0000000000924121
AUTHOR
Andis Zilans
Governance as a barrier to mainstreaming sustainable development in Riga, Latvia
The Aalborg Commitments baseline review of urban sustainability undertaken in Riga, Latvia reveals significant discrepancies between the sustainability criteria of the Aalborg Commitments and municipal statutes and planning documents. An analysis of the European Common Indicators (ECI) and the State of the Environment in Riga indicators indicates that they can only partially fulfil a monitoring function for the implementation of the Aalborg Commitments. To gain insight into the institutional arrangements and governance practices of the municipal government and administration in the context of sustainability City Council deputies and municipal administration structural units and personnel we…
Enabling policy innovations promoting multiple ecosystem benefits: lessons learnt from case studies in the Baltic Sea Region
Abstract This paper analyses how specific institutional barriers and drivers affect the success of agri-environmental governance and policy innovations in four case study catchments in Germany, Latvia, Poland and Sweden. Possible adaptations of institutional settings are explored, aiming at increased effectiveness of policies and governance in delivering multiple ecosystem benefits along with reduced nutrient emissions and flood management. Factors of success synthesized from existing examples of innovative policy instruments in the EU and further afield are used to identify barriers and opportunities for the implementation of policy innovations in different institutional settings across th…
From local measures to regional impacts: Modelling changes in nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea
Study Region: Our study region is the Baltic Sea Drainage Basin (BSDB), which covers an area of 1.8 Mio km2 distributed over 14 countries in northern Europe. Study Focus: We use a large-scale hydrological and nutrient transport model (E-HYPE) to model basin-wide impacts of measure scenarios on the Baltic Sea, where eutrophication is a critical issue for the marine ecosystem. We constructed measure scenarios based on stakeholder acceptance, established in workshops in different regions around the Baltic. These measures include local stream reach to catchment scale measures aiming to reduce nutrient transport into the stream network (buffer strips, stormwater ponds) and measures aiming to red…