@article{PradhanCostaRybskietal.2017, author = {Pradhan, Prajal and Costa, Lu{\´i}s F{\´i}l{\´i}pe Carvalho da and Rybski, Diego and Lucht, Wolfgang and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {A Systematic Study of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Interactions}, series = {Earths Future}, volume = {5}, journal = {Earths Future}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {2328-4277}, doi = {10.1002/2017EF000632}, pages = {1169 -- 1179}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Sustainable development goals (SDGs) have set the 2030 agenda to transform our world by tackling multiple challenges humankind is facing to ensure well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection. In contrast to conventional development agendas focusing on a restricted set of dimensions, the SDGs provide a holistic and multidimensional view on development. Hence, interactions among the SDGs may cause diverging results. To analyze the SDG interactions we systematize the identification of synergies and trade-offs using official SDG indicator data for 227 countries. A significant positive correlation between a pair of SDG indicators is classified as a synergy while a significant negative correlation is classified as a trade-off. We rank synergies and trade-offs between SDGs pairs on global and country scales in order to identify the most frequent SDG interactions. For a given SDG, positive correlations between indicator pairs were found to outweigh the negative ones in most countries. Among SDGs the positive and negative correlations between indicator pairs allowed for the identification of particular global patterns. SDG 1 (No poverty) has synergetic relationship with most of the other goals, whereas SDG 12 (Responsible consumption and production) is the goal most commonly associated with trade-offs. The attainment of the SDG agenda will greatly depend on whether the identified synergies among the goals can be leveraged. In addition, the highlighted trade-offs, which constitute obstacles in achieving the SDGs, need to be negotiated and made structurally nonobstructive by deeper changes in the current strategies.}, language = {en} } @article{PrahlRybskiKroppetal.2012, author = {Prahl, Boris F. and Rybski, Diego and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen and Burghoff, Olaf and Held, Hermann}, title = {Applying stochastic small-scale damage functions to German winter storms}, series = {Geophysical research letters}, volume = {39}, journal = {Geophysical research letters}, number = {12}, publisher = {American Geophysical Union}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0094-8276}, doi = {10.1029/2012GL050961}, pages = {6}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Analyzing insurance-loss data we derive stochastic storm-damage functions for residential buildings. On district level we fit power-law relations between daily loss and maximum wind speed, typically spanning more than 4 orders of magnitude. The estimated exponents for 439 German districts roughly range from 8 to 12. In addition, we find correlations among the parameters and socio-demographic data, which we employ in a simplified parametrization of the damage function with just 3 independent parameters for each district. A Monte Carlo method is used to generate loss estimates and confidence bounds of daily and annual storm damages in Germany. Our approach reproduces the annual progression of winter storm losses and enables to estimate daily losses over a wide range of magnitudes. Citation: Prahl, B. F., D. Rybski, J. P. Kropp, O. Burghoff, and H. Held (2012), Applying stochastic small-scale damage functions to German winter storms, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L06806, doi: 10.1029/2012GL050961.}, language = {en} } @article{ZhouLauwaetHooyberghsetal.2016, author = {Zhou, Bin and Lauwaet, Dirk and Hooyberghs, Hans and De Ridder, Koen and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen and Rybski, Diego}, title = {Assessing Seasonality in the Surface Urban Heat Island of London}, series = {Journal of applied meteorology and climatology}, volume = {55}, journal = {Journal of applied meteorology and climatology}, publisher = {American Meteorological Soc.}, address = {Boston}, issn = {1558-8424}, doi = {10.1175/JAMC-D-15-0041.1}, pages = {493 -- 505}, year = {2016}, abstract = {This paper assesses the seasonality of the urban heat island (UHI) effect in the Greater London area (United Kingdom). Combining satellite-based observations and urban boundary layer climate modeling with the UrbClim model, the authors are able to address the seasonality of UHI intensity, on the basis of both land surface temperature (LST) and 2-m air temperature, for four individual times of the day (0130, 1030, 1330, and 2230 local time) and the daily means derived from them. An objective of this paper is to investigate whether the UHI intensities that are based on both quantities exhibit a similar hysteresis-like trajectory that is observed for LST when plotting the UHI intensity against the background temperature. The results show that the UrbClim model can satisfactorily reproduce both the observed urban rural LSTs and 2-m air temperatures as well as their differences and the hysteresis in the surface UHI. The hysteresis-like seasonality is largely absent in both the observed and modeled 2-m air temperatures, however. A sensitivity simulation of the UHI intensity to incoming solar radiation suggests that the hysteresis of the LST can mainly be attributed to the seasonal variation in incoming solar radiation.}, language = {en} } @article{GudipudiLuedekeRybskietal.2018, author = {Gudipudi, Ramana Venkata and L{\"u}deke, Matthias K. B. and Rybski, Diego and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Benchmarking urban eco-efficiency and urbanites' perception}, series = {Cities}, volume = {74}, journal = {Cities}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0264-2751}, doi = {10.1016/j.cities.2017.11.009}, pages = {109 -- 118}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Urbanization as an inexorable global trend stresses the need to identify cities which are eco-efficient. These cities enable socioeconomic development with lower environmental burden, both being multidimensional concepts. Based on this approach, we benchmark 88 European cities using (i) an advanced version of regression residual ranking and (ii) Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). Our results show that Stockholm, Munich and Oslo perform well irrespective of the benchmarking method. Furthermore, our results indicate that larger European cities are eco-efficient given the socioeconomic benefits they offer compared to smaller cities. In addition, we analyze correlations between a subjective public perception ranking and our objective eco-efficiency rankings for a subset of 45 cities. This exercise revealed three insights: (1) public perception about quality of life in a city is not merely confined to the socioeconomic well-being but rather to its combination with a lower environmental burden; (2) public perception correlates well with both formal ranking outcomes, corroborating the choice of variables; and (3) the advanced regression residual method appears to be more adequate to fit the urbanites' perception ranking (correlation coefficient about 0.6). This can be interpreted as an indication that urbanites' perception reflects the typical eco-efficiency performance and is less influenced by exceptionally performing cities (in the latter case, DEA should have better correlation coefficient). This study highlights that the socioeconomic growth in cities should not be environmentally detrimental as this might lead to significant discontent regarding perceived quality of urban life.}, language = {en} } @article{RybskiReusserWinzetal.2016, author = {Rybski, Diego and Reusser, Dominik Edwin and Winz, Anna-Lena and Fichtner, Christina and Sterzel, Till and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Cities as nuclei of sustainability?}, series = {Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science}, volume = {44}, journal = {Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science}, number = {3}, publisher = {Sage Publ.}, address = {London}, issn = {2399-8083}, doi = {10.1177/0265813516638340}, pages = {425 -- 440}, year = {2016}, abstract = {We have assembled CO2 emission figures from collections of urban GHG emission estimates published in peer-reviewed journals or reports from research institutes and non-governmental organizations. Analyzing the scaling with population size, we find that the exponent is development dependent with a transition from super- to sub-linear scaling. From the climate change mitigation point of view, the results suggest that urbanization is desirable in developed countries. Further, we compare this analysis with a second scaling relation, namely the fundamental allometry between city population and area, and propose that density might be a decisive quantity too. Last, we derive the theoretical country-wide urban emissions by integration and obtain a dependence on the size of the largest city.}, language = {en} } @article{RybskiDawsonKropp2020, author = {Rybski, Diego and Dawson, Richard J. and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Comparing generic and case study damage functions}, series = {Natural hazards review}, volume = {21}, journal = {Natural hazards review}, number = {1}, publisher = {American Society of Civil Engineers}, address = {Reston}, issn = {1527-6988}, doi = {10.1061/(ASCE)NH.1527-6996.0000336}, pages = {6}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Two different approaches are used to assess the impacts associated with natural hazards and climate change in cities. A bottom-up approach uses high resolution data on constituent assets within the urban area. In contrast, a top-down approach uses less detailed information but is consequently more readily transferable. Here, we compare damage curves generated by each approach for coastal flooding in London. To compare them, we fit a log-logistic regression with three parameters to the calculated damage curves. We find that the functions are remarkably similar in their shape, albeit with different inflection points and a maximum damage that differs by 13\%-25\%. If rescaled, the curves agree almost exactly, which enables damage assessment to be undertaken following the calculation of the three parameters.}, language = {en} } @misc{PrahlRybskiBurghoffetal.2015, author = {Prahl, Boris F. and Rybski, Diego and Burghoff, Olaf and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Comparison of storm damage functions and their performance}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {492}, issn = {1866-8372}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408119}, pages = {20}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Winter storms are the most costly natural hazard for European residential property. We compare four distinct storm damage functions with respect to their forecast accuracy and variability, with particular regard to the most severe winter storms. The analysis focuses on daily loss estimates under differing spatial aggregation, ranging from district to country level. We discuss the broad and heavily skewed distribution of insured losses posing difficulties for both the calibration and the evaluation of damage functions. From theoretical considerations, we provide a synthesis between the frequently discussed cubic wind-damage relationship and recent studies that report much steeper damage functions for European winter storms. The performance of the storm loss models is evaluated for two sources of wind gust data, direct observations by the German Weather Service and ERA-Interim reanalysis data. While the choice of gust data has little impact on the evaluation of German storm loss, spatially resolved coefficients of variation reveal dependence between model and data choice. The comparison shows that the probabilistic models by Heneka et al. (2006) and Prahl et al. (2012) both provide accurate loss predictions for moderate to extreme losses, with generally small coefficients of variation. We favour the latter model in terms of model applicability. Application of the versatile deterministic model by Klawa and Ulbrich (2003) should be restricted to extreme loss, for which it shows the least bias and errors comparable to the probabilistic model by Prahl et al. (2012).}, language = {en} } @article{PrahlRybskiBurghoffetal.2015, author = {Prahl, Boris F. and Rybski, Diego and Burghoff, Olaf and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Comparison of storm damage functions and their performance}, series = {Natural hazards and earth system sciences}, volume = {15}, journal = {Natural hazards and earth system sciences}, number = {4}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {1561-8633}, doi = {10.5194/nhess-15-769-2015}, pages = {769 -- 788}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Winter storms are the most costly natural hazard for European residential property. We compare four distinct storm damage functions with respect to their forecast accuracy and variability, with particular regard to the most severe winter storms. The analysis focuses on daily loss estimates under differing spatial aggregation, ranging from district to country level. We discuss the broad and heavily skewed distribution of insured losses posing difficulties for both the calibration and the evaluation of damage functions. From theoretical considerations, we provide a synthesis between the frequently discussed cubic wind-damage relationship and recent studies that report much steeper damage functions for European winter storms. The performance of the storm loss models is evaluated for two sources of wind gust data, direct observations by the German Weather Service and ERA-Interim reanalysis data. While the choice of gust data has little impact on the evaluation of German storm loss, spatially resolved coefficients of variation reveal dependence between model and data choice. The comparison shows that the probabilistic models by Heneka et al. (2006) and Prahl et al. (2012) both provide accurate loss predictions for moderate to extreme losses, with generally small coefficients of variation. We favour the latter model in terms of model applicability. Application of the versatile deterministic model by Klawa and Ulbrich (2003) should be restricted to extreme loss, for which it shows the least bias and errors comparable to the probabilistic model by Prahl et al. (2012).}, language = {en} } @misc{LenkRybskiHeidrichetal.2017, author = {Lenk, Stephan and Rybski, Diego and Heidrich, Oliver and Dawson, Richard J. and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Costs of sea dikes}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {638}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41840}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-418401}, pages = {765 -- 779}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Failure to consider the costs of adaptation strategies can be seen by decision makers as a barrier to implementing coastal protection measures. In order to validate adaptation strategies to sea-level rise in the form of coastal protection, a consistent and repeatable assessment of the costs is necessary. This paper significantly extends current knowledge on cost estimates by developing - and implementing using real coastal dike data - probabilistic functions of dike costs. Data from Canada and the Netherlands are analysed and related to published studies from the US, UK, and Vietnam in order to provide a reproducible estimate of typical sea dike costs and their uncertainty. We plot the costs divided by dike length as a function of height and test four different regression models. Our analysis shows that a linear function without intercept is sufficient to model the costs, i.e. fixed costs and higher-order contributions such as that due to the volume of core fill material are less significant. We also characterise the spread around the regression models which represents an uncertainty stemming from factors beyond dike length and height. Drawing an analogy with project cost overruns, we employ log-normal distributions and calculate that the range between 3x and x/3 contains 95\% of the data, where x represents the corresponding regression value. We compare our estimates with previously published unit costs for other countries. We note that the unit costs depend not only on the country and land use (urban/non-urban) of the sites where the dikes are being constructed but also on characteristics included in the costs, e.g. property acquisition, utility relocation, and project management. This paper gives decision makers an order of magnitude on the protection costs, which can help to remove potential barriers to develop-ing adaptation strategies. Although the focus of this research is sea dikes, our approach is applicable and transferable to other adaptation measures.}, language = {en} } @article{LenkRybskiHeidrichetal.2017, author = {Lenk, Stephan and Rybski, Diego and Heidrich, Oliver and Dawson, Richard J. and Kropp, J{\"u}rgen}, title = {Costs of sea dikes - regressions and uncertainty estimates}, series = {Natural hazards and earth system sciences}, volume = {17}, journal = {Natural hazards and earth system sciences}, publisher = {Copernicus}, address = {G{\"o}ttingen}, issn = {1561-8633}, doi = {10.5194/nhess-17-765-2017}, pages = {765 -- 779}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Failure to consider the costs of adaptation strategies can be seen by decision makers as a barrier to implementing coastal protection measures. In order to validate adaptation strategies to sea-level rise in the form of coastal protection, a consistent and repeatable assessment of the costs is necessary. This paper significantly extends current knowledge on cost estimates by developing - and implementing using real coastal dike data - probabilistic functions of dike costs. Data from Canada and the Netherlands are analysed and related to published studies from the US, UK, and Vietnam in order to provide a reproducible estimate of typical sea dike costs and their uncertainty. We plot the costs divided by dike length as a function of height and test four different regression models. Our analysis shows that a linear function without intercept is sufficient to model the costs, i.e. fixed costs and higher-order contributions such as that due to the volume of core fill material are less significant. We also characterise the spread around the regression models which represents an uncertainty stemming from factors beyond dike length and height. Drawing an analogy with project cost overruns, we employ log-normal distributions and calculate that the range between 3x and x/3 contains 95\% of the data, where x represents the corresponding regression value. We compare our estimates with previously published unit costs for other countries. We note that the unit costs depend not only on the country and land use (urban/non-urban) of the sites where the dikes are being constructed but also on characteristics included in the costs, e.g. property acquisition, utility relocation, and project management. This paper gives decision makers an order of magnitude on the protection costs, which can help to remove potential barriers to develop-ing adaptation strategies. Although the focus of this research is sea dikes, our approach is applicable and transferable to other adaptation measures.}, language = {en} }