Publications

Germany already excels in the separate collection of bio-waste and its recovery: on average more than 100 kg of bio-waste and green waste are collected separately per person and year, which translates into a total annual amount of around nine million metric tons.

The Water Framework Directive sets the ambitious goal of achieving “good status” for rivers, lakes, coastal waters, and groundwater by 2015. The management plans and programmes of measures for Germany’s ten river basins were issued in December 2009. In December 2012, a report on the implementation status of the programmes of measures was submitted to the European Commission.

This report provides an overview of current activities regarding climate change mitigation in six emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. We cover the institutional set up, measurement, reporting and verification systems for greenhouse gases and mitigation policies and measures.

The essential goal of the investigations presented here was to work out a draft of a methodology for the determination of the noise exposure of engine test runs. For this, a problem-related definition of engine test runs was worked out on the basis of the
facts and conditions of real engine test runs on airfields (sort and extent of engine test runs, noise control measures …).

The background paper is a summary of a study which shows that future greenhouse gas neutrality in Germany is technically achievable. The scenariolooks at the issue merely from a national perspective and does not include interaction with other countries. The study focuses on the national GHG reduction target of 95 % in comparison with 1990.

The evaluation was implemented at three levels: individual project, cluster, and finally at the level of the overall programme. The methodology was developed specifically for the ICI evaluation, accompanying the projects.

The main objective of the project is to outline the potential contribution of adaptation measures to avoid crisis and conflicts caused or exacerbated by water scarcity, food shortages or extreme weather events. As discussed in the conceptual chapter of the report, adaptation can contribute to peace and stability even in conflict-prone areas given that a conflict-sensitive approach is applied.

The fact sheet is focusing on the uses of OLEDs for lighting purposes. Their function is based on nanotechnology-structured organic semiconductor materials. According to experts, this novel lighting technology will revolutionise both interior and exterior lighting as well as the display area (TVs, monitors, telephones) in the near future and in part replace existing systems.

We examine the water-related environmental impacts and the risks for human health and the environment that could potentially be caused by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) during exploration and exploitation of unconventional natural gas reservoirs in Germany. This study covers both scientific-technical aspects and the existing mining and environmental regulations.

Based on the European Waste Framework Directive and the German Recycling Management Act of 01.06.2012 the objectives for a national waste prevention programme were defined. As main objective, according to art. 1 WFD, the "prevention or reduction of the disadvan-tageous impacts of waste generation and management on the human health and the environment" is recommended.

Nanomaterials are nowadays used in increasing amounts in everyday products and special applications. Enhanced release of engineered nanomaterials (ENM) into the environment can hence be assumed. The first part of the study dealt with a method development for the stability testing of the coating of two different functionalised TiO2 nanomaterials.

The research project on which this report is based focuses on the measurement of particulate emissions in the area of fine and ultrafine particles from laser printing devices.