Publications

The report identifies synergies and conflicts in the implementation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention on the protection of wetlands and the international forest process. Interlinkages between climate change and biodiversity conservation are discussed at the scientific and the policy level.

The German Federal Environmental Agency had commissioned the Federal Environment Agency of Austria to organise the EU-Workshop “Monitoring of Environmental Impacts of Genetically Modified Plants” taking specifically into account Annex VII of the amendment to the EU-Directive 90/220/EEC.

The present documentation offers the reader a perception of the development of water body management in Germany and shows the conditions under which this management is economically and ecologically successful today.

This report gives an overview of three workshops which were held in May and June 2001 in Berlin following the submission of the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Environmental Agency) study "Substituting Environmentally Relevant Flame Retardants: Assessment Fundamentals“ (Umweltbundesamt Texte [Federal Environmental Agency publications] 25/01 – 27/01; Vol. I in English: Umweltbundesamt Texte 40/01).

The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Protection extends not only to the greenhouse-gases CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, but also to the fluorinated gases (f-gases) HFC, PFC and SF6.

With the Twelfth Ordinance on the Implementation of the Federal Pollution Control Act, which came into force on 3.5.2000, the Hazardous Incidents Ordinance in the version of 20 September 1991 was reformulated.

On September, 24th, 1996 the Council of the European Communities issued Directive 96/61/EC on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC-D) [25]. This directive aims at the integrated reduction and prevention of environmental pollution emitted by industrial installations with a high potential of emissions into the environmental media air, water and soil.

The extensive detection of hazardous substances in wastewater discharges of the industry requires a concerted combination of chemical and biological analyses beyond those established in the German Wastewater Ordinance or any other European water regulation/legislation.

More than four years ago the European Union (EU) decided to start negotiations on accession with possible new member countries. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia were the first countries to be accepted into the formal accession process. There countries are accordingly the called Accession Countries.

The annual world production of sodium carbonate (soda) amounted to approximately 31,5 million tons in 1993. The main share is synthetic soda. Nowadays it is only manufactured by means of the Solvay technology, which – as it uses NH3 as auxiliary material – is also called „ammonia soda process“. Approximately 35 % of the world production is natural soda, mainly manufactured in the USA.

Multi-nutrient fertilizers have increasingly gained importance in the last decades mainly for economic reasons, but also due to technical and physiological aspects. According to the type of manufacture, they are divided into mixed fertilizers and complex fertilizers.

This document comprises the contribution of Germany to the exchange of information in the European Union on the use of Best Available Techniques (BAT) to control the environmental impact of industrial processes and describes the production of urea.