Search

We estimate impacts of exposure to an infant health intervention trialled in Sweden in the early 1930s using purposively digitised birth registers linked to school catalogues, census files and tax records to generate longitudinal data that track individuals through four stages of the life-course, from birth to age 71. This allows us to measure impacts on childhood health and cognitive skills at ages 7 and 10, educational choice during young adulthood, employment, earnings and occupation at age 36{40, and pension income at age 71. Leveraging quasi-random variation in eligibility by birth date and birth parish, we estimate that an additional year of exposure was associated with substantial increases in earnings and (public sector) employment among women, alongside no improvements for men. Earnings gains for women were concentrated in the top quintile of the distribution. The earnings results appear to be related to the intervention having made it more likely that primary school test scores for girls were in the top quintile of the distribution and, related, that they attended secondary school. The greater investments of women in education are consistent with their comparative advantage in cognitive tasks, but opportunities are also likely to have played a role. Our sample cohorts were exposed to a massive expansion of the Swedish welfare state, which created unprecedented employment opportunities for women.

Wildfire affecting urban areas at the wildland urban interface (WUI) is a growing global concern, where management is important for urban residents as well as wildland vegetation. We used a socio-ecological system perspective to investigate the interactions of urban land with a fire-dependent wildland in South Africa’s City of Cape Town (CoCT). We examined changes in population growth, land cover change and related WUI footprint, occurrence of large fires, and related policies over time. We used Landsat data to track changes over the period 1990–2019 in the formal and informal urban and wildland footprint, census data to track changes in population, and difference normalised burn ratio and MODIS burned area product to track large fires. The urban footprint has expanded greatly and through consolidation has led to the reduction of the WUI. Furthermore, evidence points to an increase in fire suppression, even though national policies ask for wildfires to run their course where possible and appropriate. As a result of pressure from urban residents, local managers prefer short term fire suppression to long term risk reduction for urban areas and ecological management of wildland. Framing the problem as a socio-ecological system enabled us to highlight how WUI management is a product of interaction between urban development, wildland type and policies. Our findings emphasise the point that wildland management is driven by urban residents and local municipalities, with national fire and disaster management policies not fully implemented.

Food-system studies often assess dynamics in production, consumption or processing and logistics in a spatially abstract manner. Land-system studies traditionally analyze land-use/land cover change with its environmental and societal drivers as well as impacts and are typically spatially explicit. Primary production is a main node where food and land systems overlap. We used a systematic literature review to determine how existing studies in Europe address the interface of food and land systems. We identified three pathways of studies: economic, footprint and crop modeling studies (pathway 1), and scenario-based land-use/land-cover change and remote sensing studies (pathway 2), and (qualitative) policy studies (pathway 3). The reviewed studies only partially integrate land- and food-system research. Most of these studies are stronger on the land- than on the food-system side and miss processing as well as distribution and sales. In addition, major linkages between land and food systems are implemented deterministically in the reviewed studies (e.g., through static land requirements for diets). Here, the role of actors and dynamic models considering systemic feedbacks could improve the realisms of studies. Therefore, this study develops a framework to reveal the interplay between food- and land-system research. It focusses on urban-rural linkages as both research strands analyze major processes at this interface: the rural-urban exchange of food and urban sprawl. Future research should especially address and quantify governance, which is hardly quantified to date. Urban-rural linkages are weakly considered in the reviewed literature and if considered only from an urban perspective. Thereby, it would be interesting to study to which extent rural population and governance shape urban-rural-linkages, and how a change of focus from rural to urban areas could provide additional insights.

As more people worldwide are moving to urban areas there is an expansion of urban land that adjoins wildland. This study focuses on an area where fire-dependent and fire-prone vegetation meets an informal urban settlement named Imizamo Yethu in Cape Town, South Africa. We investigate the reasoning behind why some residents choose to remain in a settlement that experiences both wildfires and settlement-based fires and why others choose to leave. To achieve this we integrate three theories: protection motivation theory, John Turner's theory on settlement patterns and place attachment. We converted Turner's qualitative theory into quantitatively measurable indicators and identified five resident types with varying characteristics in the settlement. In agreement with Turner's theory, employment and friends and family were identified as key reasons for people remaining in a known high-fire-risk settlement. Finally, we combined the protection motivation theory with Turner's theory and place attachment in regression models to determine why people remain in the study area and what factors may make them move. The key determinants for residents remaining are the perceived benefits of the location, place attachment and the individual's perception of fire-threat. Significant determinants for moving away due to perceived fire-threat include how effective the move would be for the fire hazard and their current level of place attachment.

Sustainability challenges in socio-environmental systems (SES) are inherently multiscale, with global-level changes emerging from socio-environmental processes that operate across different spatial, temporal, and organisational scales. Models of SES therefore need to incorporate multiple scales, which requires sound methodologies for transferring information between scales. Due to the increasing global connectivity of SES, upscaling – increasing the extent or decreasing the resolution of a modelling study – is becoming progressively more important. However, upscaling in SES models has received less attention than in other fields (e.g., ecology or hydrology) and therefore remains a pressing challenge. To advance the understanding of upscaling in SES, we take three steps. First, we review existing upscaling approaches in SES as well as other disciplines. Second, we identify four main challenges that are particularly relevant to upscaling in SES: 1) heterogeneity, 2) interactions, 3) learning and adaptation, and 4) emergent phenomena. Third, we present an approach that facilitates the transfer of existing upscaling methods to SES, using two good practice examples from ecology. To describe and compare these methods, we propose a scheme of five general upscaling strategies. This scheme builds upon and unifies existing schemes and provides a standardised way to classify and represent existing as well as new upscaling methods. We demonstrate how the scheme can help to transparently present upscaling methods and uncover scaling assumptions, as well as to identify limits for the transfer of upscaling methods. We finish by pointing out research avenues on upscaling in SES to address the identified upscaling challenges.

Residents’ responses to wildfires are largely dictated by their perceptions of risk and coping strategies. Few studies have yet had the opportunity to investigate these perceptions both before and after a fire event. Here we study the impact a settlement fire has on the perceptions of residents in an informal settlement in South Africa, in relation to wildfires and settlement fires. We conclude that any fire event raises the perception of all fire risks in an area. Residents respond differently whether they are directly impacted by the fire or not, with some being more concerned about personal risk than community risk. Other studies found that a fire event raises the likelihood of residents enacting risk reduction efforts, this was disputed in our study with residents less likely to commit to personal risk reduction efforts. Finally, a fire event appears to lower the likelihood of residents leaving a settlement due to perception of wildfire or settlement fire risk.

Policy making for complex Social-Ecological Systems (SESs) is a multi-factorial and multi-stakeholder decision making process. Therefore, proper policy simulation in a SES should consider both the complex behavior of the system and the multi-stakeholders’ interventions into the system, which requires integrated methodological approaches. In this study, we simulate impacts of policy options on a farming community facing water scarcity in Rafsanjan, Iran, using an integrated modeling methodology combining an Agent Based Model (ABM) with Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM). First, the behavioral rules of farmers and the causal relations among environmental variables are captured with FCMs that are developed with both qualitative and quantitative data, i.e. farmers' knowledge and empirical data from studies. Then, an ABM is developed to model decisions and actions of farmers and simulate their impacts on overall groundwater use and emigration of farmers in this case study. Finally, the impacts of different policy options are simulated and compared with a baseline scenario. The results suggest that a policy of facilitating farmers' participation in management and control of their groundwater use leads to the highest reduction of groundwater use and would help to secure farmers’ activities in Rafsanjan. Our approach covers four main aspects that are crucial for policy simulation in SESs: 1) causal relationships, 2) feedback mechanisms, 3) social-spatial heterogeneity and 4) temporal dynamics. This approach is particularly useful for ex-ante policy options analysis.

It is essential to understand how urban plans affect urban growth patterns in order to improve current urban planning and management systems. Few studies have been conducted to analyse urban growth patterns of Shenzhen, an international megacity located in southern China, but none of them revealed the relationships between urban planning and urban growth patterns. This study explores the effects of urban master plans on urban growth patterns in different plan periods in Shenzhen. We first quantified the urban growth patterns comparing pixel- and patch-based methods. Three methods resulted in different quantities and spatial characteristics of urban growth. We then explored the relationships between urban growth patterns and urban planning in Shenzhen through multinomial logistic regression models. Across two planning periods, the master plans together with other socio-economic, physical, proximity, accessibility and neighbourhood factors shaped the urban growth patterns of Shenzhen. Out of the master plan elements, planned main roads in the Master Plan of Shenzhen 1996–2010 and the planned built-up zone in the Master Plan of Shenzhen 2010–2020 ha d stronger effects on urban growth patterns but contributed less than most other factors, e.g. distance to ocean. The importance of the other influence factors also varied over time. This changing effect suggests that we need to consider carefully whether driving factors might change in their importance over time when investigating future scenarios of urban land use change. Overall, this approach could also be applied to monitor progress in the paradigm shift towards an integrated urban-rural development in China.

In Europe, landscape metrics dominate studies that apply quantitative analyses to urban form. Indicators describing population distribution in more detail than just population density, which in Europe are often neglected because of the difficulty in data acquisition, are likely to be more adequate for describing the socioeconomic perspective on urban form. This study aims to disclose the linkage between landscape metrics and population distribution metrics and to provide a better understanding of population distribution patterns. In our study, we quantified urban form in 35 European cities using the most common indicators from both groups of indicators, including measures for the gradient of population density with distance from the city center or (in-) equality of population distribution. We found that landscape metrics correlate only weakly with population distribution indicators by analyzing the correlation matrix. To obtain more insight into the largely neglected group of population distribution indicators, we also applied a regression analysis to understand their underlying information. The results show that population distribution indicators are related to other basic characteristics of cities, such as planning coordination and latitude. The indicated influence of national planning regime on urban form could stimulate further discussion on the effectiveness of urban planning measures. Our study demonstrates that population distribution indicators provide a different perspective than landscape metrics in describing urban form. We therefore stress that it is essential to include population distribution indicators also for describing European cities when aiming to comprehensively describe urban form.

The state of nature is driving human activities, while human activities change the state of nature. These social‐ecological interactions have existed for millennia. Now in the Anthropocene ‐the acclaimed geological era in which human activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment‐ many social‐ecological systems are under pressure. Social‐ecological systems are often studied and managed separately. However, approaches that integrate these two systems are necessary to address complex interconnections and identify effective solutions to sustainability challenges. Here, models can help us untangle and understand key processes in a virtual laboratory. The modelling community has a long history in describing human‐nature relations through models, but has so far mostly focused on one‐way relations (i.e. A impacts B), without taking two‐way feedback interactions into account (i.e. A impacts B while B impacts A). Synes et al (2019) explore in their recent study the feasibility and utility of coupling models to reflect feedback interactions between land use and ecosystem service supply. The authors simulated farmer decision making and pollinator responses by coupling two agent‐based models. In this News and Views, we provide our perspective on how such coupled modelling efforts provide an important contribution to understanding dynamics within social‐ecological systems and ultimately towards a better management of these.

Ecosystem services (ES), the benefits that humans obtain from nature, are of great importance for human well-being. The challenge of meeting the growing human demands for natural resources while sustaining essential ecosystem functions and resilience requires an in-depth understanding of the complex relationships between ES. These conflicting (‘trade-offs’) or synergistic (‘synergies’) relationships mean that changes in one ES can cause changes in other ES. By synthesizing the growing body of literature on ES relationships, we identified the following four main study objectives: (i) the identification and characterization of co-occurrences of ES, (ii) the identification of drivers that shape ES relationships, (iii) the exploration of biophysical constraints of landscapes and limitations to their multifunctionality, and (iv) the support of environmental planning, management and policy decisions. For each of these objectives we here describe the key concepts, including viewpoints of different disciplines, and highlight the major challenges that need to be addressed. We identified three cross-cutting themes being relevant to all four main types of studies. To help guiding researchers towards more systematic analyses of ES trade-offs and synergies, we conclude with an outlook on suggested future research priorities.

In the light of global urbanization and biodiversity loss, ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces (UGS) are becoming increasingly important, not least as a recovery and recreation opportunity for citizens. The valuation of UGS is significant for urban planners, who make decisions on the creation or removal of UGS. We analysed the influence of UGS on residential property prices in Leipzig, Germany, by applying a hedonic pricing analysis. This analysis complements the existing literature by considering both sale and rental prices for flats and houses; moreover, the shape of UGS is taken into account explicitly; finally, it is the first study in Germany to analyse UGS in hedonic studies to such an extent. The results demonstrate that the size of the nearest UGS has a stronger impact on prices compared to the distance from it. With respect to shape, we found that the simpler the UGS shape, the higher the prices. Although we find an impact of UGS on prices, the impact is smaller than that of other characteristics. The proposed valuation approach and obtained results inform urban planners regarding the design of new UGS and raise awareness about potential intended and unintended economic and social effects.

Greening cities, namely installing new parks, rooftop gardens or planting trees along the streets, undoubtedly contributes to an increase in wellbeing and enhances the attractiveness of open spaces in cities. At the same time, we observe an increasing use of greening strategies as ingredients of urban renewal, upgrading and urban revitalization as primarily market-driven endeavours targeting middle class and higher income groups sometimes at the expense of less privileged residents. This paper reflects on the current debate of the social effects of greening using selected examples. We discuss what trade-offs between social and ecological developments in cities mean for the future debate on greening cities and a socially balanced and inclusive way of developing our cities for various groups of urban dwellers. We conclude that current and future functions and features of greening cities have to be discussed more critically including a greater awareness of social impacts.

Social-ecological systems (SESs) i.e., systems linking human behavior and environmental dynamics, are characterized as complex, dynamic, and heterogeneous systems. A comprehensive policy simulation in SESs has to consider all these properties. In this paper, we present a conceptual analysis on key aspects of policy simulation in SESs and introduce a combined use of fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) and agent-based modeling (ABM) methods as an approach to cover those aspects. We illustrate the applicability of this combined method for policy simulation in the case of a farming community facing water scarcity.

Urban green spaces (UGS) are essential components of sustainable cities that provide many benefits to urban residents, such as recreation or aesthetics. Urban residents may be willing to pay for some of these ecosystem services. Indeed, studies investigating the formation of housing prices through hedonic pricing analysis have shown that UGS can influence housing prices. Hedonic pricing analysis puts housing units at the center of analysis. In this study, we investigate whether an alternative perspective provides additional insights into the effects of UGS on pricing. The proposed approach puts UGS into the center of analysis by applying an analysis of buffer zones to housing prices, thus, linking approaches from urban economics and landscape ecology. Such an analysis could deepen our understanding of the effects of UGS on housing prices by analyzing price&ndash, distance slopes around UGS-thus supporting more informed decisions on efficient UGS management and urban planning. Our results using a case study on Leipzig, Germany, demonstrate that the size of UGS affects price&ndash, distance slopes around them. We conclude that further investigations should be fathomed to unleash the potential of applying the analysis of buffer zones around UGS as a method to inform sustainable UGS design in cities.

Urban sprawl and income segregation are two undesired urban patterns that occur during urban development. Empirical studies show that income level and inequality are positively correlated with urban sprawl and income segregation, respectively. However, the relationship between urban sprawl and income segregation is not only rarely investigated but also shows ambiguous empirical results when it is. Therefore, in this study, we built a stylized agent-based model with individual behaviours based on Alonso’s bid rent theory and ran simulations with different combinations of income level and income inequality. We measured the overall emergent patterns with indicators for urban sprawl and income segregation. The model confirms the established positive correlations between income level and urban sprawl and between income inequality and segregation. Furthermore, the model shows a negative correlation between urban sprawl and income segregation under free market conditions. The model indicates that without any policy implementation, a city will either suffer from urban sprawl or income segregation. Thus, this study serves as a starting point to study the effects of different urban planning policies on these two urban problems.

The vulnerability of slum-dwellers to disasters requires particular attention due to the increasing frequency of disasters in slums combined with dilapidated housing conditions and lack of infrastructure. The absence of appropriate institutional and governmental aid has made slum-dwellers to rely upon their coping capacity. Having own financial capital can strengthen the coping capacity of an individual during disasters. Microfinance Institutes (MFIs) provide loans or microcredits to slum-dwellers to start a business individually or as a group, which eventually helps in increasing their financial capital. MFIs can also facilitate smooth repayment of loans by providing relief funds during disasters. However, frequent disasters might negatively influence the functioning of these mechanisms. Therefore, in this paper, we explore whether MFIs can increase the coping capacity of slum-dwellers by increasing their financial capital while facing disasters. Due to lack of empirical data on the impact of MFIs, we developed a stylised Agent-Based Model (ABM). The model includes interactions between slum-dwellers and an MFI as well as moneylenders. Slum-dwellers are facing disasters of varying frequency and intensity and can form ROtating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs). Overall, the model results supported the claim that providing microcredits through MFIs has the potential to increase slum-dwellers’ coping capacity while facing frequent disasters. However, the study also indicates that MFIs need to be carefully tailored to the local context in order to support slum-dwellers’ coping capacity, for instance by adapting the repayment period.

Incorporating representations of human decision-making that are based on social science theories into social-ecological models is considered increasingly important – yet choosing and formalising a theory for a particular modelling context remains challenging. Here, we reflect on our experiences of selecting, formalising and documenting psychological and economic theories of human decision-making for inclusion in different agent-based models (ABMs) of natural resource use. We discuss the challenges related to four critical tasks: How to select a theory? How to formalise a theory and how to translate it into code? How to document the formalisation? In this way, we present a systematic overview of the choices researchers face when including theories of human decision-making in their ABMs, reflect on the choices we made in our own modelling projects and provide guidance for those new to the field. Also, we highlight further challenges regarding the parameterisation and analysis of such ABMs and suggest that a systematic overview of how to tackle these challenges contributes to an effective collaboration in interdisciplinary teams addressing socio-ecological dynamics using models.

•We present a scale-sensitive approach to define value of urban green spaces (UGSs).•A hedonic pricing analysis was conducted for 261,827 flats in Leipzig, Germany.•Revealed preferences for UGSs differ between the city level and district level.•Socio-economic variables can explain differences in revealed preferences.•The stepwise analysis approach is applicable for complex systems in general.

Outdoor recreation as a cultural ecosystem service offers an important opportunity for many people to experience directly the benefits that ecosystems provide, particularly in urban areas. The recent emergence of social media and other sources of ‘big data’ creates exciting alternative possibilities for assessing how people use nature for recreational purposes. In this study, we focus on ‘geocaching’, a worldwide outdoor game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to hide and seek containers called ‘geocaches.’ We use the city of Leipzig (Germany) as a case study and focus on nature-related geocaches to explore short-term recreation as a cultural ecosystem service. We use georeferenced localities of geocaches and their visit rates as quantitative measures and combine them with a content analysis, as well as with quantitative results of an online survey. Using this data, we distinguish between revealed and stated preferences. We found that the density of geocaches was highest close to the city centre and that geocaching is indeed a type of local recreation and an urban ecosystem service, as green areas and experiences in nature are important for this activity. Stated and revealed preferences, however, often did not match for the different types of geocaches that we identified. While geocachers may have quite different motivations, the activity appears to be mostly done by young, well-educated people according to our surveys. In summary, geocaching data offer exciting opportunities to explore spatial gradients, as well as preferences and motivations regarding short-term recreation.

Environmental change can lead to human migration and vice versa. Agent-based models (ABMs) are valuable tools to study these linkages because they can represent individual migration decisions of human actors. Indeed, there is an increasing, yet small, number of ABMs that consider the natural environment in rural migration processes. Therefore, we reviewed 15 ABMs of environment-migration linkages in rural contexts to synthesize the current state of the art. The reviewed ABMs are mostly applied in tropical contexts, serve a wide range of purposes, and cover diverse scales and types of environmental factors, migration processes, and social-ecological feedbacks. We identified potential for future model development with respect to the (1) complexity of environmental influence factors, (2) representation of relevant migration flows, and (3) type of social-ecological couplings. We found that existing models tend to not include fully integrated feedbacks and provide recommendations for the further development of ABMs to contribute to an understanding of the environment-migration-nexus in the future.

Positive relationships between biodiversity and urban ecosystem services (UES) are widely implied within both the scientific and policy literatures, along with the tacit suggestion that enhancing urban green infrastructure will automatically improve both biodiversity and UES. However, it is unclear how much published empirical evidence exists to support these assumptions. We conducted a review of studies published between 1990 and May 2017 that examined urban biodiversity ecosystem service (BES) relationships. In total, we reviewed 317 publications and found biodiversity and UES metrics mentioned 944 times. Only 228 (24%) of the 944 mentions were empirically tested. Among these, 119 (52%) demonstrated a positive BES relationship. Our review showed that taxonomic metrics were used most often as proxies for biodiversity, with very little attention given to functional biodiversity metrics. Similarly, the role of particular species, including non-natives, and specific functional traits are understudied. Finally, we found a paucity of empirical evidence underpinning urban BES relationships. As urban planners increasingly incorporate UES delivery consideration to their decision-making, researchers need to address these substantial knowledge gaps to allow potential trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity conservation and the promotion of UES to be adequately accounted for.

In debates related to energy poverty, the link to questions of residential segregation remains somewhat peripheral. Because, usually, only energy-poor households are at the focus and residential mobility is not addressed, the interdependencies between households’ energy costs and the residential segregation of cities remain out of sight. Concern that energy efficiency measures could foster socio-spatial segregation in cities has recently emerged in Germany. If only households with higher incomes can afford housing with high energy efficiency standards, whereas low income households tend to choose non-refurbished but, in sum, more affordable housing stock, an increasing concentration of poor households in poor housing conditions would result. German energy efficiency and CO2 reduction policies are relatively insensitive to such questions. Using survey data from a small shrinking city in Germany, we explore how energy costs are interrelated with residential location decisions and, thus, with segregation processes and patterns. Shrinking cities represent an interesting case because, here, a decreasing demand for housing stimulates residential mobility and paves the way for dynamic reconfigurations of socio-spatial patterns. We found that energy-related aspects of homes play a role in location decisions. Low income households seek to minimize housing costs in general, paying specific attention to heating systems, thermal insulation and costs. Resulting segregation effects depend very much on where affordable and, at the same time, energy-efficient housing stock is spatially concentrated in cities. These findings should be taken into consideration for future policies on energy in existing dwellings.

Although a number of comprehensive reviews have examined global ecosystem services (ES), few have focused on studies that assess urban ecosystem services (UES). Given that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, understanding the dualism of the provision of and need for UES is of critical importance. Which UES are the focus of research, and what types of urban land use are examined? Are models or decision support systems used to assess the provision of UES? Are trade-offs considered? Do studies of UES engage stakeholders? To address these questions, we analyzed 217 papers derived from an ISI Web of Knowledge search using a set of standardized criteria. The results indicate that most UES studies have been undertaken in Europe, North America, and China, at city scale. Assessment methods involve bio-physical models, Geographical Information Systems, and valuation, but few study findings have been implemented as land use policy. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0504-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We propose a framework for simulating the individual-specific exposure as an indicator for the environmental quality of urban regions. Adopting the perspective of a moving individual we combined maps of urban temperature with algorithms simulating human mobility. The former were derived from thermal-scan data gathered with an aeroplane and calibrated with air temperatures observed at 1.5 m height. The agent-based mobility models utilize different forms of random movement and agenda-driven movement and comprise potential field controlled walk (PTW), reference point mobility model (RPM), RPM with a pre-defined daily agenda of targets (RPMA), and truncated Levy flights (TLF). Defining the distribution of exposure increments (temperature exposure at every time step; in K/min) as an indicator, we studied its dependence on both mobility and urban spatial temperature distribution by help of simulation models. We found that the mobility algorithms PTW and TLF can generate non-ergodic trajectories, i.e., a runner performing many consecutive journeys and an ensemble of walkers have different distributions of exposure increments. Thus, the temperature-exposure of individuals highly depends on their mobility patterns. This result is consistent with a previous benzene-study that generated likewise very different levels of personal exposure depending on the type of mobility. For both maps the PTW algorithm has the potential to generate unique movement patterns that can result in individual-specific exposure. A conclusion is that the temperature recorded by mobile receptors is a suitable indicator for the thermal exposure of people living in an urban region. Heat maps may show significant differences with respect to individual exposure. The cumulative distribution of temperature exposure provides information about the hazard of heat for individuals living in the studied environment. We suggest mobile measurements for an exploration of the urban environment, as they involve individual-specific mobility in a natural way and provide records of how much of an environmental agent arrives directly at human receptors.

Climate projections for Leipzig suggest elevated minimum and maximum temperatures as well as more frequent days with high temperatures. Hence, climate change is threatening human well-being and health. People spend the majority of their time indoors. Therefore, indoor temperatures (especially during the night) are of special importance with respect to well-being and health. Indoor air temperature depends on outdoor air temperatures, but is for example modified by type of urban structure, housing area, and may be also influenced by differences in the behavior of the inhabitants. Especially in cities, outdoor air temperatures depend on urban structure e.g. housing density, building arrangement, unpaved areas, types of urban structures, urban green, and other factors. Hence, the questions arise how types of urban structures are related to inner-urban temperature differences and how outdoor air temperatures influence indoor temperatures in dependence on urban housing conditions. This work is a part of a pilot study conducted during the summer 2010 which gathered data from remote sensing, mobile measurements, stationary measurements of air temperatures and relative humidity in areas with different housing structures, and of indoor as well as outdoor temperatures in occupied apartments. Household-survey data reported the subjective perception of heat stress. The study resulted in rather complex relationships between type of housing areas, indoor and outdoor temperatures, morning and evening temperatures, indoor and outdoor temperatures as well as subjective heat perception. Green spaces and types of residential areas are related to air temperatures. More green resulted in lower temperatures. Temperatures have a tendency to increase with increasing story number and are significantly higher in the top floor. An indoor heat island effect corresponding to the outdoor effect could be shown for the homes: Distance to city center is a predicting variable for both outdoor and indoor air temperatures. The subjective feeling of heat strain did not clearly reflect measured temperature differences but varies according to adaptation behavior. Indoor evening temperatures are most strongly related to heat perception. Indoor and outdoor temperatures are not clearly correlated because of several modifying factors. The results of this study underline the importance of conservation and development of building structures and types of urban structures which stay abreast of changes by global warming. In this context, special attention has to be paid to indoor temperatures.

We evaluate the impact on earnings, pensions, and further labor market outcomes of two parallel educational reforms increasing instructional time in Swedish primary school. The reforms extended the annual term length and compulsory schooling by comparable amounts. We find striking differences in the effects of the two reforms: at 5%, the returns to the term length extension were at least half as high as OLS returns to education and benefited broad ranges of the population. The compulsory schooling extension had small (2%) albeit significant effects, which were possibly driven by an increase in post-compulsory schooling. Both reforms led to increased sorting into occupations with heavy reliance on basic skills. Die Studie evaluiert die langfristigen kausalen Auswirkungen zweier parallel auftretender Schulreformen in Schweden auf die spätere Arbeitsmarktteilhabe und das Einkommen der betroffenen Individuen. Beide Reformen verlängerten die kumulierte Schuldauer in vergleichbarerer Größenordnung einerseits durch eine Verlängerung der Unterrichtswochen pro Schuljahr und andererseits einer Anhebung der Mindestanzahl an verpflichtenden Schuljahren. Die Ergebnisse zeigen substantielle Unterschiede zwischen den Wirkungsweisen beider Reformen: Ein zusätzliches Jahr an Unterricht durch die Verlängerung der Schuljahreswochen führt zu einem Einkommenszuwachs von 5%. Dieser ist nur unwesentlich geringer als die geschätzte Bildungsrendite aus reinen Korrelationsstudien. Dieser Einkommenszuwachs ist für einen Großteil der Bevölkerung zu beobachten. Die Wirkung eines zusätzlichen Pflichtschuljahres auf das Einkommen ist hingegen mit rund 2% deutlich geringer. Für beide Reformen lässt sich ein Zuwachs an Beschäftigung in Sektoren beobachten, welche in besonderem Maße grundlegende Fähigkeiten wie Lesen, Schreiben und Grundkenntnisse der Mathematik benötigen.

Formal models are commonly used in natural resource management (NRM) to study human-environment interactions and inform policy making. In the majority of applications, human behaviour is represented by the rational actor model despite growing empirical evidence of its shortcomings in NRM contexts. While the importance of accounting for the complexity of human behaviour is increasingly recognized, its integration into formal models remains a major challenge. The challenges are multiple: i) there exist many theories scattered across the social sciences, ii) most theories cover only a certain aspect of decision-making, iii) they vary in their degree of formalization, iv) causal mechanisms are often not specified. We provide a framework- MoHuB (Modelling Human Behavior) - to facilitate a broader inclusion of theories on human decision-making in formal NRM models. It serves as a tool and common language to describe, compare and communicate alternative theories. In doing so, we not only enhance understanding of commonalities and differences between theories, but take a first step towards tackling the challenges mentioned above. This approach may enable modellers to find and formalize relevant theories, and be more explicit and inclusive about theories of human decision making in the analysis of social ecological systems. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hitzebelastung ist in der aktuellen deutschen wie auch internationalen Debatte zur Anpassung der Stadte an den Klimawandel eines der Top-Themen. Zusammen mit Starkregen, Hochwasser oder Sturmen werden sommerliche Hitzewellen als die Klimafolgen benannt, auf die sich Stadte vorbereiten mussen. Aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Sicht sind einerseits die Unsicherheit uber die zu erwartenden Klimaveranderungen und andererseits die Komplexitat der Klimafolgen die Hauptherausforderungen fur die Anpassung der Gesellschaft an den Klimawandel.

Increasing heat stress is one of the impacts of global warming cities have to cope with and adapt to. The recent German and international debate focuses on the threat of increasing mortality rates, especially the vulnerability of the elderly people and measures to reduce it. Further, possibilities of adaptation to climate change by means of urban design to reduce the urban heat island effect are investigated. Little is known so far about the subjective perception of heat stress of different social and demographic groups, about how heat stress interferes with everyday life conduction of the inhabitants of cities, about subjective adaptation strategies and thus, about the interrelation of heat stress and the organization of the urban society. Building on two recent exploratory studies, the paper shows what other dimensions of heat stress are relevant too. The results give rise to a number of hypotheses on the social dimensions of heat stress that have to be further investigated. English Title: Social dismen...

Urban heat islands (UHIs) describe the phenomenon of altered temperatures that occur in urban areas when compared to their rural surroundings. UHIs influence human well-being, human health and the city as an ecological niche. UHIs can be quantified with meteorological ground measurements of air temperatures or with remotely sensed land surface temperatures (surface urban heat island). Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages and are rarely combined. Further, within these approaches, different indicators for quantifying the UHIs are used. In this methodological study, we (1) combined data on land surface and air temperatures, (2) enriched the debate by suggesting the application of indicators for the two distinct data sets and (3) systematically quantified indicators of all approaches for the city of Leipzig, Germany. A relationship between the land surface and air temperatures was established. However, the results for the single indicators showed that the absolute values of the detected UHI in Leipzig depend on the selected indicator and the data set used. The main conclusion for future studies on UHIs is to use several UHI indicators in parallel to acknowledge the uncertainty of measuring the UHI using a single indicator and either ground measurements or remote sensing.