Publications | Umweltbundesamt

Soil | Land

Immobilisation of nitrogen in context of critical loads

Literature review and analysis of German, French and Swiss soil data

Estimating the nitrogen immobilisation under steady state condition is a crucial part of the critical load calculation. This report contains the results of a literature review focusing on this topic and the description of a new method to estimate the nitrogen immobilisation. For this approach, soil inventories from France, Switzerland and Germany were used to estimate nitrogen immobilisation on ba...read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Extending land footprints towards characterizing sustainability of land use

Beyond area-based land footprint indicators, additional information is needed to assess the sustainability of land use. This report discusses extensions of area-based land footprints with meaningful impact-oriented indicators for the assessment of the effects of different consumption patterns on the ecosystems and sustainability of land use. It discusses: System indicators, which considers globall...read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Quantifying the land footprint of Germany and the EU using a hybrid accounting model

Footprint analysis reveals the appropriation of land resources from a consumer’s perspective. This report presents a novel hybrid land-flow accounting method for the calculation of land footprints, employing a globally consistent top-down approach and combining physical with environmental-economic accounting. It delivers detailed results for cropland, grassland and forest land footprints for Germa...read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Review of land flow accounting methods and recommendations for further development

This report provides an in-depth review of the current state of the art in measuring land footprints. It identifies differences in available accounting methods and indicates their shortcomings. It offers options and gives clear recommendations for the further development of actual and virtual global biomass and land flow accounting methods.read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Development of consumption-based land use indicators

With our demand for food, feed, energetic and material use of biomass extensive land use is associated, both at home and abroad. This entails considerable environmental effects. Therefore, land use should be measured more in detail. In this research project, area based land footprint indicators of biomass consumption were further developed and calculated based on global data sets. The detailed res...read more

Climate | Energy

International Climate Initiatives – A way forward to close the emissions gap? Initiatives’ potential and role under the Paris Agreement

Final Report

In December 2015 Parties adopted the Paris Agreement at the 21st session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In its Article 2 governments agreed to limit global warming to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue to limit it to 1.5°C (UNFCCC 2015). The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2016 showed that a gap of 14 GtCO2e exists for 2030 between the (unc...read more

Waste | Resources

Product Labelling Body for the promotion of product resource efficiency and recyclability

This paper correlates closely with the previous position paper of the Resources Commission which was published in 2016: Ein ressourceneffizientes Europa– Ein Programm für Klima, Wettbewerbsfähigkeit und Beschäftigung (A resource-efficient Europe - a programme for the climate, competitiveness and employment). This paper highlights the fact that an effectively driven resources policy results in econ...read more

Climate | Energy

Synergies and Conflicts between Climate Protection and Adaptation Measures in Countries of Different Development Levels

How can developing countries maintain development targets, cope with unavoidable consequences of climate change and contribute to climate protection in parallel in a warming world? This question calls for the derivation of climate resilient future pathways that consider the synergies between adaptation, mitigation and sustainable development action. For 16 selected countries (BRA, KHM, COL, GRD, E...read more