Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2011
Abstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
The Ritland structure is a newly discovered impact structure, which is located in southwestern Norway. The structure is the remnant of a simple crater 2.5 km in diameter and 350 m deep, which was excavated in Precambrian gneissic rocks. The crater was filled by sediments in Cambrian times and covered by thrust nappes of the Caledonian orogen in the Silurian–Devonian. Several succeeding events of uplift, erosion, and finally the Pleistocene glaciations, disclosed this well-preserved structure. The erosion has exposed brecciated rocks of the original crater floor overlain by a thin layer of melt-bearing rocks and postimpact crater-filling breccias, sandstones, and shales. Quartz grains with planar deformation features occur frequently within the melt-bearing unit, confirming the impact origin of the structure. The good exposures of infilling sediments have allowed a detailed reconstruction of the original crater morphology and its infilling history based on geological field mapping.
Abstract
On small dairy farms, high investment costs and lack of investment capital may delay the modernising of facilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the importance of economics of scale in building costs of barns compared to other sources of variation in costs. The study includes 44 farms with a mean herd size of 49.5 ± 15.1 cows, built between year 1999 and 2006 and with a mean total area in the barns of 896 ± 454 m2. Building cost data were obtained from farmers and merged with construction, mechanisation and layout data from the same barns. Construction costs decreased up to approximately 1250 m2 while mechanisation costs and total building costs decreased up to approximately 1000 m2. A further increase in building area had only limited effect on the building costs per m2. Models including explanatory variables showed that milking and service area was significantly more expensive than other areas. AMS-barns were all together not significantly more expensive than other barns, since the increased mechanisation cost is offset by a lower requirement for milking area. Farmers remodelling their barns were able to realise a modernised building for a certain herd size for a lower cost compared to a completely new building. The use of their own effort varied considerably between projects. In many cases, farmers would be able to find alternative income sources with a higher hourly rate than the value of their own effort suggested by the model.
Authors
Christian PedersenAbstract
No abstract has been registered
Abstract
Extensive landscape and vegetation changes are apparent within rural districts of Norway, especially as forest regrowth on abandoned agricultural land. Forest regrowth changes the landscape and vegetation heterogeneity, thus affecting management issues related to, for example, biodiversity and landscape aesthetics. By comparing up-to-date actual vegetation maps (AVMs), interpreted previous vegetation maps (IPVs), and potential natural vegetation maps (PNVs), we assess and quantify structural changes on a landscape level which are important for biological diversity and also the tourism industry. Our findings indicate that landscapes in rural districts of Norway have changed and that changes will continue in the future. The landscapediversity did not decrease from the 1970s until 2009. Further forest regrowth however, will lead to reduced landscape heterogeneity, while landscape connectivity will increase.
Abstract
The Norwegian landscape is changing as a result of forest regeneration within the cultural landscape, and forest expansion has impacts on accessibility, visibility, and landscape aesthetics, thereby affecting the country's tourism industry. This study aimed at identifying the potential areas of forest regeneration and anticipated subsequent landscape effects on different categories of tourist locations in southern Norway. Deforested areas with a potential for forest regeneration were identified from several map sources by GIS-analyses, and 180 tourist locations were randomly selected from the Norwegian national tourism database (Reiselivsbasen), and then buffered by 2 km radius for land cover classes. The findings revealed that approximately 15% of southern Norway has the climatic potential for future forest regeneration, in addition to 5% of cultivated land. Future forest regeneration will affect the landscapes surrounding the tourist locations of rural south Norway, and while the potential is nationwide, it is not uniformly distributed. Two important tourist landscape regions seem especially exposed to forest regeneration: the coastal heath region and the mountain landscapes. Large parts of these areas do not have sufficient numbers of domestic grazing animals necessary to maintain the present character of the landscape.
Abstract
Forest regrowth in rural districts of Norway is currently leading to extensive landscape changes. We aim to quantify and understand the future impact of outfield forest regrowth following land-use abandonment on red-listed vascular plant species which are supposedly threatened by regrowth in Norway, i.e. species classified to habitats within the semi-natural landscape. Vascular plant species were defined by the Norwegian Red List and presence data was downloaded from the Norwegian GBIF-node, Artskart. A newly developed spatially explicit model of deforested semi-natural heaths and meadows in Norway was used to evaluate the vulnerability of red-listed plants to future forest regrowth. The results show that some red-listed species may be greatly affected, since they have most of their known populations within the modelled areas of future forest regrowth. The study also revealed that there are many methodological challenges in using museum databases for hypothesis testing. However, the use of such databases was clearly hypothesis generating, giving us many ideas for future studies.
Authors
Felix Herzog Katalin Balázs Peter Dennis Tetyana Dyman Wendy Fjellstad Jürgen Friedel Salah Garchi Philippe Jeanneret Rob Jongman Maximilian Kainz Gerardo Moreno Charles Nkwiine Maurizio Paoletti Philippe Pointereau Jean-Pierre Sarthou Siyka Stoyanova Davide ViaggiAbstract
Farmland biodiversity is an important component of Europe’s biodiversity. More than half the continent is occupied by agricultural lands. They host specific habitats and species, which – in addition to the conservation values they provide – perform vital ecological functions. Indicators are needed to enable the monitoring of biodiversity at the farm level for the purpose of assessing the impacts of farming practices and of agricultural policies. Our research aims at identifying farmland biodiversity indicators which are scientifically sound, operational and relevant for stakeholders. We screened the literature for farmland biodiversity indicators and, in an iterative process with stakeholders, we identified 28 candidate indicators for genetic, species and habitat diversity. Those selected biodiversity indicators, as well as 14 management parameters that are known to relate to biodiversity, were assessed in 12 case study regions across Europe. Each case study region represents a typical production system (i.e. specialist field crops, horticulture and permanent crops; specialist grazing with cattle and other livestock types; mixed crop and livestock farming). In each region, 8 – 20 farms were randomly selected, mostly within the two groups of organic and non-organic farms, to obtain a gradient of farming intensity. Indicators were measured applying standardized sampling procedures and farm interviews. Sampling effort was recorded in order to assess the cost of indicator measurement. For each case study region, biodiversity indicators are presently being evaluated in conjunction with management indicators. Surrogate indicators will be proposed when possible and indicators will be prioritized taking into account their validity, practicality, cost and priority for stakeholders. Based on preliminary results, the presentation will focus on the relation between direct (species and habitat diversity) indicators and indirect (farm management) parameters. Part of this research was funded by the EU FP7 contract KBBE-2B-227161. For more information consult www.biobio-indicator.org
Authors
Felix Herzog Katalin Balázs Peter Dennis Tetyana Dyman Wendy Fjellstad Jürgen Friedel Salah Garchi Philippe Jeanneret Rob Jongman Maximilian Kainz Gerardo Moreno Charles Nkwiine Maurizio Paoletti Philippe Pointereau Jean-Pierre Sarthou Siyka Stoyanova Davide ViaggiAbstract
Farmland biodiversity is an important component of Europe’s biodiversity. More than half the continent is occupied by agricultural lands. They host specific habitats and species, which - in addition to their conservation values they provide - perform vital ecological functions. Indicators are needed to enable the monitoring of biodiversity at the farm level for the purpose of assessing the impacts of farming practices and of agricultural policies. Our research aims at identifying farmland biodiversity indicators which are scientifically sound, operational and relevant for stakeholders. We screened the literature for farmland biodiversity indicators and, in an iterative process with stakeholders, we identified 28 candidate indicators for genetic, species and habitat diversity. Those selected biodiversity indicators, as well as 14 management indicators that are known to relate to biodiversity, were assessed in 12 case study regions across Europe. Each case study region represents a typical production system (i.e. specialist field crops, horticulture and permanent crops; specialist grazing with cattle and other livestock types; mixed crop and livestock farming). In each region, 8-20 farms were randomly selected, mostly within the two groups of organic and non-organic farms, to obtain a gradient of farming intensity. Indicators were measured applying standardized sampling procedures and farm interviews. Sampling effort was recorded in order to assess the cost of indicator measurement. For each case study region, biodiversity indicators are presently being evaluated in conjunction with management indicators. Surrogate indicators will be proposed when possible and indicators will be prioritized taking into account their validity, practicality, cost and priority for stakeholders. Based on preliminary results, the presentation will focus on the specific challenges of farm level monitoring, addressing issues of sampling design within the farms and up-scaling from plot to farm to region. Part of this research was funded by the EU FP7 contract KBBE-2B-227161. For more information consult www.biobio-indicator.org
Authors
Elisabeth Conrad Louis F Cassar Michael Jones Sebastian Eiter Zita Izaovičová Zuzana Barankova Mike Christie Ioan FazeyAbstract
The involvement of the public in decision-making is established as a key feature of many planning policies. However, there is evidence from the literature of a prevailing gap between participation rhetoric on paper and participation at the operational level. We assess whether this is also the case with landscape policy and review landscape characterization and assessment initiatives in England, Norway, Slovakia and Malta, focusing on five dimensions of good practice: (i) scope of public participation, (ii) representativeness of those involved, (iii) timeliness of public involvement, (iv) extent to which participation is rendered comfortable and convenient for the public, and (v) eventual influence of public input on decisions. Reviewed reporting results indicate weaknesses in the implementation of public participation, with public involvement largely limited to consultation, with few efforts to ensure representativeness of participants, with predominantly late involvement of the public, and with limited influence of the public on outputs. Furthermore, few efforts appear to be made to facilitate participation for the public. Although the cases studied differ, none of them are fully satisfactory in relation to the European Landscape Convention's participatory targets. The reporting of public participation processes thus suggests that practices may fail to match the rhetoric.