The European Union's Council Regulation on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development has introduced auctioning as a new instrument for granting agri-environmental payments and awarding conservation contracts for the recent multi-annual budgetary plan....

The option of adapting to climate change is becoming more important in climate change policy. Hence, responding to climate change now involves both mitigation to address the cause and adaptation as a response to already ongoing or expected changes. These changes are also of relevance for the...

The article discusses the implementation of a new scheme for the outcome-based remuneration of environmental goods and services of agriculture that has been carried out as a case study in the period 2004 to 2006 in a German model region (county Northeim in the south of Lower-Saxony). This new...

Managed grasslands contribute in a number of ways to the biodiversity of European agricultural landscapes and provide a wide range of ecosystem services that are also of socio-economic value. Against the background of a rapid biodiversity loss in agricultural landscapes, increasing attention is...

The mandatory deposit for one-way drinks packaging, embodied in the German Packaging Ordinance of 1991, entered into force in January 2003, after the condition for its implementation was given by the fall of the market share of reusable drinks packaging under 72% in 1997. In this context the...

The reliability of the electricity grid is of vital significance for the proper functioning of a society and its economy. The aim of this study is to develop a methodology to quantify differences in the electricity distribution grid's economic importance, and investigate limitations for its...