Policy makers are dependent upon scientific knowledge. However, scientific results cannot be applied straightforwardly in practical decision making. We deploy Kant's term “power of judgment” – the human capacity to apply general insights to specific, contingent situations – to show that...

One major scientific challenge posed by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) is the design of a decision support process that meets the Directive’s requirement to achieve “good status” for all water bodies using a cost-effective combination of measures. This paper presents BASINFORM, a...

The European Water Framework Directive is shaping a new conception of integrative water protection. In this article, the consequences of the Water Framework Directive in respect to national environmental policy will be discussed in referring to the notion of responsibility which is a central...

Uncertainty is highly relevant in environmental policy because on the one hand environmental problems are regarded as complex and require a long-term perspective and on the other hand the knowledge available to practitioners and policy makers alike is often fragmentary and not systemised. One...

Land is an essential yet limited natural resource. Its current unsustainable use highlights the need for sustainability policies. In order to explore potential policy strategies, we use the concepts of stocks and durable institutions as tools for analysing temporal structures in nature and...

Dieses Buch wendet sich explizit der zentralen Frage zu, die Wissenschaftler und Politiker sowie jedermann, der um die Probleme von Umweltverschmutzung und Schädigung der Natur Sorge trägt, beschäftigt: Wie kann eine Entwicklung unseres sozialen und wirtschaftlichen Systems gewährleistet...

This book presents interdisciplinary approaches towards achieving regional sustainability. The relevance of interdisciplinary research and its consequences for economic research into the environment are elaborated, and new approaches are developed to integrate knowledge from ecological and...