Germany
The CIPRA compact “Energy” provides an overview on energy use and energy production in the Alps and describes national and regional strategies for climate protection and climate adaptation. Here CIPRA gives its central statement on this issue: if we want to stem earth warming, increasing efficiency is important but not sufficient: we must reduce our consumption of energy services. Renewable...
The reversal of freshwater acidification in the low mountain ranges of Germany is of public, political and scientific concern, because these regions are near natural ecosystems and function as an important drinking water supply. The aim of this study was to evaluate the status and trends of acidification reversal after two decades of reduced anthropogenic deposition...
Global climate change affects spatial and temporal patterns of precipitation and so has a major impact on surface and subsurface water balances. While global climate models are designed to describe climate change on global or continental scales, their resolution is too coarse for them to be suitable for describing regional climate change. Therefore, regional climate...
Mountain regions supply a large share of the world’s population with fresh water. Quantification of the hydrological significance of mountains, however, is subject to great uncertainty. Instead of focusing on global averages in advance, the present analysis follows a catchment-based approach using discharge data provided by the Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC)....
Natural mixed forests of European beech (Fagus sylvatica), Norway spruce (Picea abies), and silver fir (Abies alba) were widely replaced by spruce-dominated stands in the montane belt of the northern Calcareous Alps in historical times. This accounts for changing forest structure, diversity, and hemeroby. Observations in other parts of Europe suggest that this development should...
On Christmas Day 1999 winter storm “Lothar” devastated large areas of forest in Southern Germany. Storm damage is part of natural forest dynamics. For the local economy, however, the damage caused by “Lothar” was an economic catastrophe, and most areas were cleared and reforested within months. The forested areas of the lack Forest are indeed an essential part of the...
Farmers in the Rhone Biosphere Reserve (BR) in Germany receive payments between 150-200Euro/ha/year for conserving land grazed by sheep and cattle and thereby achieve environmental and nature conservation objectives.
Farmers converting to organic production get additional payments of about 250 Euros/ha/year for a transitional period. Farmers in hill and mountain areas can receive...
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