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Исследование ландшафтов всегда было традиционным научным направлением географии. В России подобная направленность исследований остаётся актуальной, несмотря на то, что термины «геоэкология» и «ландшафтная экология» сегодня более распространены в англоязычном научном сообществе. Наш краткий обзор показывает значительное ускорение антропогенных ландшафтных изменений в Европе, Центральной Азии и азиатской части России за последние пять десятилетий. Ландшафтные исследования в антропоцене должны быть направлены на достижение и сохранение устойчивости ландшафта при его высокой производительности, что включает в себя прекращение деградации ландшафтов, развитие культурных и сохранение природных ландшафтов. Чистая вода и чистый воздух, плодородные и здоровые почвы для производства продуктов питания и других экосистемных услуг, а также биологически разнообразная зеленая среда являются атрибутами ландшафтов, обеспечивающих выживание и благополучие населения. Дисциплинарные и междисциплинарные исследования должны генерировать знания, инновации и правила принятия действенных решений. Генерация знаний в глобализованном мире основана на сборе больших массивов данных и моделировании сценариев. Международные длительные полевые опыты и системы агроэкологического мониторинга будут предоставлять данные для экосистемных моделей и систем поддержки принимаемых решений. Landscape research has been a traditional scientific discipline of geography. This is still the case in Russia, whilst the terms geo-ecology and landscape ecology have become established in the English speaking scientific community. Our short review reveals huge and accelerating anthropogenic landscape transformations in Europe, Central Asia and Asian Russia since the end the 1960s. Landscape research in the Anthropocene has to focus on achieving landscape sustainability at high productivity. This includes halting landscape degradation, developing cultural landscapes, and maintaining semi-natural landscapes. Clean water and air, fertile and healthy soils for food and other ecosystem services and a green and bio-diverse environment are attributes of landscapes for the survival and well-being of humans. Research has to generate knowledge, innovations and decision rules by disciplinary, interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary work. Knowledge generation in a globalized world is based on big data gathering and scenario modelling. International long-term experiments and agri-environmental monitoring systems will deliver data for ecosystem models and decision support systems.

Little is known about the validity of repeated 24-h dietary recalls (24-HDR) as a measure of total energy intake (EI) in young children. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of proxy-reported EI by comparison with total energy expenditure (TEE) measured by the doubly labeled water (DLW) technique.The agreement between EI and TEE was investigated in 36 (47.2% boys) children aged 4-10 years from Belgium and Spain using subgroup analyses and Bland-Altman plots. Low-energy-reporters (LER), adequate-energy-reporters (AER) and high-energy-reporters (HER) were defined from the ratio of EI over TEE by application of age- and sex-specific cut-off values.There was good agreement between means of EI (1500 kcal/day) and TEE (1523 kcal/day) at group level though in single children, i.e. at the individual level, large differences were observed. Almost perfect agreement between EI and TEE was observed in thin/normal weight children (EI: 1511 kcal/day; TEE: 1513 kcal/day). Even in overweight/obese children the mean difference between EI and TEE was only -86 kcal/day. Among the participants, 28 (78%) were classified as AER, five (14%) as HER and three (8%) as LER.Two proxy-reported 24-HDRs were found to be a valid instrument to assess EI on group level but not on the individual level.

Voluntary environmental management programs for firms have become an increasingly popular instrument of environmental policy. However, the literature’s conclusion on the effectiveness of suchprograms is ambiguous, and for the European region there is a lack of evidence based on a large control group. We seek to fill this gap with an evaluation of the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), introduced in 1995 by the European Union as a premium certification of continuous pro-environmental efforts above regulatory minimum standards. It is more demanding than other voluntary programsdue to annual public reports of the environmental performance and targets for improvements. We use official firm-level production census data on the German manufacturing sector, a major energy consumer and emitter in Europe. To account for the self-selection of firms, we combine the Coarsened Exact Matching approach with a Difference-in-Differences estimation. Our results do not suggest reductions of firms’ CO2 intensity and energy intensity neither before nor after certification. Moreover, program participants do not increase renewable energy consumption or investments into the protection of the environment and climate. Our results are robust to a variety of checks and call into question the effectiveness of the EMAS program concerning these particular outcome variables.

This paper explores the ability of European refineries to pass-through costs associated with the introduction of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). We estimated a sequence of vector error correction models (VECM) within a multi-national setting which covers 14 EU member states. Using weekly data at the country level, this paper finds a significant influence of prices for European Union Allowances (EUAs) on unleaded petrol retail prices during the trial phase of the EU ETS from 2005 to 2007. Petrol prices are found to be elastic with respect to crude oil prices and exchange rates but rather inelastic with respect to carbon costs. The long-run elasticity of petrol prices with respect to the EUA prices typically ranges between 0.01% and 0.09%. Furthermore, by computing the variance decomposition our analysis shows that a significant fraction of petrol price changes in Austria, Germany, France and Spain can be explained by changes in allowances prices (between 10% and 20%).

Abstract Fruit and vegetables are stored for up to several months in large bin stacks in refrigerated rooms. Gaps between the bins and bin wall openings should allow the circulation of cooling air to remove field and respiration heat from produce. In an industrial apple store, the effects of the stacking array, fan position and number on airflow distribution in vertical gaps and inside plastic bins were investigated using stepwise reduction of fan revolution. At 100% fan power, the average air velocity in vertical gaps between bin rows in the main flow direction increased with reducing total cross section of the gaps. In contrast, the number of vertical gaps between bin rows had little effect on the average air speed between fruit inside the bins, probably due to additional flow paths in the horizontal gaps. The lowest air speed was measured when bins were stacked in one block without vertical gaps and a distance to the side walls of only 10 cm. A stacking arrangement with only one central vertical gap between four bin rows or with a large distance (> 1 m) between the wall opposite to the fans and the bins enhanced flow uniformity. Three fans situated above the vertical gaps was more effective for the ventilation of bins than four fans above the bin rows.

This paper constitutes a first analysis on stock returns and stock return volatility of energy corporations from the Eurozone. According to our results, the gas market does not play a role for the pricing of Eurozone energy stocks. However, changes in the Euro to U.S. Dollar exchange rate as well as developments at the money and especially at the oil market strongly affect returns of the energy stock portfolios analyzed. While oil price hikes negatively impact on stock returns of European utilities, they lead to an appreciation of oil and gas stocks. Most importantly, we show that oil market volatility negatively affects European oil and gas stocks. In contrast, energy stock volatility is not driven by volatility of the resource market, but only by its own dynamics.

In the context of discussed global climate change the emphasis is placed mainly on the adaptability of the water management methodology at present time. Therefore a questionnaire inquiry oriented to the perception of the climate change impact and current state of adaptation strategies implementation was carried out and evaluated. The research was realised among the water management experts in six large transboundary basins: Elbe, Rhine, Guadiana, Amudaria, Orange and Nile. The questionnaire was divided into six parts concerning for example: expected climate change impacts, adaptation measures, drivers for development of adaptation strategy, adaptation barriers etc. Responses were evaluated with rating and the dominant answers and lists of priority were established. Results were evaluated looking for overall conclusions in all or almost all regions, as well as conclusions for each region. The main benefit of the research lies in the evaluation based principally on the opinions of policy makers, stakeholders and water managers in the river basins not on the climate scenarios. The outcomes have proved understanding of the climate change impact issue over all six basins, only the approach to adaptation is partly different. The historical development of water management in the basin influences the perception as well.