GIS-gestützte Regionalisierung von Klima- und Depositionsdaten in Niedersachsen

Es wurden punkthaft vorliegende Infonnationen über langjährige Mittelwerte der Klimaelemente Lufttemperatur, Niederschlag und relative Luftfeuchte sowie atmogener Depositionen (Sufat, Nitrat, Ammonium, Chlor, Protonen und pH-Wert der Bulk-Depositionen) durch die Beschreibung der Meßsituation und der räumlichen Autokorrelation regionalisiert, d.h. auf die Fläche des Untersuchungsgebietes Niedersachsen übertragen. Dabei wurden die drei Kriterien Einfachheit, Präzision und Plausibilität bei der Bildung der Übertragungsmodelle berücksichtigt. Insbesondere die Möglichkeiten, die sich durch die Verwendung eines Geographischen Infonnationssystems (GIS) für die Unterstützung des Regionalisierungsprozesses ergeben, wurden aufgezeigt. Zur Beschreibung der Meßsituation an den jeweiligen Meßstationen wurden räumliche Variablen verwendet. In Form von Rastern lagen diese räumlichen Informationen in einem GIS vor und konnten bei bekannter geographischer Lage für die Meßstationen ermittelt bzw. interpoliert werden. Die räumlichen Variablen wurden als Regressoren in schrittweisen linearen Regressionen der Zielvariablen verwendet. Der systematische Teil der räumlichen Streuung der Zielvariablen (Klimadaten von DWD und HWW und Depositionsmessungen des FZW und des NLä) wird durch die Streuung der räumlichen Variablen erklärt. Um dabei eine Fehl- oder Überinterpretation der vorliegenden Datenkollektive zu vermeiden und damit die Gültigkeit der modellierten Beziehungen für das Zielgebiet sicherzustellen, wurde den Kriterien Einfachheit und Plausibilität in der Modellbildung große Beachtung geschenkt. hn Falle der Regionalisierung dreißigjähriger mittlerer Niederschlagssummen konnte wegen einer ausreichend großen Anzahl und einer geeigneten räumlichen Verteilung von Meßstationen im Anschluß an die schrittweise lineare Regression eine Semivariogrammanalyse und das geostatistische Kriging der Regressionsresiduen durchgeführt werden. Das Zielgebiet Niedersachsen wurde grundsätzlich in Berg- und Tiefland unterteilt. Die GIS-gestützte Umsetzung der Regionalisierungsmodelle in Form von Rastern konnte sowohl zur Darstellung der Ergebnisse als auch zur Überprüfung der Plausibilität verwendet werden. Trotz starker Gewichtung des Kriteriums Einfachheit konnten plausible Übertragungsmodelle gefunden werden, die -vor allem im Fall der Klimadaten -im Verhältnis zu möglichen Meßfehlem eine hohe Präzision erreichen

Forest Health Status in Europe

Forest health status in Europe is assessed by the International Cooperative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests (ICP Forests). Established by the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the ICP Forests has been monitoring forest condition in close cooperation with the European Commission (EC) for 20 years. The present paper describes the latest results of the deposition measurements on permanent monitoring plots and of the extensive defoliation sample survey. The findings reveal marked spatial patterns in bulk and throughfall depositions of nitrate (N-NO3-), ammonium (N-NH4+), and sulfate (S-SO42-), as well as an obvious decrease in bulk and throughfall deposition of sulfate. Latest analyses of defoliation data confirm previous results, indicating a high correlation with weather extremes

Forest Focus Monitoring Database System - Validation Methodology 2008

Forest Focus (Regulation (EC) No 2152/2003) is a Community scheme for harmonized, broadbased, comprehensive and long-term monitoring of European forest ecosystems. Under this scheme the monitoring of air pollution effects on forests is carried out by participating countries on the basis of the systematic network of observation points (Level I) and of the network of observation plots for intensive and continuous monitoring (Level II). According to Article 15(1) of the Forest Focus Regulation Member States shall annually, through the designated authorities and agencies, forward to the Commission geo-referenced data gathered under the scheme, together with a report on them by means of computer telecommunications and/or electronic technology. For managing the data JRC has implemented a Forest Focus Monitoring Database System. This report presents the methodology used to validate Level II data. The procedures applied at the various stages of checking data Compliance, Conformity and Uniformity are described. The report also provides detailed information on the interpretation of data formats and the threshold values used in the Conformity range tests.JRC.H.7-Land management and natural hazard

Reactions to geovisualization: An experience from a European project

The paper is written jointly by two parties, computer scientists specializing in geovisualization and experts in forestry, who cooperated within a joint project. The authors tell a story about an attempt of the geovisualizers to introduce the foresters to the concept and principles of exploratory data analysis and to the use of visualization for systematic and comprehensive data exploration. This endeavor should be considered as an informal experiment rather than a rigorous scientific study. Unlike customary tests of the usability of specific tools and techniques, the geovisualizers did not give the forestry specialists a series of tasks to carry out by applying geovisualization tools and did not try to measure how well the foresters performed. The idea of the geovisualizers was to demonstrate the principles and power of exploratory data analysis to the foresters by example. For this purpose, the geovisualizers performed an exploration of a non‐trivial data set by themselves and reported the procedure, the principles, the techniques, and the findings to the foresters. The reaction of the foresters uncovered a range of fundamental issues that are relevant to geovisualization and information visualization research. The authors analyze these issues from their perspectives and formulate a set of questions which researchers in geovisualization should be asking

EFO-LCI: A New Life Cycle Inventory Database of Forestry Operations in Europe

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a common methodology to analyze environmental impacts of forestry systems. Although LCA has been widely applied to forestry since the 90s, the LCAs are still often based on generic Life Cycle Inventory (LCI). With the purpose of improving LCA practices in the forestry sector, we developed a European Life Cycle Inventory of Forestry Operations (EFO-LCI) and analyzed the available information to check if within the European forestry sector national differences really exist. We classified the European forests on the basis of "Forest Units" (combinations of tree species and silvicultural practices). For each Forest Unit, we constructed the LCI of their forest management practices on the basis of a questionnaire filled out by national silvicultural experts. We analyzed the data reported to evaluate how they vary over Europe and how they affect LCA results and made freely available the inventory data collected for future use. The study shows important variability in rotation length, type of regeneration, amount and assortments of wood products harvested, and machinery used due to the differences in management practices. The existing variability on these activities sensibly affect LCA results of forestry practices and raw wood production. Although it is practically unfeasible to collect site-specific data for all the LCAs involving forest-based products, the use of less generic LCI data of forestry practice is desirable to improve the reliability of the studies. With the release of EFO-LCI we made a step toward the construction of regionalized LCI for the European forestry sector

Creating a Regional MODIS Satellite-Driven Net Primary Production Dataset for European Forests

Net primary production (NPP) is an important ecological metric for studying forest ecosystems and their carbon sequestration, for assessing the potential supply of food or timber and quantifying the impacts of climate change on ecosystems. The global MODIS NPP dataset using the MOD17 algorithm provides valuable information for monitoring NPP at 1-km resolution. Since coarse-resolution global climate data are used, the global dataset may contain uncertainties for Europe. We used a 1-km daily gridded European climate data set with the MOD17 algorithm to create the regional NPP dataset MODIS EURO. For evaluation of this new dataset, we compare MODIS EURO with terrestrial driven NPP from analyzing and harmonizing forest inventory data (NFI) from 196,434 plots in 12 European countries as well as the global MODIS NPP dataset for the years 2000 to 2012. Comparing these three NPP datasets, we found that the global MODIS NPP dataset differs from NFI NPP by 26%, while MODIS EURO only differs by 7%. MODIS EURO also agrees with NFI NPP across scales (from continental, regional to country) and gradients (elevation, location, tree age, dominant species, etc.). The agreement is particularly good for elevation, dominant species or tree height. This suggests that using improved climate data allows the MOD17 algorithm to provide realistic NPP estimates for Europe. Local discrepancies between MODIS EURO and NFI NPP can be related to differences in stand density due to forest management and the national carbon estimation methods. With this study, we provide a consistent, temporally continuous and spatially explicit productivity dataset for the years 2000 to 2012 on a 1-km resolution, which can be used to assess climate change impacts on ecosystems or the potential biomass supply of the European forests for an increasing bio-based economy. MODIS EURO data are made freely available at ftp://palantir.boku.ac.at/Public/MODIS_EURO.Peer reviewe

Risk governance in organizations

Dieses Buch dokumentiert 10 Jahre Risk-Governance-Forschung an der Universität Siegen. In 50 Beiträgen reflektieren Forscher und Praktiker Risk Governance vor dem Hintergrund ihrer eigenen Forschungen und/oder Erfahrungen und geben jeweils einen Entwicklungsimpuls für die Zukunft der Risk Governance. Das Buch zeigt die große Bandbreite und Tiefe des Forschungsgebietes auf und diskutiert Grundannahmen, Implementierungsfragen, die Rolle der Risk Governance als Transformationsmotor, ihre Wirkung in den verschiedenen betrieblichen Funktionen, Entwicklungsperspektiven und den Beitrag der Risk Governance zu einer nachhaltigen Ausrichtung von Unternehmen.This book documents 10 years of risk governance research at the University of Siegen. In 50 contributions, researchers and practitioners reflect on risk governance against the background of their own research and/or experience and provide a development impetus for the future of risk governance. The book shows the wide range and depth of the research field and discusses basic assumptions, implementation issues, the role of risk governance as transformation engine, its impact in the various operational functions, development perspectives, and the contribution of risk governance to a sustainable orientation of companies

Short Communication Proceedings: Impacts of Air Pollution and Climate Change on Forest Ecosystems TheScientificWorldJOURNAL

), as well as an obvious decrease in bulk and throughfall deposition of sulfate. Latest analyses of defoliation data confirm previous results, indicating a high correlation with weather extremes

Land Use Spatial Optimization for Sustainable Wood Utilization at the Regional Level: A Case Study from Vietnam

Forest landscape restoration is a widely accepted approach to sustainable forest management. In addition to revitalizing degraded sites, forest landscape restoration can increase the supply of sustainable timber and thereby reduce logging in natural forests. The current study presents a spatial land use optimization model and utilizes a linear programming algorithm that integrates timber production and timber processing chains to meet timber demand trade-offs and timber supply. The objective is to maximize yield and profit from forest plantations under volatile timber demands. The model was parameterized for a case study in Thai Nguyen Province, Vietnam, where most forest plantations grow Acacia mangium (A. mangium). Data were obtained from field surveys on tree growth, as well as from questionnaires to collect social-economic information and determine the timber demand of local wood processing mills. The integration of land use and wood utilization approaches reduces the amount of land needed to maintain a sustainable timber supply and simultaneously leads to higher yields and profits from forest plantations. This forest management solution combines economic and timber yield aspects and promotes measures focused on economic sustainability and land resource efficiency