Zugl.: Basel, Universiẗat, Diss., 2009.

Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, die Frage nach der Relation zwischen Umwelteinstellungen und umweltgerechtem Verhalten zu beantworten. Hierzu wird ein deduktiver, theoretischer Zugang gewählt. Es werden unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, die sich in der Umweltforschung etabliert haben, vergleichend betrachtet und analysiert: die Umweltbewusstseinsforschung, die Risikoforschung, die Werteforschung und der Rational-Choice-Ansatz, wobei die beiden letztgenannten Theorieansätze in je zwei unterschiedlichen Varianten berücksichtigt werden. Die einzelnen Erklärungsansätze stehen bisher weitgehend isoliert nebeneinander, es fehlt eine explizite systematische theorievergleichende Perspektive, die versucht, den Bewährungsgrad und die Leistungsfähigkeit der dominierenden Ansätze des Forschungsfeldes empirisch zu untersuchen und zu vergleichen. Ein solcher Vergleich wird in der vorliegenden Untersuchung durchgeführt. In der vorliegenden Studie wird neben dieser theorievergleichenden Strategie zusätzlich auch eine kulturvergleichende Strategie verfolgt. Zum einen weil die Umweltproblematik in Zeiten der Globalisierung ein internationales Problem ist. Zum anderen ist die Validierung der verschiedenen Theorien in verschiedenen kulturellen Settings ein wichtiger Weg der Theorieprüfung.

Stuttgart, Univ., Diss., 2000.

Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, die Frage nach der Relation zwischen Umwelteinstellungen und umweltgerechtem Verhalten zu beantworten. Hierzu wird ein deduktiver, theoretischer Zugang gewählt. Es werden unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, die sich in der Umweltforschung etabliert haben, vergleichend betrachtet und analysiert: die Umweltbewusstseinsforschung, die Risikoforschung, die Werteforschung und der Rational-Choice-Ansatz, wobei die beiden letztgenannten Theorieansätze in je zwei unterschiedlichen Varianten berücksichtigt werden. Die einzelnen Erklärungsansätze stehen bisher weitgehend isoliert nebeneinander, es fehlt eine explizite systematische theorievergleichende Perspektive, die versucht, den Bewährungsgrad und die Leistungsfähigkeit der dominierenden Ansätze des Forschungsfeldes empirisch zu untersuchen und zu vergleichen. Ein solcher Vergleich wird in der vorliegenden Untersuchung durchgeführt. In der vorliegenden Studie wird neben dieser theorievergleichenden Strategie zusätzlich auch eine kulturvergleichende Strategie verfolgt. Zum einen weil die Umweltproblematik in Zeiten der Globalisierung ein internationales Problem ist. Zum anderen ist die Validierung der verschiedenen Theorien in verschiedenen kulturellen Settings ein wichtiger Weg der Theorieprüfung.:Vorwort 4 1. Einleitung 5 2. Sozialwissenschaftliche Umweltforschung 10 2.1 Umweltbewusstsein – empirische Ergebnisse 13 2.2. Umweltbewusstseinsforschung – im engeren Sinne 16 2.2.1 Was ist Umweltbewusstsein? 16 2.2.2 Sozialstruktur und Umweltbewusstsein 20 2.2.3 Umweltbewusstsein und Verhalten 22 2.3. Risikoforschung 23 2.3.1 Psychologische Risikoforschung 24 2.3.2 Sozialkonstruktivistische Risikoforschung 25 2.4 Werteforschung und Umweltprobleme 29 2.4.1 Der Materialismus/Postmaterialismus-Ansatz 30 2.4.2 Der Norm-Activation-Ansatz 34 2.5 Kosten-Nutzen-Ansätze in der Umweltforschung 36 2.5.1 Die High-Cost/Low-Cost-These 37 2.5.2 Framing-Modelle 40 3. Theorien zum Umweltbewusstsein und –verhalten im Vergleich 45 3.1 Einführende Bemerkungen zur Methodologie des Theorienvergleichs 46 3.1.1 Logischer Vergleich und Ansätze einer Theorieintegration 50 3.2 Einführende Bemerkungen zur Methodologie des Kulturvergleichs 57 4. Fragestellungen und Hypothesen 61 4.1 Hypothesen auf der Strukturebene 62 4.2 Hypothesen aus kulturvergleichender Perspektive 71 4.2.1 Die ausgewählten Länder 72 4.2.2 Unterschiedshypothesen auf Struktur- und Niveauebene 79 4.4 Unterschiede zu vergleichbaren Studien – Desiderate 84 5. Methodisches Vorgehen 87 5.1 Analysestrategien 87 5.2 Stichproben 91 5.2.1 Die Auswahl der Länder 93 5.2.2 Auswahl der Individuen 98 5.3 Messinstrumente - Messmodelle im Kulturvergleich 99 5.3.1 Die Frage der Vergleichbarkeit 99 5.3.2 Meßmodelle und Äquivalenz 100 5.3.2.1 Umweltbezogene Werthaltung und Einstellungen 103 5.3.2.2 Berichtetes tatsächliches Verhalten 113 5.3.2.3 Sozialstrukturelle Variablen 115 5.3.3 Messmodelle: umweltbezogene Einstellungen 116 5.3.4 Messmodell: Umweltverhalten 123 6. Ergebnisse 125 6.1 Ländervergleich oder Kulturvergleich? 126 6.2 Kulturvergleich: Unterschiede auf der Niveauebene 129 6.2.1 Umweltbezogene Werthaltungen und Einstellungen im ISSP 130 6.2.2 Konsumverhalten - Protestverhalten 141 6.2.3 Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse auf der Niveauebene 143 6.3 Ergebnisse auf der Strukturebene 145 6.3.1 Das Gesamtmodell – alle sechs Länder im Vergleich 146 6.3.2 Das Kernmodell – ein multipler Gruppenvergleich 155 6.3.3 Konsumverhalten versus Protestverhalten 160 6.3.4 Die High-Cost/Low-Cost These 163 6.3.5 Die Framing-These 171 6.3.6 Der Norm-Activation Ansatz 174 6.4 Eine Bilanz: Umweltbewusstsein – Umweltverhalten 176 7. Ergebnisse im Zeitvergleich 1993 und 2000 180 7.1 Veränderungen auf der Einstellungsebene 181 7.2 Veränderungen auf der Verhaltensebene 183 7.3 Veränderungen auf der Strukturebene 184 8. Fazit 188 Anhang 197 Tabellen- und Abbildungsverzeichnis 201 Literatur 206

The marine environment is polluted by plastics of all forms and sizes. To reduce this serious pollution, it is important to identify its sources. This work focuses on the me-chanically induced breakdown of plastic into smaller fragments as a source of secondary microplastic, the time scale in which these microplastics are formed as well as the influ-ence of different environmental conditions like matrix conditions, collision potential or UV irradiation on the abrasion and fragmentation behaviour of plastic debris. Since a systematic investigation of parameter influence is not possible in the environ-ment, laboratory experiments were developed to simulate natural conditions such as drift on the beach or wave action in the (low tide) surf and swash zone. For this purpose, selected plastic objects (PET bottles, HDPE caps, PS cups and LDPE bags) were ex-posed to collision and/or friction forces under different conditions. Besides visual in-spection of the destruction procedure, a number of different methods was used to char-acterize the process, e.g., counting of visible fragments (larger than 350 μm), micro-scopic analysis of the surface structure (binocular, SEM) and highly resolved analysis of particle numbers in the size range below 350 μm. In order to extract microplastic parti-cles (<5 mm) from the matrix, extraction methods were developed that were adapted to the given sample properties (matrix volume). Furthermore, based on the particle num-bers, the power law model was applied to analyse the fragmentation process in the con-text of the observed particle size distributions. Plastic samples exhibited various signs of mechanical impairment in form of surface abrasion, cracks, tears, perforation, crumpling and finally fragmentation. The formation of fragments in different sizes (macro-, meso- and microplastics) was observed. The plastic objects were classified according to their degree of destruction to elucidate the effect of the different experimental conditions. Results show that fragmentation and abrasion depend on individual properties of the plastic objects such as thickness or shape and on the potential of weakening the plastic structure by mechanical forces (collisions) or chemical degradation (UV irradiation). Environmental conditions also influence the plastic damage; surface abrasion plays a major role on the beach; fragmentation will most likely happen in the surf- and in the swash zone. However, both processes occur simultaneously and interact with each oth-er. Formation of secondary microplastics was shown to be likely in the marine environ-ment; it must therefore be considered as an important process in the light of microplastic contamination.

For a long time, water shortages and flooding have been challenges in many parts of China. Meanwhile, the Chinese government announced the change of water management from engineering-oriented approach towards integrated approach in the last decades. However, the announced changes in management approach does not necessarily lead to the wide implementation of institutions, infrastructures and practice. They can be confronted by a strong resistance from the existing management approach. In fact, the development of water resources management is a complex process. Such a complexity raise the following questions: did fundamental changes really take place in the structure of water supply and demand management and flood management in China? If yes, how? In order to answer this question, the author (1) developed conceptual frameworks to enable a detailed and precise analysis of regime development; (2)applied the elaborated conceptual frameworks to explore the development of the water resources management regime in China, at the example of three case studies. These three case studies were: •Flood Management (IFM) took place in the Dongting Lake Area in the middle Yangtze River, •Water allocation in the Yellow River Basin, •The experimentation period of Water Saving Society in China. With the support of the developed framework, the case studies show that fundamental changes, i.e. transitions, have taken place in flood management regime and water supply-demand regime in China, but transitions have not yet completed, due to, namely, the lack of reconfiguration of other regime components and other relevant regimes. In addition, the case studies also depict how the start of transitions were triggered and how informal learning processes influenced regime development. The thesis contributed to sustainability transitions research by developing an operational approach to analyze transitions of water resource management regime and by expanding the empirical basis for transitions research to natural resources management regime in emerging economies.

Grasslands cover 40% of the earth’s land area and provide numerous valuable ecosystem services. However, climate change, global land use change and increasing intensive anthropogenic interventions make grasslands to one of the most endangered ecosystem types in the world. Effective protection in the future requires a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of grasslands and their major drivers. Field experiments have been conducted for impact analyses, for example, with different management intensities, plant community composition and altered climatic conditions. Complementary, ecological models allow to extend the analysis to long-term effects of changes as well as to a deeper understanding of the underlying ecological processes. In this thesis, an individual-based grassland model and network science were applied to understand the community structure and dynamics emerging from individual plant interactions – in relation to plant traits, ecological processes, environmental and anthropogenic impacts, and the small-scale spatial distribution of plants. In the first study, an individual-based process-oriented grassland model was parameterized to simulate field data of a local biodiversity experiment using the concept of plant functional types. The influence of various functional plant traits and ecological processes on grassland productivity and functional composition were analyzed. Different functional plant traits showed partly contrasting effects on plant growth. With regard to the modeled ecological processes, competition for space between plants affected grassland productivity more than shading of plants. In the second study, the parameterized grassland model was used to analyze the impact of functional diversity, mowing frequency and air temperature on ecological processes that lead to changes in grassland productivity. The model reproduced the increase of biomass yields with functional diversity as observed in the field experiment. Modeled plant competition for space showed to be the dominant process and was responsible for an increase in biomass yields in more frequently mown grasslands. In the third study, an approach to generate a regionally transferable parameterization of the grassland model is presented. The impact of management, environment and climate change on productivity and functional composition of grasslands was analyzed within a German-wide scenario analysis. Management intensity had more influence on grassland productivity than environmental factors and correlations of productivity with environmental factors become stronger in less managed grasslands. Climate change showed to have only a minor influence on simulated vegetation attributes. In the fourth study, network science was applied to forest megaplots to quantify the spatial neighborhood structure of species-rich ecosystems. Networks at the individual-tree and tree-species levels revealed similar structures at three investigated forest sites. Tropical tree species coexisted in small-scale networks and only up to 51% of all possible connections between species pairs were realized. A null community analysis showed that details on the tree position and tree size have no major influence on the network structures identified. In summary, this thesis presents the development of advanced methods and analysis tools as well as their application to vegetation ecosystems with high diversity. Thereby, complex structures and dynamics of ecological systems could be systematically explored by combining ecological models with extensive field measurements.

No description available.

Terrestrial environments are highly complex and dynamic. It consists of various types of soils which are constantly exposed to fluctuating conditions affecting their physical and biological properties. Moreover, soils are delivering several ecosystem services with high relevance for the human well-being such as water purification, nutrient cycling, or biodegradation. For many of those ecosystem services, microorganisms are the main drivers. In consequence, it is important to understand the functional response of microbial ecosystems to disturbances. Thus, identifying key factors for the functional stability of microbial ecosystems in terrestrial environments is of high interest. A powerful tool for analysing dynamics and underlying mechanisms of ecosystems are computational simulation models. Within this doctoral thesis, a spatiotemporally explicit bacterial simulation model was developed for assessing dynamics of biodegradation as a typical microbial ecosystem function under the influence of disturbances. Disturbances were introduced as lethal events for the bacteria within a certain, randomly picked disturbance area. The disturbance characteristics vary in the spatial configuration and frequency of the disturbance events. Functional stability was analysed in terms of the ability to recover the function after a single disturbance event, i.e. functional resilience, and the ability to maintain the function during recurrent disturbance events, i.e. functional resistance. Key factors for functional stability were assessed by systematically varying properties and processes of the microbial ecosystem and characteristics of the disturbance regime. Simulation results show a high influence of the disturbance characteristics, especially its spatial distribution pattern, on the stability of biodegradation. Functional resistance and resilience increase with fragmentation of the spatial pattern of the disturbances. The frequency of recurrent disturbance events proved also essential for the functional resistance: if the disturbances occur too often, the emergence of a functional collapse may not be preventable. However, if the fragmentation of the applied disturbance patterns increases, the function is also maintained under more frequent disturbances without a functional collapse. Ecological processes such as bacterial dispersal and growth are shown to enhance the biodegradation performance, but only under specific disturbance regimes, again depending on frequency and fragmentation of the disturbances. Dispersal networks are shown to increase the functional stability in many scenarios and, thus, may serve as a buffer mechanism against disturbances. Therefore, strategies facilitating these ecological processes, for instance stimulating fungi that act as dispersal networks for bacteria, or modulating the physical soil structure to alter the spatial configuration of disturbances are proposed to increase the functional stability of microbial ecosystems.

No description available.