Authors:Veronique Holzen, Anna Heidenreich, Annegret Thieken Pages: 49–6 - 49–6 Abstract: Research on climate change and impacts of natural hazards, such as heat waves, on human health has increased in recent years. Various approaches are used to study people’s attitudes and actions in this context, but little is known about the extent to which different modes or other environmental variables influence the results. Therefore, we ex- amined differences between surveys in three German cities, compared survey modes and investigated the influence of the temperature on the day of the survey and the previous days. We conducted two surveys on the topics of climate change risk perception and heat risk perception. In summer and autumn of 2019, in total 1,417 people from the three medium-sized German cities of Potsdam, Remscheid and Würzburg were surveyed via telephone or online. In sum- mer of 2020, 280 people were surveyed face-to-face in public parks in Potsdam. Climate change risk perception, the perception of heat waves as a health threat and the knowledge of heat warnings differed depending on place of resi- dence, survey mode and temperature. Participants of the online survey showed higher scores of risk perception than participants of the telephone and face-to-face surveys, indicating a self-selection bias. Increased temperature was associated with slightly higher levels of respondents’ heat wave risk perception and, among participants surveyed outside, climate change risk perception. The finding that both survey mode and environmental factors can influence survey results should be heeded when planning or interpreting and comparing studies. PubDate: 2025-01-08 DOI: 10.12854/erde-2024-647 Issue No:Vol. 155, No. 2 (2025)
Authors:Stefan Zerbe Pages: 67–8 - 67–8 Abstract: Due to urbanization, land-use intensification as well as land abandonment, traditional cultural landscapes are continuously declining worldwide. However, those landscapes often exhibit a high biodiversity and can provide numerous ecosystem and landscape services. Accordingly, traditional cultural landscapes with their low-input land-use systems might act as a blueprint for sustainable land use and landscape development. Against this background, a classification of traditional cultural landscapes is suggested as a basis for further research and for environmental or rural development policies. This is based on a holistic understanding of landscapes and cultural landscapes, respectively, and the perception of traditions. The criteria for the classification of traditional cultural landscapes encompass prevailing land-use types (e.g., pastures, agroforestry systems), particular land-use practices in order to overcome natural limitations for land use (e.g., terracing of slopes, irrigation), and/or cultural-historical drivers for long-term landscape development (e.g., impact of monasteries). The value of traditional cultural landscapes for nature conservation and sustainable rural development is given through ecological/environmental, social, and economic multifunctionality and multifaceted landscape services. Through their often embedded indigenous and local (ecological) knowledge, they can also contribute to current environmental and socio-economic challenges such as climate change adaptation. A global Red Books of Threatened Landscapes, already suggested in the 1990ies, could support national and international environmental and rural development policies. The restoration of traditional cultural landscapes will not only contribute positively to biodiversity on all levels and the re-establishment of lost or degraded ecosystem and landscape services but will also promote sustainable social-ecological systems. PubDate: 2025-01-21 DOI: 10.12854/erde-2024-669 Issue No:Vol. 155, No. 2 (2025)
Authors:Philip Verfürth, Thomas Neise, Philip Völlers, Martin Franz Pages: 87–9 - 87–9 Abstract: Risk has become almost ubiquitous in today’s global economy and has developed into an emerging topic of global production networks (GPN) research. Recent conceptual contributions emphasize that risks are socially constructed and can gradually convert into a performative risk narrative (PRN) in global production networks. To explore how PRNs can be empirically analyzed, this article aims to outline new methodological directions to risk-related GPN research. Against this background, we discuss two methods: discourse analysis and vignette studies. Hence, we argue for research designs open to qualitative and quantitative methods, to gather the diversity of risk expectations and related actor-specific strategic reactions. With this contribution, we seek to stimulate a critical debate on the methodological reorientation of risk-related GPN research. PubDate: 2025-01-27 DOI: 10.12854/erde-2024-748 Issue No:Vol. 155, No. 2 (2025)
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