The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) calls for cost-effective measures to achieve a good status in all European ground, surface and coastal waters. Besides eutrophication, the degradation of hydro-morphology is the main reason for failing the WFD's objectives in Germany. In this paper , we...

[About the Report] The Helmholtz Juniors are the PhD students' network of the German Helmholtz-Association (Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft Deutscher Forschungszentren, HGF). Their main mission is to intensify collaboration between the PhD students of the different Helmholtz research centers and...

In this paper, we analyze the rationale for an energy policy mix when the European Emissions Trading scheme (ETS) is considered from a public choice perspective. That is, we argue that the economic textbook model of the ETS implausibly assumes 1) efficient policy design and 2) climate protection...

Recent work has shown that Weitzman's policy rule for choosing price- versus quantity-based pollution control instruments under uncertainty is biased when the polluting firms possess market power (Heuson 2010). However, this study is restricted to emission standards and taxes, while tradable...

The European Union's Water Framework Directive advocates, among other things, River Basin Management and is often considered the principal driver of scalar organisation of gov-ernance in Europe. However, since more detailed comparative analysis seems necessary, this paper aims to enhance...

In this paper, I use the resilience framework to interpret the project of transforming the German energy system into a renewable energy sources (RES)-based system, the so-called Energiewende, as a regime shift. This regime shift comprises several transformations, which are currently altering the...

For years, humans have been trying to stabilize the world's environment by lowering the amount of greenhouse gases that their societies pump into the air. In 1992, this approach was even incorporated into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But because this strategy failed to produce...

Since numerous countries have already initiated a process of adaptation to climate change by drafting strategies or catalogues of measures, it is of particular importance to identify and overcome potential barriers to efficient public adap-tation from the beginning. A major source of barriers is...

Article 9 of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) requires Member States to take account of the principle of recovery of the costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs (ERCs). Whilst legally the Member States have broad scope for discretion when applying Article 9, the...

This paper analyses the outcome of non-cooperative national efforts in combatting global pollu-tion problems when governments are elected by their citizens. It is well-known that the latter tend to vote governments that are less 'green' than the median voter in order to commit to lower national...