Water and Sustainable Environmental Planning
Project:
Regional Sustainability - Studies on the Operationalization of Sustainable Development Using the Example of Ecosystem Research and Water Economy
Project team:
Prof. Dr. Egon Becker
Dr. Thomas Kluge
Aicha Vack
Peter Wehling
Gunter Vogt
Regional Sustainability - Studies on the Operationalization of Sustainable Development Using the Example of Ecosystem Research and Water Economy
"Sustainable Development" has become, at the latest since the UN Conference on the environment and development in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, a central model for international environmental politics. But so far this concept has been neither made concrete nor operationalized so that it may serve as a practical strategy for action. Since the idea of "sustainable development" couples social, economic and ecological processes, its operationalization will only be possible on the basis of cross-discipline cooperation.
The project looks at the possibility of an operationalization of "sustainable development" in terms of two topics. First, in a theoretical and methodological study, the question is asked: whether, and to what extent, applied ecosystems research represents an interdisciplinary approach to handling the conceptual problems raised by the model of "sustainable development." This question will be investigated by looking at two selected ecosystems research projects taken as examples from the interdisciplinary UNESCO program, "Man and the Biosphere." (MAB)
Second, the possibility of "regional sustainability" will be studied from a problem oriented perspective, using the example of water economy. Starting with a critical evaluation of present strategies for water economy, and the systems models that stand behind these, criteria for, and perspectives on, modes of water use meeting future requirements are formulated.
The results of both sub-projects will also be further evaluated in terms of the extent to which they may be used to develop approaches to modeling regional water economies and modes of water usage within a social-ecological systems model framework. The starting theses and interim results have been under discussion in an accompanying colloquium at the University of Frankfurt.