Suchergebnisse

This paper summarises the results of the Sphere+ Project (Substitution Projects for Health and Environment, Lessons from Results and Experiences) and in particular the outcomes of FEEM's contribution in the field of substituting hazardous molecules used to control weeds to preserve the quality of water resources. The story of the study case started in Italy, in the mid 80's, with the introduction of the EC Directive 80/778 concerning drinking water. The acceptable limits for pesticide concentrations were so low that most of the groundwater sources for northern Italian towns' aqueducts became unsuitable for human consumption, quite often because of high concentrations of the herbicide Atrazine (commonly used for maize cultivation). This paper examines the story of the substitution of Atrazine with alternatives that have a lower environmental impact, focussing in particular on the comparison between end users' and institutional perspectives, policy implications, the relationship between communication and political strategies and the research sector.

The book begins with a broad global overview of the probable economic and social consequences of climate change. The authors then focus on the issue of water resources and assess a range of potential problems such as increasing droughts, adequate irrigation, reduced water quality and population migration due to severe shortages. They move on to examine issues surrounding land use including desertification, degradation, agriculture and waste management. Finally, they investigate the coastal zones of the Mediterranean which are economically vulnerable to variations in climate due to their reliance on tourism. The book integrates methodological and empirical issues, provides interdisciplinary analyses of the effects of climate change and explores policy implications for the future.

The Nostrum-DSS EU funded Co-ordination Action (CA) aims at contributing to the achievement of improved governance and planning in the field of sustainable water management within the Mediterranean Basin by establishing a network between the science, policy, and civil society spheres and through the development and dissemination of Best Practices Guidelines (BPGs) for the design and implementation of DSSs for IWRM in the Mediterranean Area. Decision Support Systems (DSS) have a great theoretical potential as tools for the identification of optimal water resource management regimes in the Mediterranean basin, thus helping policy makers (PMs) to bring the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) into practice. However, such tools are only episodically exploited outside the academia. This article presents the outcomes of project activities targeting the development of more effective communication strategies, in order to facilitate the development of research products with greater potential for been up taken by the expected end-users, i.e. the community of policy makers, and their staffs, advisors, consultants, etc., in the Mediterranean Region.

Water pollution in the Venice Lagoon and its catchment is a main environmental issue. In Italy public funds are made available by specific national and regional regulations in order to support the realisation of initiatives for the abatement of pollutant loads that travel from the catchment into the lagoon.Local agencies in charge of water management may apply for funds by presenting suitable projects in the field of hydraulic and environmental engineering particularly modifications to the surface water network aimed at reducing diffuse pollutant loads in the Venice Lagoon. Because the need to support those agencies in choosing among options often arises, together with the need of presenting and supporting choices that are made, in front of the funding administration. The decisional context of the present study was determined by a given amount of public funds made available by the regional administration, to be used in an optimal way by choosing what to do (within a list of possible interventions like flow regulation, plantation of riparian vegetation, etc.) and where (within the surface water network of the district).A multi-stage multi-criteria evaluation approach was developed, which subdivided the decisional problem into two operational phases.In a first step a priority sub-area was chosen within the district with a multi-criteria evaluation procedure which took into account several decisional criteria, formulated by the authority responsible for the decision. Those criteria were quantified by using thematic maps (GIS layers), as spatial indicators for prioritising the location of pollution control initiatives.In a second step the choice among alternative projects within the chosen area was supported by a second round of multi-criteria analysis developed in collaboration with a decisional board.The results of the application of the proposed method to the case study demonstrated the potentials of collaborative multi-criteria analysis in supporting the activity of operational agencies during the whole process of development of proposals, plans for interventions and projects, both internally to share information and build consensus within the various component of the board, and outside, in the relationship with external bodies (funding agencies, local stakeholders, etc.), to present and support the decisions proposed.

This work illustrates the preliminary findings of a participatory research process aimed at identifying responses for sustainable water management in a climate change perspective, in two river basins in Europe and Asia. The paper describes the methodology implemented through local workshops, aimed at eliciting and evaluating possible responses to flood risk. Participatory workshops allowed for the identification of four categories of possible responses and a set of nine evaluation criteria, three for each of the three pillars of sustainable development. The main outcome of such activities consists in the ranking of broad response categories instrumental to the objective of the Brahmatwinn research project, i.e. the identification of Integrated Water Resource Management Strategies (IWRMS) based upon the issues and preferences elicited from local experts. The mDSS tool was used to facilitate transparent and robust management of the information collected through Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and communication of the outputs.

The European Alpine region is one of the most sensitive to climate change impacts. ClimAlpTour is a European research project of the Alpine Space Programme, dealing with the expected decrease in snow and ice cover. The research reported herein analyses the municipality of Auronzo di Cadore (22,000 ha) in the Dolomites. The local economy depends on tourism which is currently focused on the summer season. Since recently the Community Council is considering options on how to stimulate a further development of the winter tourism. This paper refers to a prototype agent-based model, called AuronzoWinSim, for the assessment of alternative scenarios of future local development, taking into account complex spatial and social dynamics and interactions. Different typologies of winter tourists compose the set of human agents. Climate change scenarios are used to produce snow cover projections. AuronzoWinSim is planned for use in a participatory context with groups of local stakeholders.

Decision making for the management of water resources is a complex and difficult task. This is due to the complex socio-economic system that involves a large number of interest groups pursuing multiple and conflicting objectives, within an often intricate legislative framework. Several Decision Support Systems have been developed but very few have indeed proved to be effective and truly operational. MULINO (Multisectoral, Integrated and Operational Decision Support System for Sustainable Use of Water Resources at the Catchment Scale) is a project funded under the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Research and the key action line dedicated to operational management schemes and decision support system for sustainable use of water resources. The MULINO DSS (mDSS) integrates hydrological models with multi-criteria decision methods and adopts the DPSIR (Driving Force – Pressure – State – Impact – Response) framework developed by the European Environment Agency. The DPSIR was converted from a static reporting scheme into a dynamic framework for integrated assessment modelling (IAM) and multi-criteria evaluation procedures. This paper presents the methodological framework and the intermediate results of the mDSS tool through its application in a pilot study area located in the Watershed of the Lagoon of Venice.

Abstract. When floods hit inhabited areas, great losses are usually registered in terms of both impacts on people (i.e., fatalities and injuries) and economic impacts on urban areas, commercial and productive sites, infrastructures, and agriculture. To properly assess these, several parameters are needed, among which flood depth is one of the most important as it governs the models used to compute damages in economic terms. This paper presents a simple yet effective semiautomatic approach for deriving very precise inundation depth. First, precise flood extent is derived employing a change detection approach based on the normalized difference flood index computed from high-resolution synthetic aperture radar imagery. Second, by means of a high-resolution lidar digital elevation model, water surface elevation is estimated through a statistical analysis of terrain elevation along the boundary lines of the identified flooded areas. Experimental results and quality assessment are given for the flood that occurred in the Veneto region, northeastern Italy, in 2010. In particular, the method proved fast and robust and, compared to hydrodynamic models, it requires sensibly less input information.