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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.

2013

Abstract

There is a growing demand for reliable information about land cover and land resources. The Norwegian area frame survey of land cover and outfield land resources (AR18X18) is a response to this demand. AR18X18 provides unbiased land cover and land resource statistics and constitutes a baseline for studying changes in outfield land resources in Norway and a framework for a national land resource accounting system for the outfields. The area frame survey uses a systematic sampling technique with 0.9 km2 sample plots at 18 km intervals. A complete wall-to-wall land cover map of an entire plot surveyed is obtained in situ by a team of fieldworkers equipped with aerial photographs. The use of sample plots with extended coverage (0.9 km2) ensures that the survey also deals with local variation, thus strengthening the estimates well beyond simple point sampling. The article documents the methodology used in the survey, followed by a discussion of issues raised by the choice of methodology. These issues include the problem of calculating uncertainty and a confidence interval for the estimates, the focus on common rather than rare land cover categories, and the prospect of downscaling the results in order to obtain statistics for subnational regions.

To document

Abstract

The renewable energy sector (RES) often receives financial, institutional or educational support from the government. A significant challenge for the actors in the RES field is policy consistency. When investments are carried out, a prognosis for future policies must be made. If the future is uncertain, larger risk margins should be included in the investment appraisals. Sudden, unexpected policy changes are one type of uncertainty that makes it more difficult to attract capital. In this article, we discuss the consequences of discontinuities in policy support using a case study approach. In Ontario, feed-in tariffs were introduced in 2009 and resulted in a large uptake in the programme. In 2010, the subsidies were drastically cut, resulting in the RES community losing confidence that the government would offer consistent support to the sector. In Norway, a large new biodiesel plant was opened by the Minister of the Environment only a few weeks before the government announced a major change in the bioenergy policy. As a result, the new plant was closed and restructured, and the investors lost nearly all of their investments. The government lost political credibility, making it difficult to raise private capital for new investments in this sector in Norway. We do not argue that policies should not be changed, but the manner in which policies are changed plays an important role. Our study shows that large, unexpected changes in policies increase uncertainty and may have a negative impact on investments. This topic should be further researched.