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Aim: The paper addresses the classical question of possible plant survival in Iceland during the last glacial period in the light of a palaeobotanical record from northern Iceland, spanning the period 11,300-9000 BP, including the Younger Dryas stadial. We review the Late Cenozoic fossil plant record, the past debate on glacial plant refugia in Iceland, and the evidence for ice-free areas during t

The transition to green economies has been mediated by concrete cases and experiments in a variety of different industrial and social sectors. What is lacking, is research that would synthesize key findings and “lessons learned” across a variety of cases. In this study, we explore ten cases of green economy of different sectors and approaches from five European countries and identify factors that

The occurrence of an early Preboreal climatic cooling/oscillation (PBO) in lacustrine and glacial records from northwest Europe, Iceland and Greenland is reviewed and documented. The often subtle response of the proxy records to this oscillation, in combination with its short duration, make it difficult to detect. Owing to its chronostratigraphic position between the 10000-9900 and 9600-9500 14C p

Major water infrastructure projects like dams can provide substantial benefits such as food and drinking water security, hydropower generation, and flood control. But these benefits may come at a (too) high cost of large scale ecological alterations or adverse social impacts such as involuntary resettlements. If these costs are neglected, an investment decision will hardly be efficient. In this ch

For the last ten years, the notion of a green economy has become increasingly attractive to policy makers. However, green economy covers a lot of diverse concepts and its links with sustainability are not always clear. In this article, we focus on definitions of green economy and related concepts and an evaluation of these concepts against the criterion of strong and weak sustainability. The artic

Stable carbon isotope measurements (δ13C) made on Quaternary sequences of terrestrial plant subfossils are frequently used to infer palaeoclimatic trends. However, differential decomposition of individual constituents during incorporation of plant material into lake sediments could influence these interpretations. Therefore, we investigated down-core variations in the carbon isotope composition (δ

A stomatal-based method of palaeo-CO2 estimation has been applied to a temporally detailed sequence of leaves from a high-latitude lake (68°N) in northern Sweden spanning the last 9000 years. The resulting atmospheric CO2 reconstruction documents the onset of a gradual increase c. 5000 years before present indicating that the carbon cycle has not been in steady state over this time. Stable carbon

This article provides a review of the application of stomatal frequency analysis to fossil leaves in the reconstruction of past atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It presents the physiological basis of the method, an overview of its application to leaves of Quaternary age, and an assessment of its potential and limitations. It also includes a description of the successive stages in a stomatal frequen

Nanowire geometries are leading contenders for future low-power transistor design. In this study, low-frequency noise is measured and evaluated in highly scaled III-V nanowire metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and in planar III-V MOSFETs to investigate to what extent the device geometry affects the noise performance. Number fluctuations are identified as the dominant noi

We consider how ecosystem services can be incorporated into water infrastructureplanning by studying the projected deepening of the Lower Weser river channel inGermany. We recalculate the project’s benefitcost ratio by integrating the monetaryvalue of changes in different ecosystem services, as follows: (1) the restoration costsof a mitigation measure for a loss in fresh water supply for agricultu

While recent experimental frameworks for national ecosystem service accounting have shown substantial progress, in our view some crucial methodological issues remain that deserve further consideration before setting final standards. In response to the landmark work of Obst et al. (Environ Resour Econ 64:1–23, 2016. doi: 10.1007/s10640-015-9921-1), we provide arguments with regard to the suitabilit

Ecological fiscal transfers in Brazil, the so‐called ICMS‐Ecológico or ICMS‐E, redistribute part of the state‐level value‐added tax revenues on the basis of ecological indicators to local governments. We analyze whether the introduction of this economic instrument in a state offers incentives to municipal responses in terms of further protected area (PA) designation. We provide a microeconomic mod

The Green Economy is a strategic development concept of the United Nations incorporating a broad array of potential meanings and implications. It is subject to academic conceptualisation, operationalisation, reflection and criticism. The aim of our paper is to conceptualise a subset of the multi-faceted and at times polarised debate around the implications and applications of the Green Economy con

Despite their evidently different assumptions and operationalization strategies, the concepts of Circular Economy, Green Economy and Bioeconomy are joined by the common ideal to reconcile economic, environmental and social goals. The three concepts are currently mainstreamed in academia and policy making as key sustainability avenues, but a comparative analysis of such concepts is missing. The aim

Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT) have recently gained attention as a promising instrument addressing public authorities to provide incentives for nature conservation. In parallel, both the EU and various European countries are exploring new mechanisms to mobilise funding to support biodiversity conservation. We develop a proposal for an EFT design within the supranational context of the EU and as

Portugal has a unitary system in which the central government transfers funds to lower government levels for their public functions. In 2007, Portugal introduced Ecological Fiscal Transfers (EFT), where municipalities receive transfers for hosting protected areas (PA). We study whether introducing EFT in Portugal incentivized municipalities to designate PA and has led to a decentralization of cons