Climate change affects agriculture differently due to the heterogeneity in bio-physical and economic conditions in Austria. Therefore, stakeholder and expert knowledge is required in regional vulnerability assessments to address region specific challenges and develop compatible adaptation...

In Austria a considerable number of measures have been implemented to reduce final energy use for residential heating since the 1990s. The aim of this analysis is to investigate, why – despite these implemented measures – final energy use for heating has not decreased in the expected way....

Bioenergy is regarded as cost-effective option to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Among newly developed biomass conversion technologies are biomass integrated gas combined cycle plants (BIGCC) as well as ethanol and methanol production based on woody biomass feedstock....

We have developed climate change data for Austria and the period from 2008 to 2040 with temporal and spatial resolution of one day and one km2 based on historical daily weather station data from 1975 to 2007. Daily data from 34 weather stations have been processed to 60 spatial climate clusters...

Nitrogen is an important input to agricultural production but also detrimentally affects the environmental quality of air, soil and water. Identifying the determinants of nitrate pollution and in turn defining sensible performance indicators to design, enforce and monitor regulatory policies is...

Landscape elements can enhance the ecological and social value of agricultural landscapes. Orchard meadows are traditional landscape elements in Central Europe, but have deteriorated for decades due to their adverse economic effects. We apply an integrated modelling framework to assess the farm...

We present an integrated spatially explicit land use modeling framework, which integrates two key components of agricultural systems, the bio-physical production system and the management system, by coupling the bio-economic farm optimization model FAMOS[space], the crop rotation model CropRota,...

Over the next decades mankind will demand more food from fewer land and water resources. This study quantifies the food production impacts of four alternative development scenarios from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Special Report on Emission Scenarios. Partially and jointly...

Climate change mitigation and security of energy supply are important targets of Austrian energy policy. Bioenergy production based on resources from agriculture and forestry is an important option for attaining these targets. To increase the share of bioenergy in the energy supply, supporting...

Evaluating sustainable development is becoming increasingly important in policy making, evaluation practice and the scientific world in general. However, at present, there is neither a generally accepted set of measures and evaluation methods, nor specific standards to be met. Sustainable...