ecosystems worldwide. Many studies have quantified tree growth responses to single global change drivers, but less is known about the interaction effects of these drivers at the plant and ecosystem level. In the present study, the authors conducted a full-factorial greenhouse experiment to analyse single and combined effects of nitrogen fertilization (N treatment) and drought (D treatment) on 16 morphological and chemical response variables of one-year-old Fagus sylvatica seedlings originating from eight different seed families from the Cantabrian Mountains (NW Spain). Drought exerted the strongest effect on response variables, reflected by decreasing biomass production. However, D and N treatments interacted for some of the response variables, indicating that N fertilization has the potential to strengthen the negative effects of drought (with both antagonistic and amplifying interactions). For example, combined effects of N and D treatments caused a sevenfold increase of necrotic leaf biomass. The authors hypothesize that increasing drought sensitivity was mainly attributable to a significant reduction of the root biomass in combined N and D treatments, limiting the plants' capability to satisfy their water demands. Significant seed family effects and interactions of seed family with N and D treatments across response variables suggest a high within-population genetic variability. In conclusion, the findings indicated a high drought sensitivity of Cantabrian beech populations, but also interaction effects of N and D on growth responses of beech seedlings.
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.
Global climate change and environmental degradation are largely caused by human activity, thus progress towards a sustainable future will require large-scale changes to human behavior. Human-nature connectedness (HNC) - a measure of cognitive, emotional, spiritual and biophysical linkages to natural places - has been identified as a positive predictor of sustainability attitudes and behaviors. While calls to "reconnect to nature" in order to foster sustainability outcomes have become common across science, policy and practice, there remains a great deal of uncertainty, speculation, and conceptual vagueness around how this ought to be implemented. The overarching aim of this thesis is to advance conceptual and empirical understandings of HNC as a leverage point for pro-environmental outcomes and sustainability transformation. In particular, the thesis attempts to assess the nuances of the HNC-PEB (pro-environmental behavior) relationship by investigating the scalar relationships between where someone feels connected to nature and where someone acts pro-environmentally. This research was conducted through conceptual exploration, systematic literature reviews using hierarchical cluster analysis, and empirical case studies relying on structural equation modeling and two-step cluster analysis. The relationship between HNC and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors was investigated in a small microregion of Transylvania, Romania, where traditional relationships with the land and changing socio-economic characteristics provided an interesting case study in which to explore these connections. The key findings can be organized into three sections: Section A, which addresses HNC and its potential for sustainability transformation; Section B, which addresses HNC as a determinant of PEB outcomes, and Section C, which explores the relationships between human-nature connectedness and energy conservation norms, attitudes, and behaviors. Results cumulatively suggest that HNC is a multidimensional construct that requires greater integration across heterogeneous disciplinary and methodological boundaries in order to reach its potential for meaningful sustainability transformation. Results also highlight the critical need to adopt systemic approaches to understanding how interactions between human-nature connections, norms, attitudes, and behaviors are hindering or promoting sustainability outcomes.
Supporting sustainability transformation through research requires, in equal parts, knowledge about complex problems and knowledge that supports individual and collective action to change the system. Recasting the conditions, characteristics, and modes of research processes that address these needs leads to solution-oriented research in sustainability science. This is supported by systematically analyzing the system’s dynamics, envisioning the desired future target state, and by engaging and designing strategic pathways. In addition, learning and capacity building are important crosscutting processes for co-producing required knowledge. In research, we use sophisticated representations as mediators between theories and objects of interest, depicted as visualizations, models, and simulations. They simplify, idealize, and store large and dense amounts of information. Representations are already employed in the service of sustainability, e.g., in communication about climate change. Understanding them as tools to facilitate processes, dialogue, mutual learning, shared understanding, and communication can yield contributions to knowledge processes of analyzing, envisioning, and engaging, and has implications on the design of the sustainability solution. Therefore I ask, what role do representations and representational practices play in the generation of sustainability solutions in different knowledge processes? Four empirical case studies applying rough set analysis, multivariate statistics, systematic literature review, and expert interviews target this research question. The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to a stronger foundation and the role of representation in sustainability science. This includes: (i) to explore and conceptualize representations for the three knowledge processes along selected characteristics and mechanisms; (ii) to understand representational practices as tools and embedded into larger methodological frameworks; (iii) to understand the connection between representation and (mutual) learning in sustainability science. Results point toward crosscutting mechanisms of representations for knowledge processes and the need to build representational literacy to responsible design and participate in representational practices for sustainability.
To counteract species loss and preserve the remaining biodiversity, with its important ecosystem functioning and services essential to human well-being, there is an urgent need to develop promising and long-term conservation strategies. In order to achieve these goals, extensive research to gain a better understanding of the general mechanisms underlying community diversity is of greatest importance. Especially, the identification of intrinsic ecological and distributional species traits is receiving increased attention in ecology and conservation biology research. Depending on the expression of their traits, species perform particular ecosystem functions and respond in a specific manner to environmental conditions. Although insects make up the largest part of animal diversity, the majority of studies on extinctions have mainly focused on vertebrates. Among invertebrates either charismatic taxa or those targeted by conservation laws have been investigated until now (e.g. butterflies or saproxylic beetles). Being highly species-rich and trait-diverse, ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) should be even more suitable for conducting trait-based analyses. Thus, using ground beetles as a model taxon, four case studies focusing on the analyses of traits form the basis of this doctoral thesis. The work of this thesis was conducted with the aim of gaining general insights on the influence of species traits on ground beetle community compositions, such as habitat occupancy and species vulnerability to extinction, for instance. An important aspect when investigating species traits is the consideration of confounding factors, such as dependent relations between the different traits. Compiling a large dataset of 555 Central European species, the author identified that dependent relations between the six tested traits of ground beetles (distribution range size, habitat specialization, body size, hind-wing morphology, breeding season and trophic level) are highly common. Across all identified dependent trait relations, the relation between body size and hind wing morphology or range size and hind wing morphology showed the strongest significant dependencies. Since the consideration of trait relations is necessary to provide reliable interpretations, all analyses of this thesis tested several traits simultaneously and considered possible trait interactions. Studies on local communities found specific traits characterizing the local species pools of certain habitat types. Here, the species pools of seven different habitat types (coastal, forest, mountain, open, riparian, wetland and special habitat) were used to determine habitat-specific trait filters. The identified traits, characteristic for certain habitat types, were in most cases in accordance with the previous findings on local communities. Across Germany, the species of frequently disturbed habitat types, namely coastal, riparian and wetland habitats were characterized by small body size, high amount of macroptery, intermediate to high habitat specialization, spring breeding, and predatory feeding behavior. The species of stable habitat types (forest, mountain, and open habitats), however, were found to be generally larger in body size and more frequently breeding in autumn, further displaying greater variations in the other traits. The gained knowledge on the habitat-specific filtering of traits improve our understanding of the organization and assembly of communities, and can thereby help to detect alterations in the habitat-specific species pool due to natural or human-induced environmental changes. Furthermore, traits can provide evidence on species occurrences and vulnerability to extinction. Three case studies of this thesis aimed to gain new insights on this topic, through the investigations on the following research questions: (1) Which traits drive species extinction risks of Central European ground beetle species? (2) How traits influence the species occurrences of 28 forest species within a large area in Central Europe? (3) Whether certain traits are related to long-term population trends of the species pool from an ancient forest in northern Germany? The results indicated, that depending on the habitat type and tested species pool, different traits prove to be good predictors for the vulnerability of species. Nevertheless, across different geographical and taxonomical scales, especially species with small range sizes and high habitat specialization faced a greater risk of extinction. Therefore, the two traits distributional range size and habitat specialization emerge as reliable predictors of ground beetles vulnerability to extinction. Interestingly, body size did not display a consistent response; while increasing body size led to higher extinction risk in riparian, wetland and open habitats and large macropterous species showed higher extinction risks across the entire species pool, smaller species showed long-term population declines in an ancient forest.
"Sustainable development" evolves along the resolutions, declarations, and reports from international processes in the framework of the United Nations (UN). The consensual outputs from such processes feature global-generalised and context-free perspectives. However, implementation requires action at diverse and context-rich local levels as well. Moreover, while in such UN processes national states are the only contractual parties, it is increasingly recognised that other ("nonstate") actors are crucial to sustainability. The research presented here places the attention on bottom-up initiatives that are advancing innovative ways to tackle universal access to clean energy and to strengthen small-scale family farmers. This means, the focus is on bottom-up initiatives advancing local implementation of global sustainability targets, more precisely, targets that make part of the Sustainable Development Goals 2 and 7 (SDG 2 and SDG7). The research asks how such bottom-up initiatives can contribute to the diffusion of sustainability innovations, thereby also contributing to social change. Three aims are derived out of that central question: (1) To understand the role of bottom-up initiatives in the diffusion of sustainability innovations and in the thereby involved social changes. (2) To contribute with my research to the actual diffusion of sustainability innovations. (3) To outline a research approach that provides a solid conceptual and methodological framework for attaining the analytical and transformative aims. The doctoral research comprises four single studies, in which the notion of diffusion is explored at different scopes of social scales. It begins with a thorough analysis of diffusion programs of domestic biodigesters to rural households in countries of the global south. The focus is on the process by which this specific technical inno0vation results integrated (or not) into the daily realities of single rural households, that is, the adoption process. In the second study, the attention is on energy supply models based on different decentralised renewable technologies. Central to these models is the building of new (or strengthening of existing) local socioeconomic structures that can assume and ensure the proper operation and supply of energy services. The interest in this study is on the strategies that organisations implementing community-based energy projects apply to support the realisation of such local structures. The third study focuses on a network of bottom-up initiatives that have been advancing alternative approaches to family farming in Colombia. The network mainly comprises farmers associations, other organisations from civil society, and researchers who had been collaborating and experimenting with innovations in different innovation fields such as technical, organisational, financial, and commercialisation schemes. The aim of this third study is to provide insights into the challenges and difficulties faced by these actors in broadening the diffusion of the innovations they have been advancing. To perform this study, a methodological strategy is applied that combines a transdisciplinary mutual learning format with qualitative content analysis techniques. The fourth and last study is a conceptual disquisition. It develops a conceptual framework that (a) provides better accounts for the particularities of endeavours aimed at the diffusion of knowledge and practices from the bottom-up across local contexts and social scales, and (b) advances first conceptual steps towards an explicit account for the role that innovation research (and innovation researchers) can assume for the actual realisation of diffusion. The main findings or contributions of the doctoral research can be categorised into four subjects: 1) Bottom-up initiatives contribute to the diffusion of sustainable innovations by mobilising transformative resources for inducing diffusion in their scope of action and creating spaces for experimentation in which interventions can be tested (and if necessary adjusted) in order to ensure the proper deployment of innovations. 2) In their efforts to advance the diffusion of sustainability innovations, bottom-up initiatives contribute to social changes for ensuring the effective deployment of the innovations and building local available storage of transformative resources. 3) A conceptualisation of innovation diffusion, in which the work of academic researchers studying innovation is a constitutive part of transdisciplinary knowledge articulations that promote diffusion. In this way transdisciplinary research alliances can be envisioned in which researchers investigate about, with, and for bottom-up initiatives. 4) Contributions to the consolidation, systematisation, and dissemination of strategies that are applied by farmers associations in order to strength the economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions of Colombian family farmers.
The timber shortage led to large scale afforestations on previously agriculturally used land in Central Europe during the 19th and 20th century. Widespread afforestation programs created recent forest ecosystems (i.e. young forest systems in terms of their development history). Despite the positive effect of increasing the forest area of Central Europe, the ecological effects of these land-use changes on forest ecosystems remain poorly understood. In order to increase the understanding of ecosystem processes in forests, an assessment of conceivable shifts in ecosystem functions caused by former land-use changes and forest management is required. By analysing aboveground growth rates of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) in response to environmental change drivers, such as climate extremes and nitrogen (N) deposition, the presented thesis aims to assess the role of land-use and management legacies in modulating present responses to drivers of environmental change. To this end, annual radial growth rates of individual trees were measured in mature beech stands. The investigated stands differed either in their land-use history (i.e. ancient forest sites versus recent forests) or their forest management history (i.e. managed forest sites versus short-term and long-term unmanaged forest sites). Measurements of radial growth rates were complemented by analyses of the fine root systems, soil chemical properties and crown projection areas to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying alterations in tree growth. Within the projects of the presented thesis, shifts in the climate-growth relationships driven by land-use and management legacies were analysed. In addition, land-use legacy mediated differences in the climate-nitrogen-growth relationships were assessed. The key findings are: (I) Soil legacy driven alterations in the fine root systems cause a higher sensitivity of radial increment rates to water deficits in summer for trees growing on recent forest sites than for trees growing on ancient forest sites. (II) Management legacies (in terms of tree release) enhance the sensitivity of beech’s radial growth to water deficits in spring through changes in crown sizes. (III) Interacting effects of spring water deficits and co-occurring high deposition of reactive N compounds lead to stronger radial growth declines in trees growing in ancient forests. This is likely caused by resource allocation processes towards seed production, which is, in turn, mirrored by decreasing radial growth rates. In this context, high N deposition likely boosts mass fructification in beech trees. Overall, it has been demonstrated that the ecological continuity plays a crucial role in modulating both climate sensitivity and the growth response to interacting effects of water deficits and nitrogen deposition in beech trees. The presented thesis identified a trade-off between the climate sensitivity and maximised growth rates within beech trees, depending on forest history. The results show that the growth of beech in ancient, unmanaged beech forests is less sensitive to water deficits than in recent and managed beech forests. Additionally, interacting effects of spring water deficits and N deposition likely increase the reproductive effort of beech trees, particularly in ancient forests. Thus, the results of this thesis once again underpin the uniqueness of ancient, unmanaged beech forests, whose importance for the conservation of biodiversity has been widely acknowledged. In summary, the presented thesis highlights the need to consider the "ecological memory" of forest ecosystems when predicting responses to current and future environmental changes.
Increasingly, researchers are expected to work in collaborative interdisciplinary teams to tackle more complex and interrelated problems. However, the prospect of collaborating with others, from different disciplines, exerts countervailing forces on researchers. There is the lure of transcending the limitations of one's own knowledge, methods and conventions, belonging to diverse intellectual communities and tackling, together, ambitious research topics. On the other hand, there is the risk that collaborating across disciplinary boundaries will be taxing, confounding at times, with no guarantee of success. This thesis is about collaborative interdisciplinary research from the perspective of a formative accompanying researcher. The author accompanied an interdisciplinary research team in the field of sustainability over three years for the duration of a collaborative project. Formative accompanying research (FAR) is an approach to "research into research" that learns about, with and for a collaborative interdisciplinary team. The author found - through immersion in the literature, her own daily experiences of collaborating, and her observations – that interdisciplinary collaboration is very difficult. It requires a basic understanding and appreciation of other disciplines and methods, as well as the skills to integrate research inquiries and findings across diverse epistemologies. It also requires awareness that collaborative interdisciplinary research is more than an intellectual task of knowledge creation. Other factors matter, such as interpersonal relationships, power differentials, different research tempos and a sense of belonging. And these factors have an impact on processes and outcomes of collaborative knowledge creation. Knowing this implies a willingness to keep learning and to tolerate discomfort so as to cultivate deeper levels of collaborative capacity. The author discovered that in these deeper levels lie skills for staying with inevitable tensions, for talking and listening to generate new understanding together, and for applying a researcher's frank curiosity to oneself too. A formative accompanying researcher, who is part of the team she is researching, has to navigate delicate terrain. In this thesis, the author develops a FAR methodology that takes seriously the questions of positionality and relationality, and reflects on the experiences of putting these into practice. A FAR practice involves remaining in dynamic movement between observing and participating, between exercising curiosity and care, and between the researchers' own sense of impartiality and investment in relation to the issues at hand. There is merit in furthering the methodology and practice of FAR on its own terms. This includes attending to the skills required by a formative accompanying researcher to remain oriented within the concentric circles of research, relationship and loyalty that make up a collaborative team. There is also the question of how FAR, and other forms of research into research, can help to advance collaborative interdisciplinary research. The author argues for creating the conditions in research teams that would enable treating collaboration as a capacity to develop, and that would facilitate team members' receptivity to learning with FAR. Furthermore, she explores dilemmas of intervening as a formative accompanying researcher and of sustaining dynamic positionality over the long-term.
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.
Social insects like honeybees (Apis mellifera) and stingless bees (Apidae: Meliponini) face a relatively high risk to be attacked by pests and pathogens. To decrease the risk of infection, in addition to an innate immune system, these species have evolved various cooperative defense mechanisms which contribute to the overall health of the colonies and are therefore also referred to as social immunity. The collection and use of plant resin is another important strategy of social immunity. Resin is a sticky, often aromatic substance with antimicrobial and deterrent properties secreted by plants for protection of the vegetative tissue. Honeybees and stingless bees take advantage of these properties by using resins for nest construction (often mixtures of resin and wax called "propolis" or "cerumen") and as defense against pests and pathogens. Plant resins, thus, play a crucial role for the ecology of these species and are an important resource for them. Nevertheless, how bees exploit available resin sources and if resin collection can protect colonies from diseases received comparatively little attention in the past. Therefore the aim of this thesis is to provide new insights into the plant origin and significance as well as the influence of resin resource diversity on bee colony health. For honeybees (A. mellifera) in temperate regions, precise information about which resin sources they use is largely lacking. By chemical comparing bee-collected resins and tree resins, the researcher traced back the resin sources used by individual bees. Results show that honeybees collect distinct resin types that are related to different tree species (several poplar species: Populus balsamifera, P. xcanadensis; Betula alba; Aesculus hippocastanum; several poplar species). With this study, the author provided the first evidence, that A. mellifera in temperate regions use a variety of different tree species as resin sources and, moreover, show preferences for specific resin sources. Furthermore, the researcher conducted an experimental field study in which she investigated whether propolis, as it is naturally deposited in the nests, can protect honeybee colonies against some of the most important pathogens (Varroa destructor mite, Deformed Wing Virus). The results of this study showed that propolis in (semi-) natural conditions can increase the disease resistance of honeybee colonies, underscoring the importance of resins for honeybee health. Resin collection by stingless bees is comparatively well studied and it is known that these species commonly forage on a variety of different plant species. To increase knowledge on whether and how bees may profit from a diversity of resin resources, the researcheer tested how the protective function of a resin varied among different sources (and their mixtures) and various potential aggressors (predators, parasites and pathogens). The results of this study revealed that resins from different trees vary in their effectivity against different target organisms. Moreover, resin blends were more effective than some of the individual resins, suggesting that bees can benefit from a variety of resin resources. In summary, honeybees in temperate regions, similar to tropical stingless bees, use a variety of different tree species as resin sources. Because resins from different tree species varied in their protective function, this indicates that bees can profit from a variety of different resins/resin sources by improving the defense against diverse pests and pathogens. Conversely, the lack of resin had a negative impact on the disease resistance of colonies. Consequently, availability as well as the variety of suitable resin sources is of great importance for the health of bees.
Vocational Integration of Refugees - Chances and Challenges of Refugee (Social) Entrepreneurship
(2019)
In recent years, especially since 2015, Germany and other European countries have accepted high numbers of refugees. The social and vocational integration of these refugees and of those yet to come represents a challenge. (Social) entrepreneurship is one means to achieve this goal, to fully tap into the potential of refugees and to give them a chance to make a living in host countries. This dissertation examines the potential of vocational integration of refugees through (social) entrepreneurial activities. It includes a detailed literature review and suggests possible direction in the emerging field of refugee (social) entrepreneurship. This dissertation shows that to foster refugee (social) entrepreneurship, the identification and evaluation of specific and potential needs for support is essential. Incubators in particular have a high potential for supporting refugee entrepreneurs, in part it is possible for them to address some of the challenges faced by this target group, which differ from those of locals or migrant entrepreneurs. More specifically, this dissertation aims to answer two research questions: (1) What are relevant (social) entrepreneurial concepts that can contribute to the vocational integration of refugees? (2) What are the distinct contributions of and challenges faced by refugees when it comes to their vocational integration through (social) entrepreneurial activities? Analyzing select practical cases, this dissertation has several important implications for researchers who seek to bridge the gap between academia and society in the context of refugee entrepreneurship and refugee social entrepreneurship research. The findings presented here are also relevant for practitioners, for example those working at business incubators, who aim to facilitate the vocational and social integration of refugees in general and refugees with entrepreneurial aspirations in particular.