Mobilitätsverhalten der Wohnbevölkerung in Abhängigkeit von der Zentralität des Ortes

Der Beitrag analysiert die Wechselwirkungen der Zentralität eines Ortes mit der Alltagsmobilität im Bundesland Oberösterreich. Für die im Oberösterreichischen Landesraumordnungsprogramm festgelegten Zentralitätsstufen wird auf Basis der Oberösterreichischen Verkehrserhebung das Mobilitätsverhalten der Wohnbevölkerung ab sechs Jahren an einem typischen Werktag näher betrachtet. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass sich räumliche Strukturen auf den Anteil der Binnenwege an der Gesamtwegezahl, auf die mittlere Wegehäufigkeit pro Person und Tag und auf die Verkehrsmittelwahl auswirken. Hingegen verhält sich die Verteilung der Wegzwecke in allen Zentralitätsstufen sehr ähnlich. The article in hand analyses the interrelation between the centrality of a place and the traffic behaviour of its residents in everyday life. The evaluation is conducted for the province of Upper Austria which is situated in the northwest of Austria. The Upper Austrian Planning Programme determines four levels of centrality. For each level the traffic behaviour of the residents being six years of age and over is analysed for an average workday. The evaluation is based on the Upper Austrian Mobility Survey and shows that existing spatial structures affect the number of trips per person per day, the number of internal trips as well as the modal split. The purposes of the trips are similar within all levels of centrality. Document type: Boo

Integrated Analysis of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Measures in Austrian Agriculture

An integrated modelling framework (IMF) has been developed and applied to analyse climate change impacts and the effectiveness of adaptation measures in Austrian agriculture. The IMF couples the crop rotation model CropRota, the bio-physical process model EPIC and the bottom-up economic land use model PASMA at regional level (NUTS-3) considering agrienvironmental indicators. Four contrasting regional climate model (RCM) simulations represent climate change until 2050. The RCM simulations are applied to a baseline and three adaptation and policy scenarios. Climate change increases crop productivity on national average in the IMF. Changes in average gross margins at national level range from 0% to +5% between the baseline and the three adaptation and policy scenarios. The impacts at NUTS-3 level range from -5% to +7% between the baseline and the three adaptation and policy scenarios. Adaptation measures such as planting of winter cover crops, reduced tillage and irrigation are effective in reducing yield losses, increasing revenues, or in improving environmental states under climate change. Future research should account for extreme weather events in order to analyse whether average productivity gains at the aggregated level suffice to cover costs from expected higher climate variability

Partizipation und Stakeholder-Beteiligung in der Pilotregion Mostviertel: WP3 Synthesebericht

Aufgabe eines Partizipativen Regional Integrierten Vulnerabilitätsassessments (PRIVAS) ist es, in Zusammenarbeit mit Stakeholdern die integrative Wissensproduktion bei einem komplexen Mensch-Umwelt-Problem wie dem Klimawandel zu optimieren. Dieses Ziel stellt jedes Projekt vor konzeptive, methodische, prozessuale und forschungspraktische Herausforderungen, denen sich RIVAS in der Testregion gestellt hat. Auf Basis der Analyse und Erfahrungen aus 14 nationalen und internationalen Vulnerabilitätsassessments und der einschlägigen wissenschaftlichen Literatur wurde ein experimentelles Ablaufdesign für ein PRIVAS erstellt, welches im Mostviertel in einer Laufzeit von über einem Jahr umgesetzt wurde. Den Kern der Stakeholderinteraktionen bildete eine Referenzgruppe, die sich aus Akteuren der Demosektoren Land-, Wasser- und Forstwirtschaft, dem Regionalmanagement und des Projektteams zusammensetzte. Die Referenzgruppe war zentraler Kommunikationsort, wo eine Dialog- und Konsensorientierung vorherrschte. Die partizipativen Anknüpfungspunkte der Personen aus der Referenzgruppe im Vulnerabilitätsassessment waren unterschiedlich ausgeformt und gewichtet, da in RIVAS einige innovative und konzeptive Überlegungen getestet werden sollten. Der Schwerpunkt dabei wurde auf die partizipative Problemformulierung und Eingrenzung der Untersuchungsfragen (Phase „zu Beginn“ eines Assessments) sowie auf die Methodenanwendung und Analyse (Phase „während“ eines Assessments) gelegt. Eines der zentralen Ergebnisse von RIVAS ist, dass nicht nur das Produkt und die Ergebnisse einer Vulnerabilitätsbewertung Wissen und Verständnis schaffen, sondern dass zumindest gleichberechtigt auch der strukturierte Prozess für die Verbreitung, Aufnahme und den Transfer von Informationen und Wissen verantwortlich ist. Der Prozesscharakter solcher Interaktionen optimiert nicht nur die Qualität und Nutzbarkeit der Projektergebnisse, sondern unterstützt auch ein soziales Lernen und begünstigt langfristige Wirkungen, die weit über die Projektlaufzeit hinausreichen. Neben den bereits in der Literatur vielfach beschrieben organisatorischen Rahmenbedingungen (Transparenz, Regelmäßigkeit, Langfristigkeit, Vertrauenswürdigkeit, Interaktionsregeln und -techniken, Zeitpläne, etc.) ist vor allem der Grad der Partizipation ein entscheidendes Kriterium, welches für den Erfolg oder Misserfolg eines PRIVAS verantwortlich ist. In welchen Bereichen des Vulnerabilitätsassessments eine Mitbestimmung von Stakeholdern auf der Ebene der Information, Konsultation oder Mitbestimmung stattfinden soll, muss nicht nur frühzeitig und entlang der Bedürfnisse der Stakeholder und WissenschafterInnen abgestimmt werden, sondern sollte insbesondere immer einer zielgerichteten Entscheidung unterliegen, die auf den Zweck der Partizipation fokussiert. Ein weiteres Attribut für das Gelingen eines PRIVAS ist eine regel- und gleichmäßige Partizipation der Stakeholder. Das Projekt zeigt auf, dass die Institutionalisierung der Beteiligung vor allem durch die Bildung der Referenzgruppe gewährleistet werden konnte. Darüber hinaus hat die Einbindung eines regionalen Prozessträgers – des Regionalmanagements Mostviertel – entscheidend zur Beteiligungsmotivation beigetragen. Die Partizipation an einem Prozess und nicht nur die punktuellen Beteiligung an einem Projekt stand damit im Vordergrund. Schlussendlich müssen sich alle Partizipationsverfahren in einem PRIVAS dahingehend rechtfertigen, ob der notwendige Aufwand an Kosten und Zeit in einem angemessenen Verhältnis zu den Ergebnissen steht, und ob die im Projekt angestrebten Ziele auch erreicht wurden. Beides kann mit Hilfe der nach Abschluss des regionalen Projektteils durchgeführten Evaluation der Stakeholderbeteiligung für RIVAS positiv bestätigt werden

Farm typologies for understanding farm systems and improving agricultural policy

CONTEXT: Farm typologies help to identify patterns across a wide range of farm systems and describe heterogeneity in agriculture concisely. They can also support the design of agricultural policies by providing information and knowledge about policy target groups. For example, voluntary agri-environmental schemes could be tailored to specific agricultural landscapes and farm types. Farm typologies, however, are often developed from scratch, with limited connection to previous studies and policy making. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to clarify the purposes of farm typologies in research and agricultural policy making and to develop a framework that allows to increase the usefulness and usability of farm typologies for agricultural policy making. METHODS: Based on a review of 13 systematically identified overview studies on farm typologies, we develop a framework that establishes connections between the purposes of farm typologies along the different stages of the policy process. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We find multiple purposes for farm typologies, the two most common of which are for understanding the characteristics, heterogeneity, and development of farm systems and for policy making. The newly developed framework suggests that connecting knowledge across these purposes could improve the validity, transferability, and relevance of farm typologies for agricultural policy making. Our framework also provides an entry point for encouraging cooperation between developers and users of typologies, and for the improvement of typologies through new data (including behavioural data) and methods such as machine learning. We conclude that future research can build on the existing work on farm typologies but must be aware of the specific challenges that are associated with the use of farm typologies in the policy process. SIGNIFICANCE: Knowledge of the prospects and challenges of using farm typologies allows to increase the usefulness and usabilityof these typologies and can contribute to the design of targeted and tailored agricultural policy instruments. By increasing the acceptance, perceived fairness, and legitimacy, this can improve their effectiveness and efficiency, which is urgently needed for a successful transformation to a more sustainable agricultural sector

Pesticide use under the influence of socio-economic and climate change: Pest-Agri-SSPs

Pesticide use is a crucial human-driven change in the Anthropocene that negatively impacts the environment and ecosystems. While pesticides are essential to agriculture to sustain crop production and ensure global food security, they also lead to significant environmental impacts. The export of pesticides after application from the agricultural fields threatens the soil, groundwater and surface water quality in many world regions. Pesticide use is constantly increasing globally, driven mainly by agricultural intensification, despite stricter regulations and higher pesticide effectiveness. To enhance the understanding of future pesticide use and emissions and make informed farm-to-policy decisions, we developed Pesticide Agricultural Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (Pest-Agri-SSPs) in six steps. The Pest-Agri-SSPs are based on an extensive literature review and expert knowledge, considering significant climate and socio-economic drivers from farm to continental scale in combination with multiple actors impacting them. In the literature, pesticide use is associated with farmer behaviour and agricultural practices, pest damage, technique and efficiency of pesticide application, agricultural policy and demand for agricultural products. Here, we developed Pest-Agri-SSPs upon this understanding of pesticide use drivers and relating them to plausible sectoral developments, as described by the Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems (Eur-Agri-SSPs). The Pest-Agri-SSPs present European pesticide use in five scenarios with low to high challenges to climate change adaptation and mitigation up to 2050. The most sustainable scenario (Pest-Agri-SSP1) shows a decrease in pesticide use owing to sustainable agricultural practices, technological advances and a pro-environmental orientation of agricultural policies. On the contrary, the Pest-Agri-SSP3 and Pest-Agri-SSP4 show an increase in pesticide use resulting from high challenges from pest pressure, resource depletion and relaxed agricultural policies. Pest-Agri-SSP2 presents a stabilised pesticide use resulting from strict policies and slow transitions by farmers to sustainable agricultural practices. Pest-Agri-SSP5 shows a decrease in pesticide use for most drivers, influenced mainly by rapid technological development and the application of sustainable agricultural practices. However, Pest-Agri-SSP5 also shows a relatively low rise in pesticide use driven by agricultural demand, production, and climate change. Our results highlight the need for a holistic approach to tackle pesticide use and emissions, considering the identified drivers and future developments. The storylines and qualitative assessment provide a platform to make quantitative assumptions for numerical modelling and evaluating policy targets

Extending shared socio-economic pathways for pesticide use in Europe: Pest-Agri-SSPs

While pesticides are essential to agriculture and food systems to sustain current production levels, they also lead to significant environmental impacts. The use of pesticides is constantly increasing globally, driven mainly by a further intensification of agriculture, despite stricter regulations and higher pesticide effectiveness. To further the understanding of future pesticide use and make informed farm-to-policy decisions, we developed Pesticide Agricultural Shared Socio-economic Pathways (Pest-AgriSSPs) in six steps. The Pest-Agri-SSPs are developed based on an extensive literature review and expert feedback approach considering significant climate and socio-economic drivers from farm to continental scale in combination with multiple actors impacting them. In literature, pesticide use is associated with farmer behaviour and practices, pest damage, technique and efficiency of pesticide application, agricultural policy and agriculture demand and production. Here, we developed PestAgri-SSPs upon this understanding of pesticide use drivers and relating them to possible agriculture development as described by the Shared Socio-economic Pathways for European agriculture and food systems (Eur-Agri-SSPs).The Pest-AgriSSPs are developed to explore European pesticide use in five scenarios representing low to high challenges to mitigation and adaptation up to 2050. The most sustainable scenario (Pest-Agri-SSP1) shows a decrease in pesticide use owing to sustainable agricultural practices, technological advances and better implementation of agricultural policies. On the contrary, the Pest-Agri-SSP3 and Pest-Agri-SSP4 show a higher increase in pesticide use resulting from higher challenges from pest pressure, resource depletion and relaxed agricultural policies. Pest-Agri-SSP2 presents a stabilised pesticide use resulting from stricter policies and slow transitions by farmers to sustainable agricultural practices. At the same time, pest pressure, climate change and food demand pose serious challenges. Pest-Agri-SSP5 shows a decrease in pesticide use for most drivers, influenced mainly by rapid technological development and sustainable agricultural practices. However, Pest-Agri-SSP5 also presents a relatively low rise in pesticide use driven by agricultural demand, production, and climate change. Our results highlight the need for a holistic approach to tackle pesticide use, considering the identified drivers and future developments. The storylines and qualitative assessment provide a platform to make quantitative assumptions for numerical modelling and evaluating policy targets

Ten principles to integrate the water-energy-land nexus with climate services for co-producing local and regional integrated assessments

The water-energy-land nexus requires long-sighted approaches that help avoid maladaptive pathways to ensure its promise to deliver insights and tools that improve policy-making. Climate services can form the foundation to avoid myopia in nexus studies by providing information about how climate change will alter the balance of nexus resources and the nature of their interactions. Nexus studies can help climate services by providing information about the implications of climate-informed decisions for other economic sectors across nexus resources. First-of-its-kind guidance is provided to combine nexus studies and climate services. The guidance consists of ten principles and a visual guide, which are discussed together with questions to compare diverse case studies and with examples to support the application of the principles