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The "Invisible" Subsoil

An Exploratory View of Societal Acceptance of Subsoil Management in Germany

Hidden beneath the humus-rich topsoil, the subsoil usually receives little attention in agricultural practice. Yet, plants cover between 10 and 80% of their nutrient and water needs from subsoils. Measures to improve the subsoil could help in bridging droughts and stabilising yields. But how do farmers and other societal actors perceive different methods for subsoil management? Ecologic Institutes's Ana Frelih-Larsen, Mandy Hinzmann and Sophie Ittner published the first exploratory research results on the societal acceptance of subsoil management in the open access journal Sustainability. Read more

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Opportunities and Barriers for Water Co-Governance

A Critical Analysis of Seven Cases of Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture in Europe, Australia and North America

Diffuse Water Pollution from Agriculture (DWPA) and its governance has received increased attention as a policy concern across the globe. Mitigation of DWPA is a complex problem that requires a mix of policy instruments and a multi-agency, broad societal response. In this article - to which Dr. Grit Martinez and Dr. Nico Stelljes of Ecologic Institute contributed as co-authors - opportunities and barriers for developing co-governance, defined as collaborative societal involvement in the functions of government, and its suitability for mitigation of DWPA, are reviewed using seven case studies in Europe, Australia and North America. The article is available for download.Read more

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Article

Water

Empfehlungen des Forums Fischschutz und Fischabstieg

In April 2018, the second cycle of the Forum "Fish Protection and Downstream Migration" ended, which was devoted, among other things, to improving the implementation of measures. In this article, the authors, among them Dr. Ulf Stein of Ecologic Institute, summarize the intensive discourse between all stakeholders over the past six years and present the resulting twelve recommendations. The recommendations describe how to proceed with this topic in the future and how to avoid potential conflicts in practice. The article is published in WasserWirtschaft, Issue 06/2018, Springer Vieweg and is available for download.Read more

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Contemporary Resource Policy and Decoupling Trends

Lessons Learnt from Integrated Model-Based Assessments

Addressing climate change and natural resource depletion has been key to the international and national sustainability agenda for almost 30 years. Despite existing efforts, global CO2 emissions and raw material use levels continue to grow. This seems to suggest the need for more systemic approaches in environmental policy. The authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers, call upon policy makers to integrate rebound mitigation strategies and move beyond exclusively improving efficiency to tackling structural and behavioural changes. The article is available for download.Read more

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Developing Countries in the Lead – What Drives the Diffusion of Plastic Bag Policies?

While diffusion patterns are quite well understood in the context of the Global North, diffusion research has only been applied to a limited extent to investigate how policies spread across developing countries. Ecologic Institute's Doris Knoblauch, Linda Mederake and Ulf Stein therefore analyze the diffusion patterns of plastic bag bans and taxes in the Global South and Global North to contribute to the further refinement of diffusion theory by specifically addressing the under-researched Global South. The article is available for download.Read more

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Individual Local Farmers' Perceptions of Environmental Change in Tanzania

Communications – Water

Röschel, Lina, et. al. 2018: Individual Local Farmers' Perceptions of Environmental Change in Tanzania. Water 10(4), 525.Read more

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Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity Across the Freshwater, Coastal and Marine Realms

Is the existing EU policy framework fit for purpose?

This paper presents an integrated assessment of how EU policies influence aquatic biodiversity in order to determine how EU policies and laws contribute to achieving and/or hindering EU and international biodiversity targets. The authors from Ecologic Institute, IUCN, and ACTeon also discuss whether European policy has a synergistic or conflicting mix of instruments to address the main problems facing aquatic biodiversity, and whether there are any gaps in the existing policy framework. The article is available for download.Read more

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Getting into the Water with the Ecosystem Services Approach

The DESSIN ESS evaluation framework

Ecologic Institute contributed to a practical guide for local-level evaluations of changes in ecosystem services. The approach helps to associate such changes to specific water management measures and enables both monetization and qualitative appraisal of impacts.Possible links between WFD State parameters and specific ESS classes are proposed. The article is available for download.Read more

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Article

Cultural Ecology

Water

Experiences and Results from Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Utilizing Qualitative Information to Formulate Disaster Risk Reduction Measures for Coastal Regions

The article illustrates both the potential and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration amongst researchers from the social sciences/humanities and the natural sciences/engineering in formulating disaster risk reduction measures for coastal regions. The authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Grit Martinez, share their experiences of working across different scientific and engineering disciplines in the EU project RISC-KIT to co-produce disaster risk reduction measures suitable for specific regional and local contexts, in this case two coastal study areas in Europe (Porto Garibaldi, Italy and Rio Formosa, Portugal). The article is available for download.Read more

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Article

Climate

International Environmental Law

Negotiating Climate Change in the UN

Same Procedure as Every Year? Not Quite!

In their 2007 publication for the first issue of CCLR, Dr. Camilla Bausch, Director of Ecologic Institute, and Michael Mehling, Partner and Board Member of the Institute, took stock of progress with climate negotiations under the United Nations. Now, a decade later, they have revisited their assessment, tracing the tumultuous path of negotiations since 2007, and pointing to milestones in the journey, major achievements, as well as challenges that lie ahead.Read more