Die maltesische Landwirtschaft an der Schwelle zum EU-Beitritt

Die Maltesischen Inseln sind seit der Steinzeit besiedelt. In ihrer nationalen Geschichte, die von zahllosen Eroberern und Piratenüberfällen geprägt war, haben sich spezielle Formen landwirtschaftlicher Strukturen und Methoden herausgebildet. Dieser Artikel fasst die Geschichte der maltesischen Agrarwirtschaft in kurzer Form zusammen und widmet sich in der Folge insbesondere den Prozessen, die ihre sekundäre Stellung in der heutigen Wirtschaftslandschaft Maltas bedingt haben. Die Autoren beschreiben wie Industrie und Dienstleistungen nach und nach die Landwirtschaft als den dominierenden Wirtschaftsfaktor des Maltesischen Archipels abgelöst haben. Sie heben dabei bestimmte Phänomene hervor, die in besonderem Maße von dem Strukturwandel beeinflusst waren. Insbesondere die Auswirkungen auf den Weinbau und das Problem der aufgegebenen, einst landwirtschaftlich genutzten Hangterrassen werden in diesem Beitrag diskutiert. Versuche der maltesischen Regierung diese Probleme zu lösen werden Forderungen der Europäischen Union gegenüber gestellt und verglichen. Eine kurze kritische Diskussion der möglichen Auswirkungen von Maltas EU-Beitrittspolitik beendet den Artikel. (Autorenreferat)The Maltese Islands are colonized since the stone age. While experiencing a national history dominated by the names of countless Conquerers and piracy attacks, the Maltese population has developed special kinds of agricultural structures and methods. The article provides a short summary of the history of Maltese agriculture and especially of the processes that lead to its secondary position in today's economical environment. The authors describe how industry and services replaced agriculture as the dominating sector in Maltese economy. They point out several phenomenons affected in a high degree by the structural change. Especially effects on viticulture and the problem of abandoned terraces once used for farming are discussed. Attempts of Maltese Governmental Organisations to solve these problems are compared with claims of the European Union. A brief critical discussion of the possible effects of Malta's EU Accession policy closes the article. (author's abstract

Change of regulating ecosystem services in the Danube floodplain over the past 150 years induced by land use change and human infrastructure

Ecosystem services in floodplains are manifold. The regulating services regarding hydrological issues (e.g. flood protection, water purification) are of particular importance along rivers, and depend strongly on size and land use of the floodplain. In this paper, we transfer the commonly known land use changes in floodplains over the last 150 years into significant changes of the amount of different regulating ecosystem services. We investigated a floodplain stretch of 17 km along the Danube in Germany (approx. 90 km²). Thus, we mapped the spatial expansion of the active floodplain and the land use distribution for three different times: the earliest (not the pristine) state of 1869 on the basis of a historical map, 1963 after river regulation and 2013 as navigation channel with a hydropower dam on the basis of aerial photographs. The land use types woodland, grassland, arable land, settlements, and water bodies were distinguished. On the basis of land use as a proxy, we calculated the potential of four ecosystem services (flood retention, nitrogen and phosphorous retention, habitat provision) according to the method of Scholz et al. (2012a). The spatial extension of the active floodplain was continuously reduced from 56 km² (1869) to 18 km² (1963) to 11 km² (2013). The amount of grassland and arable land was reduced significantly in the active floodplain, whereas woodland increased. This entails a decrease of f lood retention (-80%), and nutrient retention (nitrogen: -60%, phosphor: -76%). Likewise, habitat provision was significantly reduced. In total, the potential benefits for humans have been negatively affected over the time by land use change and, above all, by the construction of embankments. Therefore, ecosystem services should be regarded by future floodplain management

Assessing land use and flood management impacts on ecosystem services in a river landscape (Upper Danube, Germany)

Rivers and floodplains provide many regulating, provisioning and cultural ecosystem services (ES) such as flood risk regulation, crop production or recreation. Intensive use of resources such as hydropower production, construction of detention basins and intensive agriculture substantially change ecosystems and may affect their capacity to provide ES. Legal frameworks such as the European Water Framework Directive, Bird and Habitats Directive and Floods Directive already address various uses and interests. However, management is still sectoral and often potential synergies or trade‐offs between sectors are not considered. The ES concept could support a joint and holistic evaluation of impacts and proactively suggest advantageous options. The river ecosystem service index (RESI) method evaluates the capacity of floodplains to provide ES by using a standardized five‐point scale for 1 km‐floodplain segments based on available spatial data. This scaling allows consistent scoring of all ES and their integration into a single index. The aim of this article is to assess ES impacts of different flood prevention scenarios on a 75 km section of the Danube river corridor in Germany. The RESI method was applied to evaluate scenario effects on 13 ES with the standardized five‐point scale. Synergies and trade‐offs were identified as well as ES bundles and dependencies on land use and connectivity. The ratio of actual and former floodplain has the strongest influence on the total ES provision: the higher the percentage and area of an active floodplain, the higher the sum of ES. The RESI method proved useful to support decision‐making in regional planning.BMBF, 033W024A, ReWaM - Verbundprojekt RESI: River Ecosystem Service Index, Teilprojekt