Tuesday, October 28, 2014

From Knowledge To Action – Alpine Regions adapting to climate change: The C3-Alps project launched the Alpine Climate Change Knowledge Inventory Portal on October 14, 2014 at the final conference in Vienna


The C3-Alps initiative was co-funded by the Alpine Space programme, through the European Regional Development Fund and conducted by a transnational consortium of 17 partners from all Alpine countries. The capitalisation approach of C3-Alps aimed at generating adaptation knowledge that is useful to decision-makers, its effective transfer to target groups, and its actual implementation in real world adaptation processes. Results shall contribute to enhancing development and implementation of adaptation policies, to implementing bottom-up action on adaptation on regional and local levels, and to communicating adaptation concerns and "how-to-do" adaptation knowledge to decision makers.

Z_GIS together with EURAC and the Environment Agency Austria (Umweltbundesamt GmbH) designed and implemented the Climate Adaptation Platform for the Alps. The platform provides knowledge (in several languages) about adaptation to climate change in the Alps from local to transnational scale for political decision makers, public administration, municipalities, entrepreneurs and researchers alike. The final C3- Alps international conference in Vienna focused on the current practice and future of climate change adaptation in mountain areas. Regions and municipalities from Alpine countries and beyond presented their achievements, shared their experiences and discussed about the way forward in coping with climate change. For more information please contact: Hermann Klug.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Development of a cloud virtual registry of utilities infrastructures. VIRGO, - first year progress report

Virgo (VIrtual Registry of underGrOund Infrastructures) is a European EC-CIP project with the aim to implement a cloud virtual registry of utilities infrastructures. In the last 9 months, Z_GIS was involved in the first three work packages of the project.
One of the recent main tasks was a state-of-the art institutional scenario analysis; - The utility network situation of all EU countries was analysed and responsible public administrators/operators managing infrastructures in the EU countries were identified. Z_GIS was responsible for the analysis of three countries: Austria, Germany and Slovenia. The results of the institutional scenario analysis show possible futures of the compulsory provision of utility network data in the EU countries. At the moment the Z_GIS project team specifies and finalizes the user/service requirements and system architecture of the VIRGIO system in order to start the feasibility study in a next step. For more information, please visit the project website or contact Elisabeth Weinke.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Spatial Vulnerability Publications

Z_GIS is very active in developing conceptual frameworks to represent risk and vulnerability analysis in the context of disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and vector-borne diseases. In this context, the department has developed approaches to model and represent vulnerability through innovative spatial analysis methods, going beyond traditional composite indices. This includes the integration of various spatial datasets as well as expert knowledge and participatory approaches at the community level. Assessments have been carried out in Europe (Austria), southern and eastern Africa and South Asia.

A number of different publications on the topic of ‘Spatial Vulnerability Assessments’ have been published recently by Z_GIS researchers

GIZ – The Vulnerability Sourcebook: Concept and guidelines for standardized vulnerability assessments The sourcebook aims to present a standardized method for vulnerability assessments. This was implemented together with EURAC and adelphi and through the contribution of Stefan Kienberger through a contract by the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)”.


 
Birkmann J, Kienberger S, Alexander DE (eds.) – Assessment of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards – A European Perspective. Elsevier This edited book comprises results from the MOVE project, including the Z_GIS assessment results (and methods) for the Salzach catchment. Assessment of Vulnerability to Natural Hazards covers the vulnerability of human and environmental systems to climate change and eight natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, landslides, avalanches, forest fires, drought, coastal erosion, and heat waves.



Spatial-explicit modeling of social vulnerability to malaria in East Africa
A new paper on the “Spatial-explicitmodeling of social vulnerability to malaria in East Africa” is now online accessible via the website of the International Journal of Health Geographics. The paper is one of the key results of the HEALTHY FUTURES project. It presents the ‘state-of-the-art’ in modelling ‘integrated geons’ including now methods on indicator pre-processing and local sensitivity analysis.

 

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

gSmartRegion - Z_GIS showcasing regional projects

Vice Governor Dr Astrid Rössler and Techno-Z CEO
Mag Werner Pfeiffenberger with Prof Josef Strobl. 
While Z_GIS' geoinformatics methodology and applications research is worldwide in scope and recognition with cooperations and projects reaching into most corners of the globe, our efforts to generate new knowledge and scientific results are strongly anchored in and around Salzburg.

In an event celebrating our 10-year anniversary at Techno-Z Itzling, our researchers today were presenting a broad collection of projects reaching from natural resources and risk management to foundations for conservation efforts, spatial planning, remote sensing for monitoring change, public participation, climate change impact mitigation and adaptation, facilitation of sustainable mobility and other themes closely connected with the spatial aspects of society, economy and environment.

Presentations and subsequent discussions were highly appreciated by visitors from public administration and government, led by Salzburg Vice Governor Dr Astrid Rössler, representatives of the business community like Dr Markus Eisl from GIS-Cluster Salzburg / eoVision and research partners from e.g. the Berchtesgaden National Park. The 'gSmartRegion' event was co-hosted with the Techno-Z Salzburg management, with Mag. Werner Pfeiffenberger encouraging further exchanges within the local business network.

Posters presented today are available online: http://zgisalzburg.blogspot.com

2014 GeOnG conference in Chambery, France

During the 2014 GeOnG conference in Chambery (France), Dr Stefan Lang, founder of the Z_GIS-MSF cooperation, joined an expert panel on „Satellite imagery – it’s for you!“ with an invited speech soliciting the use of GIS and satellite remote sensing for humanitarian operations support. His initial statement addressed recent achievements in satellite-based population assessment as well as groundwater exploration. The discussion was led by Human Rights Watch and engaged attendees from MSF, IFRC and other key actors in the humanitarian aid and logistics domain.

A new folder on  Z_GIS' work on EO-based services to support humanitarian operations is also available online. For detailed information, please contact Stefan Lang.



Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change

On 17 September 2014 the first Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change was published. Over the course of a three-year process, Austrian scientists have produced an assessment report on climate change in Austria following the model of the IPCC Assessment Reports. In this extensive work, more than 200 scientists depict the state of knowledge on climate change in Austria and its impacts, mitigation and adaptation strategies, as well as associated known political, economic and social issues.

The Austrian Climate Research Program (ACRP) of the Klima- und Energiefonds (Climate and Energy Fund) has enabled this work by financing the coordinating activities and material costs. The work has been carried out gratuitously by the researchers. Stefan Kienberger contributed as lead author to the chapter 'Band 3: Klimawandel in Österreich: Vermeidung und Anpassung. Kapitel 1: Emissionsminderung und Anpassung an den Klimawandel'

The reports is available for download 
Full reports are also available as pdf (large file)

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

INQUIMUS Workshop @ Salzburg, Edmundsburg

The first INQUIMUS workshop was successfully held in Salzburg from September 15-17, 2014. The thematic scope of the workshop aimed to bring together experts for the ‘spatial view’ to discuss recent developments, achievements and challenges in the spatial assessment of multi-dimensional, latent phenomena. The workshop was opened by the movie ‘What happiness is’ about the measurement of the Gross National Happiness Product (GNH) in Bhutan, which sparked first discussions on how to measure such complex phenomena. During the workshop the experts discussed specific issues on available datasets to represent indicators, key methods for developing spatial indicators and indices and issues around validation/uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. Because of its interactivity and small size, the workshop was very much dedicated to the topics and helped to gain insights into this specific theme. To continue the series of INQUIMUS workshops – Integrating quantitative and qualitative assessment methodologies for multi-dimensional phenomena - a 2nd workshop is scheduled for September 2015 to be held at EURAC in Bozen/Italy.