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Recognizing complexity in agricultural innovation: Advancing responsible scaling using the Rapid Scaling Tool in Intermediate Value Chains
No full textThis study aims to develop and apply the Rapid Scaling Tool (RST), a novel instrument designed to facilitate the responsible scaling of agricultural innovations. The RST integrates the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targeted agri-food sustainability indicators into one comprehensive evaluation framework. Developed iteratively through literature reviews, expert consultations, and case studies, the RST relies on stakeholder collaboration from the early stages of innovation development. It provides a three-step process to ensure that scaling efforts align with environmental, economic, and social sustainability targets. This framework guides practitioners through the complexities of scaling agricultural innovations, and uses Intermediate Value Chains (IVCs)as a case study to identify indicators for responsible scaling. The concept of IVCs represents a novel organizational structure within agri-food chains, offering a middle ground between short and long chain structures. This paper details the methodology behind the RST and discusses its implications for transforming agri-food systems, by applying it to a case study involving a Swedish IVC for wild berry picking. The IVC case study illustrates how the RST can aid in preemptively identifying potential negative impacts and developing mitigation strategies, while offering a practical solution for addressing the design paradox in early-stage innovation assessments. Building on its flexible, user-friendly design, this makes the RST an essential tool for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners aiming to achieve impactful and sustainable outcomes for scaling innovations in the agri-food sector
Combining quantitative and qualitative risk aspects for adaptive and flexible climate risk assessment
No full textWith increasing frequency and severity of climate risks, communities must further adopt Climate Risk Management (CRM) strategies. As a key component, Climate Risk Assessments (CRA) identify and evaluate climate risks across hazards, areas and sectors. Various CRA frameworks have been proposed and implemented by research, policy and practice. One key gap identified is the effective integration of quantitative and qualitative aspects in CRA to develop comprehensive results as well as ensure integration of various perspectives. For this, it is necessary to understand how quantitative and qualitative risk aspects come together in combined approaches to support and balance each other.
In the context of the EU Horizon 2021 project CLIMAAX, we developed a comprehensive CRA framework adapted for the European regional and community level. The Framework unites approaches for risk quantification (provided in the CLIMAAX Handbook) and at the same time encourages qualitative risk input through participation of experts, stakeholders and vulnerable groups. Our approach seeks to respond to needs, recent advancements and best practices in the CRA field by integrating insights from European National Adaptation Plans and Strategies, peer-reviewed literature, as well as existing CRA frameworks and international standards. The framework was collaboratively developed with five European pilot regions and considers survey responses from the CLIMAAX Community of Practice to ensure feasibility and applicability while upholding adaptive flexibility.
The CRA Framework is operationalized through a five-step assessment cycle (Scoping, Risk Exploration, Risk Analysis, Key Risk Assessment, Monitoring & Evaluation). These steps are supported by principles of social justice and equity, participatory processes, and technical considerations such as future scenarios. In the quantitative Risk Analysis step the Framework is strongly supported by multiple risk workflows estimating climate risk. The other four steps provide entry points for qualitative risk assessment perspectives, thus requiring translation and interdisciplinary thinking. We innovatively contextualise the risk analysis outcome as quantitative and qualitative aspects are processed together. Through an indicator-based evaluation of risk severity, risk urgency and resilience capacity we consider Key Risks in a multi-hazard risk context.
By collecting data from users within the CLIMAAX project, we will assess how qualitative as well as semi-quantitative risk perspectives can benefit and complement quantitative risk estimations as applied in the risk workflows. Further, by effectively integrating diverse perspectives, the framework aims to bridge the translation gap between risk assessment and CRM practices towards fostering resilience
Mapping inequalities in the health of older adults around the world: Heterogeneities in cognitive and physical functioning
Get PDFAmid global population ageing and evidence that health disparities in later life often stem from accumulated disadvantage, it is essential to assess health inequalities in older adults in an internationally comparable and comprehensive way. Addressing the shortcomings of analysing average health levels in a population while preserving the comparability of countries and subpopulations, we estimate Gini coefficients to examine inequalities in physical and cognitive functioning of older adults in 41 countries, stratified by gender and five-year age group. Utilising data from 11 nationally representative surveys on the health and ageing of older adults, we find substantial heterogeneities in physical and cognitive functioning inequalities across countries for both women and men. Notably, countries with higher median scores in cognitive functioning tend to exhibit significantly less pronounced inequalities. Furthermore, our results reveal a steep positive age gradient in both dimensions of cognitive functioning. Taken together, our descriptive results provide a valuable foundation for researchers and policymakers aiming to identify targeted interventions and policy measures to address health disparities
The power of sand: Can solid gravity close the energy storage gap?
Get PDFTransition to low-carbon energy systems primarily based on variable renewable energy, such as wind and solar, requires flexibility options, including energy storage. While batteries have dominated the market for short-term electricity storage, existing alternatives for long-duration energy storage are either site-specific, such as pumped hydropower storage (PHS), or lack the required supply infrastructure, such as green hydrogen and other synthetic fuels. We investigate the world's potential and project-specific cost of four emerging gravity energy storage technologies that are carbon-free and can be integrated into existing infrastructure: mountain gravity energy storage, electric truck gravity energy storage, underground energy storage, and lift energy storage technology. These electricity storage technologies can reach a levelized cost of (seasonal) energy storage as low as 94 USD MWh−1 and can store up to nearly 231 TWh of electricity globally (cf., the world's PHS total installed capacity is estimated to be 8.5–9 TWh today). Integrated gravity can play a role as long-duration energy storage in decarbonizing the energy sector and is a complementary solution to short-duration energy storage such as battery energy storage systems (BESS)
Exploring the digital footprints of migration: insights from google trends and protection seekers’ applications to Germany
Get PDFThis study investigates the potential of using Google Trends data to understand migration dynamics, focusing on people seeking protection in Germany between 2015 and 2019. By analyzing the relationship between changes in migration flows, expressed as percentage changes, and online search interest in Germany from origin countries, the study explores how digital behavior may reflect migration intentions. A weak but statistically significant positive correlation is observed, with regression analyses indicating a stronger relationship when controlling for year- and country-fixed effects. Notably, the coefficient increases markedly when focusing specifically on the top 10 origin countries, highlighting the potential of digital indicators in capturing migration intentions during acute migratory crises. The findings support the hypothesis that spikes in online search interest could signal interest in Germany among people seeking protection prior to migration. Despite limitations such as the reliance on relative search interest and low predictive power in the simple model, the study demonstrates the potential utility of digital data as a supplementary tool in migration research. Integrating such insights with traditional data sources can enhance understanding of the multifaceted drivers behind migration flows
Quantifying material stocks in long-lived products: Challenges and improvements for informing sustainable resource use strategies
Get PDFMaterial stocks in long-lived products require over half of the annual global resource extraction for their construction and maintenance, and lock in energy use through their technical and geospatial characteristics. A thorough understanding of material stocks is therefore essential to inform sustainable resource use strategies. However, despite substantial advances in material stock research in recent decades, their robust quantification remains challenging and bears considerable uncertainties. We assess the (dis)agreement of material stock estimates from 32 recent studies across global, national, and urban scales, and propose recommendations for future work. Overall, we observe medium to high divergences between studies estimating the same material stocks. For end-use categories that aggregate multiple material stocks (e.g., buildings), most global-level estimates show divergences within 140 %. At the national level, most estimates for the USA diverge by <210 %, while those for China by <550 %. At the urban level, most estimates for Beijing fall within 90 %, and for Vienna, within 70 %. For low-income countries, non-residential buildings, and individual materials, the differences are often substantially higher, highlighting the need for an improved scientific basis for policy and planning. These disparities arise from differences in system boundaries, methodology, data sources, definitions, and lack of data to capture the diversity of material stock types. To robustly inform sustainable resource use strategies, the scientific community and practitioners should systematically assess and report sensitivity and uncertainty, and reduce the latter through transparent documentation, model intercomparisons, consensus and open-access databases, enhanced data collection, and comprehensive quantification of material stocks
The Impact of Climate Change on the Water Sector in Spain
No full textThe stress on water resources is very high in the Mediterranean region, with pressures driven by substantial irrigation withdrawals. The impacts of climate change will be severe in the region, which will require a more sustainable water management. In Spain, the strong growth in income and population has doubled water withdrawals and degraded water quality since the 1960s. Although water management in Spain is based on stakeholders’ cooperation, the ample range of policy and investment initiatives has been unable to stop water scarcity in basins. The worst scarcity situation pervades the basins of southern Spain, which are almost closed basins with dwindling outflows in the Segura, Jucar and Guadalquivir estuaries. The Spanish plan for adaptation requires integrating climate change in water planning, and the adaptation measures considered are augmenting supply, curbing demand, irrigation modernization and better control of groundwater. Desalinated seawater and treated urban wastewater are already used in southern basins, and will be expanded in the short term. However, the water unbalance in the long term will require an enormous desalination capacity, or else a strong reduction of irrigation withdrawals, both with high costs to farmers. The evaluation of climate adaptation measures in selected basins indicates the outcomes from alternative policy strategies that impact economic activities and environmental flows
An exploration and evaluation framework for climate change mitigation scenarios with varying feasibility and desirability
Get PDFEnsembles of climate change mitigation scenarios present users with a collection of strategies for limiting global warming. These strategies may differ in their associated feasibility challenges, mitigation co-impacts, and ultimately their relative societal desirability. Understanding these scenario characteristics is therefore crucial when scenarios are used to inform strategic decisions. One approach to enhance this understanding is to establish scenario archetypes and select contrasting illustrative scenarios from a larger ensemble. We present a new multidimensional framework for the systematic comparison of scenarios at the global or regional level. We illustrate the framework with comparisons in seven dimensions: economic feasibility, mineral resource availability, impacts on societal resilience, near-term scenario robustness, environmental sustainability, interregional fairness, and speed of societal transformation. Using cluster analysis, the framework can be used to select a group of illustrative scenarios with contrasting scores across the dimensions. Beyond the selection of scenarios, our exploration and evaluation framework also allows the identification of gaps in the scenario space that may be of interest but are not covered by the literature. We demonstrate these use cases by applying our framework to a set of mitigation scenarios that limit warming to 1.5 °C. Our results show our framework systematically selects contrasting scenarios, with our illustrative pathways having diverging energy mixes and uses of carbon dioxide removal. Further, we highlight considerable regional differences in the distribution of indicator and dimension scores as a key area for further investigation
Mit dem Smartphone den Kohlenstoffspeicher von Bäumen messen
Get PDFIn diesem Workshop haben Schüler*innen die Möglichkeit, die 3D-Scan- und Augmented-Reality-Funktionen ihres Smartphones zu nutzen, um zu messen, wie viel Kohlenstoff ein Baum im nahegelegenen Park speichert. Dabei lernen sie, welchen typischen CO₂-Fußabdruck (z. B. eine Autofahrt) dieser gespeicherte Kohlenstoff ausgleichen kann. Nach einer kurzen Einführung vermessen wir Bäume im Donaupark. Abschließend besprechen wir die Messergebnisse, küren die genauesten Messungen und vergeben kleine Preise