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Prolog (zum Forum)
(2006)
This issue of WeltTrends features the debate about the future of the transatlantic relationship and world order after the Iraq war. It was started by Thomas Risse with his article in the previous edition. Thomas Risse elaborated on three main points of contention between the United States and Europe: the role of international law and multilateralism, democracy and human rights, and the strategy towards new security threats. Most of the scholars, contributing to the debate in this issue agree with Risse in that there is no alternative to the transatlantic partnership and offer possible paths towards its renewal. The debate will be continued with additional comments and a rebuttal by Thomas Risse in the next Winter issue.
In Auseinandersetzung mit dem Konzept kollektiver Identität werden drei Bürgerschafts-Modelle (republikanisches, liberales und cäsarisches) diskutiert. Bürgerschaft wird im Sinne von citizenship anstelle von Staatsbürgerschaft wegen deren etatistischer Konnotation in der deutschen Sprache verwendet. Abschließend wird die europäische Bürgerschaft sowie deren korrespondierende kollektive Identität betrachtet.
Experience has shown that river floods can significantly hamper the reliability of railway networks and cause extensive structural damage and disruption. As a result, the national railway operator in Austria had to cope with financial losses of more than EUR 100 million due to flooding in recent years. Comprehensive information on potential flood risk hot spots as well as on expected flood damage in Austria is therefore needed for strategic flood risk management. In view of this, the flood damage model RAIL (RAilway Infrastructure Loss) was applied to estimate (1) the expected structural flood damage and (2) the resulting repair costs of railway infrastructure due to a 30-, 100- and 300-year flood in the Austrian Mur River catchment. The results were then used to calculate the expected annual damage of the railway subnetwork and subsequently analysed in terms of their sensitivity to key model assumptions. Additionally, the impact of risk aversion on the estimates was investigated, and the overall results were briefly discussed against the background of climate change and possibly resulting changes in flood risk. The findings indicate that the RAIL model is capable of supporting decision-making in risk management by providing comprehensive risk information on the catchment level. It is furthermore demonstrated that an increased risk aversion of the railway operator has a marked influence on flood damage estimates for the study area and, hence, should be considered with regard to the development of risk management strategies.
Seit 1990 ist die vereinte, wieder souveräne Bundesrepublik Deutschland auf der Suche nach ihrer Rolle in der Welt. Auch die akademische Debatte um die Orientierung deutscher Außenpolitik und die ihr zugrundeliegenden Interessen hält seitdem an. In welchem Verhältnis stehen Normen und Werte einerseits und pragmatische, meist wirtschaftliche Interessen andererseits zueinander? Wie verhält sich die deutsche Außenpolitik zur europäischen? Beeinflusst oder dominiert die deutsche Position gar die europäische? Am Beispiel der deutschen Außenpolitik gegenüber den zentralasiatischen Staaten Kasachstan, Kirgisistan, Tadschikistan, Turkmenistan und Usbekistan werden diese Fragen diskutiert.
Anfang des Jahres 2008 erkannte die Bundesrepublik Deutschland den Kosovo als souveränen Staat an, während sich die Europäische Union mit dieser Entscheidung zurückhielt. Die Politikwissenschaftlerin Franziska Krämer untersucht in ihrer Arbeit „Die Politik Deutschlands in der Kosovofrage“ das Spannungsverhältnis zwischen eigenständiger deutscher und europäischer Außenpolitik. Am Beispiel des Kosovo wird die Problematik der Verflechtung von deutschen und europäischen Politikebenen diskutiert. Die Autorin kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die deutsche Kosovopolitik als Beispiel einer neuen deutschen Außenpolitik und nicht als der Beginn einer Europäisierung deutscher Außenpolitik zu sehen ist.
Editorial
(2005)
Previous studies have explored the consequences of flood events for exposed households and companies by focusing on single flood events. Less is known about the consequences of experiencing repeated flood events for the resilience of households and companies. In this paper, we therefore explore how multiple floods experience affects the resilience of exposed households and companies. Resilience was made operational through individual appraisals of households and companies' ability to withstand and recover from material as well as health and psychological impacts of the 2013 flood in Germany. The paper is based on three different datasets including more than 2000 households and 300 companies that were affected by the 2013 flood. The surveys revealed that the resilience of households seems to increase, but only with regard to their subjectively appraised ability to withstand impacts on mobile goods and equipment (e.g., cars, TV, and radios). In regard to the ability of households to withstand overall financial consequences of repetitive floods, evidence for nonlinear (quadratic) trends can be found. With regard to psychological and health-related consequences, the findings are mixed but provide tentative evidence for eroding resilience among households. Companies' resilience increased with respect to material assets but appears to decrease with respect to ability to recover. We conclude by arguing that clear and operational definitions of resilience are required so that evidence-based resilience baselines can be established to assess whether resilience is eroding or improving over time.
Editorial
(2004)
Sediment records of three European lakes were investigated in order to reconstruct the regional climate development during the Lateglacial and Holocene, to investigate the response of local ecosystems to climatic fluctuations and human impact and to relate regional peculiarities of past climate development to climatic changes on a larger spatial scale. The Lake Hańcza (NE Poland) sediment record was studied with a focus on reconstructing the early Holocene climate development and identifying possible differences to Western Europe. Following the initial Holocene climatic improvement, a further climatic improvement occurred between 10 000 and 9000 cal. a BP. Apparently, relatively cold and dry climate conditions persisted in NE Poland during the first ca. 1500 years of the Holocene, most likely due to a specific regional atmospheric circulation pattern. Prevailing anticyclonic circulation linked to a high-pressure cell above the remaining Scandinavian Ice Sheet (SIS) might have blocked the eastward propagation of warm and moist Westerlies and thus attenuated the early Holocene climatic amelioration in this region until the final decay of the SIS, a pattern different from climate development in Western Europe. The Lateglacial sediment record of Lake Mondsee (Upper Austria) was investigated in order to study the regional climate development and the environmental response to rapid climatic fluctuations. While the temperature rise and environmental response at the onset of the Holocene took place quasi-synchronously, major leads and lags in proxy responses characterize the onset of the Lateglacial Interstadial. In particular, the spread of coniferous woodlands and the reduction of detrital flux lagged the initial Lateglacial warming by ca. 500–750 years. Major cooling at the onset of the Younger Dryas took place synchronously with a change in vegetation, while the increase of detrital matter flux was delayed by about 150–300 years. Complex proxy responses are also detected for short-term Lateglacial climatic fluctuations. In summary, periods of abrupt climatic changes are characterized by complex and temporally variable proxy responses, mainly controlled by ecosystem inertia and the environmental preconditions. A second study on the Lake Mondsee sediment record focused on two small-scale climate deteriorations around 8200 and 9100 cal. a BP, which have been triggered by freshwater discharges to the North Atlantic, causing a shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (MOC). Combining microscopic varve counting and AMS 14C dating yielded a precise duration estimate (ca. 150 years) and absolute dating of the 8.2 ka cold event, both being in good agreement with results from other palaeoclimate records. Moreover, a sudden temperature overshoot after the 8.2 ka cold event was identified, also seen in other proxy records around the North Atlantic. This was most likely caused by enhanced resumption of the MOC, which also initiated substantial shifts of oceanic and atmospheric front systems. Although there is also evidence from other proxy records for pronounced recovery of the MOC and atmospheric circulation changes after the 9.1 ka cold event, no temperature overshoot is seen in the Lake Mondsee record, indicating the complex behaviour of the global climate system. The Holocene sediment record of Lake Iseo (northern Italy) was studied to shed light on regional earthquake activity and the influence of climate variability and anthropogenic impact on catchment erosion and detrital flux into the lake. Frequent small-scale detrital layers within the sediments reflect allochthonous sediment supply by extreme surface runoff events. During the early to mid-Holocene, increased detrital flux coincides with periods of cold and wet climate conditions, thus apparently being mainly controlled by climate variability. In contrast, intervals of high detrital flux during the late Holocene partly also correlate with phases of increased human impact, reflecting the complex influences on catchment erosion processes. Five large-scale event layers within the sediments, which are composed of mass-wasting deposits and turbidites, are supposed to have been triggered by strong local earthquakes. While the uppermost of these event layers is assigned to a documented adjacent earthquake in AD 1222, the four other layers are supposed to be related to previously undocumented prehistorical earthquakes.