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Cities are major contributors to climate change and biodiversity loss, and at the same time particularly affected by some of their consequences. Urban green can help address these challenges and provide numerous other benefits to people. Economic valuation can estimate the value that people assign to these diverse urban ecosystem services. The environmental economics literature uses several valuation methods. This work examines the valuation of urban ecosystem services with choice experiments. It includes five articles that use empirical analysis to address three overarching research goals: First, to improve understanding of the value of urban ecosystem services to urban residents. Second, to contribute to improving the validity of choice experiments. Third, to develop modeling of spatial patterns in the value of urban ecosystem services.
Chapter 1 describes the background and motivation of the valuation of urban ecosystem services with choice experiments, gives an overview over the relevant literature, and sets out the research objectives and methods of this dissertation.
Chapter 2 presents a choice experiment on green spaces, street trees and green roofs in Bremen. It analyzes the effect of additional information that these measures are part of a climate adaptation strategy. The results show greater willingness to pay among informed respondents. Part of the effect can be explained by a higher credibility of the survey.
Chapter 3 describes a choice experiment on urban gardens in Berlin and Stuttgart. It explores how respondents process the information provided in the questionnaire. It finds that questions about the information do not significantly affect either recall or the responses in the choice experiment.
Chapter 4 is based on choice experiments on street trees, green spaces, and greenways in four German cities. It examines how choice experiment surveys should elicit perceived consequentiality. The results show advantages of elicitation before the choice experiment over the usual elicitation afterwards.
Chapter 5 explores how valid policy makers perceive the results of choice experiments on urban green in several German cities, and what consequences this has for their use of the results. Interviews show that most policy makers use the results in their city to raise awareness or justify positions. Perceptions of validity are mixed, but do not play a major role in this type of use.
Chapter 6 examines the spatial distribution of the value of urban ecosystem services using choice experiments on green spaces, urban trees, green roofs, and green facades in Berlin and Leipzig. It develops and tests new choice models that may better represent than the common approach how the value of urban green space decreases with distance.
Based on the findings of the articles, Chapter 7 derives recommendations for practitioners of choice experiments and for urban green policy makers. Finally, it identifies research gaps that would be promising for future studies.
Malawi is a Least Developed Country located in Southern Africa to the East of Zambia. Malawi has a low electrification rate of 9%. Furthermore, unreliable and inadequate power supply are estimated to reduce Malawi’s GDP by 7%-9%. These energy sector challenges diminish the country’s prospects for sustained growth, poverty reduction, and improved delivery of health and education services. Various studies have been undertaken to determine how Malawi can improve it's energy sector through the deployment of renewable energy. However, these studies have not specifically examined how climate change related financing mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) could be utilised to mobilise financing and capacity development for renewable energy deployment in the country. This is despite the assertion that developed countries are committed to jointly mobilising US$100 billion per year by 2020 to support climate change mitigation and adaptation activities such as renewable energy deployment in developing countries. Through the use of questionnaires, case study analyses, policy reviews, academic literature reviews and interviews, this research sought to determine Malawi’s regulatory and institutional challenges and prospects for enhancing renewable energy deployment through climate finance instruments.
Among some of the research findings was that Malawi has relied on external support in order to develop capacity in the field of climate finance, hence in the absence of external assistance there are limited opportunities to incentivise various stakeholders to implement projects and to enhance awareness about climate finance. The study also discovered that Malawi’s climate finance determinants resemble a non-market seeking Foreign Direct Investment profile, hence the presence of opportunities for cheap and abundant emission reductions could improve climate finance investment patterns rather than the opportunities for emission reductions and co-products such as electricity through renewable energy technologies. The study therefore recommended that Malawi should create a renewable energy and climate finance promotion agency to assist with soliciting funding for renewable energy projects from concessional and non-concessional sources and drafting and implementing renewable energy policies. Another recommendation was that the country must create a Renewable Energy Fund to reduce the funding constraints that the media, project implementers and financiers have in undertaking various roles related to enhancing renewable energy deployment. Lastly, the study concluded that Malawi’s prospects for accessing various forms of climate finance and deploying climate finance projects can be improved through improvements in Malawi’s renewable energy and climate change institutional framework, and the modifications of climate finance instruments and methodologies to encourage flexibility and reduce institutional constraints.
Energieeffizientes Nährstoffsplitting von flüssigen Wirtschaftsdüngern mittels Membranfiltration
(2017)
Die definierte Selektivität der Membranfiltration kann dazu genutzt werden, einzelne spezifische Gülle-Separationsprobleme in übergeordneten Aufbereitungsklassen zusammenzufassen. Mit dem Ansatz einer gesteuerten Nährstofftrennung bzw. Teilzusammenführung von modifizierten Strömen, und der Zuordnung von spezifischen Aufgaben an die Mischprodukte, werden die Nachteile des Ausgangsrohstoffs reduziert und der Wertstoff Gülle rückstandsfrei nutzbar gemacht. Mit einem Anlagenmodell, bestehend aus einer Hydrotankpresse als Vorfiltration und einer Ultrafiltration als Kernkomponenten, ist es über empirisch ermittelte Betriebsparameter möglich, einen energetisch optimierten und kontinuierlichen Produktionsbetrieb durchzuführen. Als Produkte der dezentralen Aufbereitungsanlage werden ein emissionsreduzierender Flüssigdünger, eine als Brennstoff und als Gärsubstrat geeignete Feststoffphase, sowie das Retentat als aktivierendes Material zur Biogasertragssteigerung gewonnen. Das untersuchte Anlagenmodell ist auf den innerbetrieblichen Einsatz in Milchviehhaltungsbetrieben abgestimmt. Mit der Erarbeitung von stabilen und energetisch günstigen Anlagenbetriebspunkten wird das Anlagenverhalten hydraulisch steuerbar. Durch die Zuordnung von Anlagenzuständen zu differenziertem Spülverhalten, wird die direkte Einflussnahme der Temperatur auf den Permeat-Flux erkennbar. Der Einsatz eines Tauchkühlers, mit voreingestellten Grenztemperaturen, stabilisiert signifikant das Anlagenverhalten im Vergleich zu konventionellen Anlagenkonfigurationen. Die Anwendung einer Hydropresse gestattet höhere TDS-Belastungen im UF-Kreislauf, bietet aber kein Potenzial zur Steigerung der Nährstoffdurchsätze. Dies gilt auch für den Einsatz einer 300 kDa-Variante, im Vergleich zur priorisierten 150 kDa-UF-Membran. Mit der Hydropresse kann eine höhere Feststoffabscheidung wie mit Verstopfungs- bzw. Siebfiltrationen erreicht werden, die TDS-Belastungen sind im Retentat auf 5.000 - 7.000 ppm limitiert, oder müssen durch Verdünnung auf diese Werte eingegrenzt werden. Mit der zusätzlichen Anwendung einer Gasspülung in der Anströmung der UF-Module, können TDS-Belastungen über 10.000 ppm erstmals dauerhaft bewältigt werden. Über die so erweiterte Verfahrenstechnik sind Standzeiten von mehreren Wochen, ohne betrieblich bedingte Unterbrechungen, möglich. Die durch Fluoreszenzmikroskopie nachweisbare Anreicherung von Methanbildnern im Retentat, bestätigt eine mögliche Anwendung des Retentats als Biogassubstratergänzung. Der Biogasertrag wird durch Zusatz von Retentat zu den bisher verfügbaren Substraten generell erhöht. Eine Mischung aus Retentat und dem Feststoff aus der Hydropresse unterstützen die biochemische Stabilisierung in Fermentern. In Kombination mit Anteilen an Feststoff ist das Permeat bei der Bewertung von pflanzenbaulichen Erträgen, als konkurrenzfähig zu Rohgülle und Mineralstoffdünger einzustufen. Das auf landwirtschaftliche Flächen ausgebrachte Permeat ist geruchslos.
This dissertation examines the structure of current vehicle mitigation initiatives of leading domestic trade policy proposals (emission reduction actions) of four major countries along the Gulf of Guinea after lead gasoline phase out in sub-Sahara Africa. The dissertation assesses these proposals based on establishing criteria for assessing domestic trade policy performance in curbing used vehicle emissions simultaneously with core sustainable development priorities. The dissertation argues that a more pronounced dilemma of synergies exist between vehicle emissions reduction and core development concerns as the major players target emissions too narrowly. The dissertation seeks to bridge this major gap by proposing a stakeholder-assisted representation and a policy design framework for sustainable road transport in sub-Sahara Africa. This was achieved by extracting individual stakeholders’ underlying concerns, interests, values, local knowledge and technical expertise through publicly available documentation and interviews and then constructing a conceptual systems model based on the inputs and best available science. In order to cope with the uncertain developments in road transport energy system and climate in sub-Sahara Africa, the dissertation employs a scenario approach by constructing sets of desirable and undesirable characteristics to explore possible future developments of road transport in sub-Sahara Africa with technological change, policies, attitudes and preferences playing a pivotal role. Next, the dissertation analyses and compares the levels of voluntary environmental management initiatives within the South African automotive Industry. It provides an insight into the behavioural patterns - drivers, barriers and benefits - of Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger South African automotive companies in their quests to engage in environmental change and determine if these patterns are similar to previous studies, as given in the literature, or if they differ, in what ways. Moreover, the dissertation assesses how external South African environmental auditors interpret and apply the central requirements of ISO 14001 and their views about the efforts of certified organisations and the different models that could be used to ease EMS implementation and certification. Finally, low-carbon strategies resulting from impact modelling have been provided within this dissertation but, in addition, the acceptance of recommended strategies is crucial towards a real added value for a stabilisation target.