Austria

GMO-free Alps: An alternative path in technology development?

Risk assessment of new technologies such as the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agricultural production is enormously complex. It cannot be limited to analysis only from the perspective of the natural sciences; socio economic factors need to be considered as well. Active promotion of GMO-free areas is discussed here as an alternative means of technological development....

GIS Assessment of vegetation and hydrological change in a high mountain catchment of the northern limestone Alps
Large-scale vegetation mapping (1:10,000) was applied to obtain estimates of the hydrological properties and dynamics in catchment areas that supply water to the capital city of Austria (Vienna). Vegetation types as defined by standard relevé technique, such as alpine grassland, snow bed vegetation, and krummholz were related to habitat conditions. A GIS served as the focal exploration...
Mountain research across boundaries: A portrait of the international scientific committee on research in the Alps (ISCAR)
The (European) Alpine Convention is a commitment with the status of international law, signed in 1991 by all Alpine states. The parties—Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco, Slovenia, and Switzerland, and the European Union—have agreed to cooperate with regard to sustainable development in the Alps. The domains and modalities of cooperation...
Modelling woody material transport and deposition in alpine rivers
Recent flood events in Switzerland and Western Austria in 2005 were characterised by an increase in impacts and associated losses due to the transport of woody material. As a consequence, protection measures and bridges suffered considerable damages. Furthermore, cross-sectional obstructions due to woody material entrapment caused unexpected flood plain inundations resulting in severe damage to...
Quantifying changes and trends in glacier area and volume in the Austrian Ötztal Alps (1969-1997-2006)
In this study, the authors apply a simple and reliable method to derive recent changes in glacier area and volume by taking advantage of high resolution LIDAR (light detection and ranging) DEMs (digital elevation models) from the year 2006. Together with two existing glacier inventories (1969 and 1997) the new dataset enables to quantify area and volume changes over the past...
Snowmaking and climate change: Future options for snow production in Tyrolean ski resorts
Winter tourism is highly sensitive to climate change. The sufficiently studied altitudinally dependent line of natural snow reliability is losing its relevance for skilift operators in Austria, where 59% of the ski area is covered by artificial snowmaking. But the diffusion of snowmaking facilities cannot be monocausally linked to climate change, as trends in tourism, prestige, and competitive...
Integrated monitoring of the effects of airborne nitrogen and sulfur in the Austrian limestone Alps
Many forested areas in industrial countries are exposed to excess deposition of airborne nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S). Biodiversity decline is one of many observed effects. Unlike N deposition, S loads have been decreasing continuously over the last 25 years. In this paper, we evaluated the use of species diversity in four taxonomic groups (vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes, birds) as...
Organic Farming: Enhancing Environmental Services from Farmland in Austria

In Austria organic farming boomed since the early nineties with over 70% of organic farms located in mountain regions.  Organic farms comply with the EU regulation for production, labelling and inspection.  Production is monitored by independent control agencies. The label ‘from organic production’ supports marketing and promotion of organic goods.
The support for...

List of abstracts of articles in the MF Bulletin, January 2010 issue

The 2010 Janauray edition of Mountain FOrum Bulletin mainly focuses on the articles' based on Payment of Environmental Services in Mountain Areas of different parts of the world. The bulletin contains total thirty two case articles and consists of activities done on PES in different environmental resources such as agriculture, water,carbon, biodiversity, ecotoursim and forest.

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The turnip (Brassica rapa L. subsp. rapa) in eastern Tyrol (Lienz district; Austria)
The turnip (Brassica rapa L. ssp. rapa), has been a very important crop in the Alps for centuries. It’s main uses were food and fodder. The fermented turnips (Ruebenkraut) used to be, as was sauerkraut, a very important winter foodstuff. The importance of turnips in Alpine countries is shown by the fact that they were even shown on the coat of arms belonging to noble...

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