ORCID Profile
0000-0002-8624-4983
Current Organisations
Queensland University of Technology
,
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ
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Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-03-2009
DOI: 10.1111/J.1523-1739.2008.01125.X
Abstract: Without robust and unbiased systems for monitoring, changes in natural systems will remain enigmatic for policy makers, leaving them without a clear idea of the consequences of any environmental policies they might adopt. Generally, bio ersity-monitoring activities are not integrated or evaluated across any large geographic region. The EuMon project conducted the first large-scale evaluation of monitoring practices in Europe through an on-line questionnaire and is reporting on the results of this survey. In September 2007 the EuMon project had documented 395 monitoring schemes for species, which represents a total annual cost of about 4 million euro, involving more than 46,000 persons devoting over 148,000 person-days/year to bio ersity-monitoring activities. Here we focused on the analysis of variations of monitoring practices across a set of taxonomic groups (birds, hibians and reptiles, mammals, butterflies, plants, and other insects) and across 5 European countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, and Poland). Our results suggest that the overall s ling effort of a scheme is linked with the proportion of volunteers involved in that scheme. Because precision is a function of the number of monitored sites and the number of sites is maximized by volunteer involvement, our results do not support the common belief that volunteer-based schemes are too noisy to be informative. Just the opposite, we believe volunteer-based schemes provide relatively reliable data, with state-of-the-art survey designs or data-analysis methods, and consequently can yield unbiased results. Quality of data collected by volunteers is more likely determined by survey design, analytical methodology, and communication skills within the schemes rather than by volunteer involvement per se.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2016
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 15-04-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.14.031716
Abstract: Despite the scientific consensus on the extinction crisis and its anthropogenic origin, the quantification of historical trends and of future scenarios of bio ersity and ecosystem services has been limited, due to the lack of inter-model comparisons and harmonized scenarios. Here, we present a multi-model analysis to assess the impacts of land-use and climate change from 1900 to 2050. During the 20th century provisioning services increased, but bio ersity and regulating services decreased. Similar trade-offs are projected for the coming decades, but they may be attenuated in a sustainability scenario. Future bio ersity loss from land-use change is projected to keep up with historical rates or reduce slightly, whereas losses due to climate change are projected to increase greatly. Renewed efforts are needed by governments to meet the 2050 vision of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Development pathways exist that allow for a reduction of the rates of bio ersity loss from land-use change and improvement in regulating services but climate change poses an increasing challenge.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 23-03-2016
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-12-2016
DOI: 10.1038/NCOMMS13965
Abstract: Impacts of climate change on in idual species are increasingly well documented, but we lack understanding of how these effects propagate through ecological communities. Here we combine species distribution models with ecological network analyses to test potential impacts of climate change on plant and animal species in pollination and seed-dispersal networks from central Europe. We discover that animal species that interact with a low ersity of plant species have narrow climatic niches and are most vulnerable to climate change. In contrast, biotic specialization of plants is not related to climatic niche breadth and vulnerability. A simulation model incorporating different scenarios of species coextinction and capacities for partner switches shows that projected plant extinctions under climate change are more likely to trigger animal coextinctions than vice versa. This result demonstrates that impacts of climate change on bio ersity can be lified via extinction cascades from plants to animals in ecological networks.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 15-07-2018
DOI: 10.3390/RS10071120
Abstract: Forest ecosystems fulfill a whole host of ecosystem functions that are essential for life on our planet. However, an unprecedented level of anthropogenic influences is reducing the resilience and stability of our forest ecosystems as well as their ecosystem functions. The relationships between drivers, stress, and ecosystem functions in forest ecosystems are complex, multi-faceted, and often non-linear, and yet forest managers, decision makers, and politicians need to be able to make rapid decisions that are data-driven and based on short and long-term monitoring information, complex modeling, and analysis approaches. A huge number of long-standing and standardized forest health inventory approaches already exist, and are increasingly integrating remote-sensing based monitoring approaches. Unfortunately, these approaches in monitoring, data storage, analysis, prognosis, and assessment still do not satisfy the future requirements of information and digital knowledge processing of the 21st century. Therefore, this paper discusses and presents in detail five sets of requirements, including their relevance, necessity, and the possible solutions that would be necessary for establishing a feasible multi-source forest health monitoring network for the 21st century. Namely, these requirements are: (1) understanding the effects of multiple stressors on forest health (2) using remote sensing (RS) approaches to monitor forest health (3) coupling different monitoring approaches (4) using data science as a bridge between complex and multidimensional big forest health (FH) data and (5) a future multi-source forest health monitoring network. It became apparent that no existing monitoring approach, technique, model, or platform is sufficient on its own to monitor, model, forecast, or assess forest health and its resilience. In order to advance the development of a multi-source forest health monitoring network, we argue that in order to gain a better understanding of forest health in our complex world, it would be conducive to implement the concepts of data science with the components: (i) digitalization (ii) standardization with metadata management after the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) principles (iii) Semantic Web (iv) proof, trust, and uncertainties (v) tools for data science analysis and (vi) easy tools for scientists, data managers, and stakeholders for decision-making support.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 20-12-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-03-2018
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 18-03-2022
DOI: 10.1177/20414196211062620
Abstract: Auxetic materials, possessing negative Poisson’s ratios (NPRs), have the ability to shrink (or expand) in the lateral direction under an axial compressive (or tensile) force respectively. Due to this unique feature, an auxetic material is found to sustain high energy absorption capacity, fracture toughness and shear resistance and thus regarded as one of the future materials in the field of impact protection. However, civil engineering applications of auxetic structures or materials are minimal due to miscellaneous restrictions on NPR effects. Accumulative developments in auxetics have facilitated their applications in cementitious materials in recent years. This paper presents an overview of recent advances in the development of auxetic cementitious composites and analyses and summarises their mechanical properties under different loading conditions. Prior to extensive finite element simulations, more attention has been given to the limited experimental results. Particular attention is paid to the expansionary feasibility of the parent material to introduce auxetic behaviour, with precise identification of the limitations, innovative composition methods and facilitation of auxetic features. Finally, the paper outlines the limitations of the current research and envisages few future research opportunities in auxetic cementitious composites.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1017/SUS.2020.15
Abstract: Resilience is a cross-disciplinary concept that is relevant for understanding the sustainability of the social and environmental conditions in which we live. Most research normatively focuses on building or strengthening resilience, despite growing recognition of the importance of breaking the resilience of, and thus transforming, unsustainable social-ecological systems. Undesirable resilience (cf. lock-ins , social-ecological traps ), however, is not only less explored in the academic literature, but its understanding is also more fragmented across different disciplines. This disparity can inhibit collaboration among researchers exploring interdependent challenges in sustainability sciences. In this article, we propose that the term lock-in may contribute to a common understanding of undesirable resilience across scientific fields.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-02-2022
DOI: 10.1007/S11625-022-01102-5
Abstract: Food systems are primary drivers of human and environmental health, but the understanding of their erse and dynamic co-transformation remains limited. We use a data-driven approach to disentangle different development pathways of national food systems (i.e. ‘transformation archetypes’) based on historical, intertwined trends of food system structure (agricultural inputs and outputs and food trade), and social and environmental outcomes (malnutrition, biosphere integrity, and greenhouse gases emissions) for 161 countries, from 1995 to 2015. We found that whilst agricultural total factor productivity has consistently increased globally, a closer analysis suggests a typology of three transformation archetypes across countries: rapidly expansionist, expansionist, and consolidative. Expansionist and rapidly expansionist archetypes increased in agricultural area, synthetic fertilizer use, and gross agricultural output, which was accompanied by malnutrition, environmental pressures, and lasting socioeconomic disadvantages. The lowest rates of change in key structure metrics were found in the consolidative archetype. Across all transformation archetypes, agricultural greenhouse gases emissions, synthetic fertilizer use, and ecological footprint of consumption increased faster than the expansion of agricultural area, and obesity levels increased more rapidly than undernourishment decreased. The persistence of these unsustainable trajectories occurred independently of improvements in productivity. Our results underscore the importance of quantifying the multiple human and environmental dimensions of food systems transformations and can serve as a starting point to identify potential leverage points for sustainability transformations. More attention is thus warranted to alternative development pathways able of delivering equitable benefits to both productivity and to human and environmental health.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2021
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-11-2019
DOI: 10.1111/ECOG.04783
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2021
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 2015
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-02-2022
DOI: 10.1111/GCB.16109
Abstract: The two most urgent and interlinked environmental challenges humanity faces are climate change and bio ersity loss. We are entering a pivotal decade for both the international bio ersity and climate change agendas with the sharpening of ambitious strategies and targets by the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Within their respective Conventions, the bio ersity and climate interlinked challenges have largely been addressed separately. There is evidence that conservation actions that halt, slow or reverse bio ersity loss can simultaneously slow anthropogenic mediated climate change significantly. This review highlights conservation actions which have the largest potential for mitigation of climate change. We note that conservation actions have mainly synergistic benefits and few antagonistic trade‐offs with climate change mitigation. Specifically, we identify direct co‐benefits in 14 out of the 21 action targets of the draft post‐2020 global bio ersity framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity, notwithstanding the many indirect links that can also support both bio ersity conservation and climate change mitigation. These relationships are context and scale‐dependent therefore, we showcase ex les of local bio ersity conservation actions that can be incentivized, guided and prioritized by global objectives and targets. The close interlinkages between bio ersity, climate change mitigation, other nature's contributions to people and good quality of life are seldom as integrated as they should be in management and policy. This review aims to re‐emphasize the vital relationships between bio ersity conservation actions and climate change mitigation in a timely manner, in support to major Conferences of Parties that are about to negotiate strategic frameworks and international goals for the decades to come.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2022
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 21-03-2021
Abstract: Rice production is often associated with high pesticide input. To improve farmers’ practice, sustainable management approaches are urgently needed, such as ecological engineering (EE), which aims at enhancing beneficial arthropods while reducing pesticides. Here, we implemented and tested EE in Cambodian rice fields by comparing: (i) fields not treated with pesticides (control) (ii) fields not treated with pesticides but with non-rice crops planted in the surrounding (EE) and (iii) conventionally farmed fields using pesticides (CR). Using benefit-cost analysis, we compared the economic value of each treatment. The non-rice crops preferred by men and women farmers as well as farmers’ willingness to implement EE were assessed using surveys. We s led arthropod abundance and richness in rice fields and bunds during two seasons. During the dry season, we compared EE and CR among three Cambodian provinces. During the wet season, we specifically assessed the differences in EE, control and CR in arthropod abundance and rice yield in one province. While withholding from using pesticides did not result in a decrease in yield in EE and control treatments, parasitoid abundance was higher in both treatments during the wet season. The benefit–cost ratio was highest for EE and control treatments. Pesticides were likely the main driver causing low arthropod abundance, without any benefit towards increased rice yield. The proper implementation of EE coupled with farmers’ knowledge of ecologically based pest management is a promising solution towards sustainable rice production.
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 03-03-2022
DOI: 10.1177/20414196211073502
Abstract: This paper summarises the development of a state-of-art impact testing machine for simulating impacts such as vehicular crashes or debris impacts onto structures. The machine has a 200 kg pneumatically powered projectile which can travel horizontally within the barrel of the machine with a maximum velocity of 50 m/s to impact the target structure. The maximum kinetic energy that can be generated by the projectile is 125 kJ by using different combinations of mass and velocity. The diameter of the projectile is 214 mm, and its impacting face can be changed to different shapes, such as flat circle, flat square or an elliptical nose to suit different impact scenarios. An innovative braking mechanism incorporating a crush tube is attached within the barrel to ensure safety when the projectile fails to be restrained by the impact. The crush tube can absorb the maximum imparted by the moving projectile. An advanced data acquisition system is installed to collect quantitative and qualitative test data during a period of 50 ms to 1 s. Two high-speed digital image correlation (DIC) cameras are attached and synchronised with the operation of the impact testing machine to record the images at the rate of 50,000 frames per second. Outputs in terms of strains, deformations, accelerations of the target structure with a record of damage history can be analysed using this 3D DIC technique. The paper also briefly presents the first application of this machine for impact testing masonry wall structures.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 04-2018
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2020
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Date: 13-12-2019
Abstract: For decades, scientists have been raising calls for societal changes that will reduce our impacts on nature. Though much conservation has occurred, our natural environment continues to decline under the weight of our consumption. Humanity depends directly on the output of nature thus, this decline will affect us, just as it does the other species with which we share this world. Díaz et al. review the findings of the largest assessment of the state of nature conducted as of yet. They report that the state of nature, and the state of the equitable distribution of nature's support, is in serious decline. Only immediate transformation of global business-as-usual economies and operations will sustain nature as we know it, and us, into the future. Science , this issue p. eaax3100
No related grants have been discovered for Josef Settele.