In 2014, Austrian institutions and IIASA collaborated on numerous projects from the Austrian Panel on Climate Change to projecting the future population of all countries in the world.
Austria map
As IIASA's host country, Austria benefits from multiple activities between Austrian and IIASA researchers. Research highlights from 2014 included (1) demographic collaborations between IIASA and two Vienna-based institutions to project population and human capital for all countries of the world; (2) an analysis of bio-energy potential and impacts in the Alps from biomass, solar, wind, and hydro; and (3) participation in the Austrian Panel on Climate Change. Other activities included two young Austrian researchers participated in IIASA's programs for young scientists and two joint public lectures with the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Scientists from the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program applied the GLOBIOM model to analyze a large number of climate change scenarios in order to investigate the extent to which producers facing climate change favored irreversible adaptation measures over low-cost field-scale adjustments. more
In cooperation with its National Member Organizations of Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group co-hosted a session on applied systems analysis as part of the ninth ASEAN Science and Technology Week (ASTW) in Bogor, Indonesia. more
Seven IIASA authors contributed to the final Report of the Austrian Panel on Climate Change (APCC), an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regional offspring activity that was completed and published in 2014. more
During 2014 the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group further developed IIASA’s BeWhere model to optimize hydropower systems. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers apply contemporary approaches to analyze newly available data sets and find new insights and stylized facts. more
In 2014 World Population Program (POP) scientists studied predictors of economic growth in both developed and developing countries and also made an empirical study of the role of the new prospective aging measures as a predictor of income growth in Europe. more
Research by the Evolution and Ecology Program (EEP) on exploitation-induced evolution is assembling evidence and insights with respect to how human exploitation alters the heritable traits of targeted populations. Options are being developed on this basis for reducing unwanted alterations. more
Growers’ Nation, a mobile app developed by Ecosystems Services and Management researchers, won the 2014 Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Appathon, a global app development competition. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Environmental Resources and Developments (ERD) research group upgraded the livestock module of the IIASA model GLOBIOM to make it the state-of-the-art global economic model in terms of livestock sector representation. more
The negative emissions research of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group was further developed building on several past collaborations and previous biomass and carbon capture and storage (BECCS) workshops at IIASA, in Indonesia, Brazil, and Tokyo. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers develop dynamic network models of ecological, economic, and social systems. There is a particular focus on the issue of financial systemic risk and cascading failures in the inter-bank lending network. more
An IIASA study for the first time estimates the trade-off between pension age and labor-force participation policies, showing that increasing labor force participation by as little as 1 or 2 percentage points could allow the pension age to be reduced by one year without increasing the burden on the working population. more
A new book, World Population and Human Capital in the 21st Century, presented the results of the latest population projections from the World Population Program (POP) and the Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Human Capital. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group organized the formal launch of the cross-sectoral “Tropical Futures Initiative” (TFI) at a workshop with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February 2014. more
The Energy (ENE) Program made important strides in advancing the state of knowledge on energy poverty, the policy costs of expanding universal access to modern energy worldwide, and the synergies and tradeoffs between achieving universal access and other sustainable development goals. more
Age and cohort change (ACC) researchers within the World Population Program (POP), continued working, in collaboration with Pew Research Center, on population projections of religious denominations around the world. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s Agro-Ecological Systems (AES) research group advanced global and regional crop modeling in 2014, implementing and calibrating additional crops in the global EPIC model and also studying the phosphorus cycle. more
Seven IIASA authors contributed to the final Report of the Austrian Panel on Climate Change (APCC), an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regional offspring activity that was completed and published in 2014. more
During 2014 the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) group further developed IIASA’s BeWhere model to optimize hydropower systems. more
World Population Program (POP) researchers examined data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe, which tested the cognitive functions of more than 31,000 men and women over the age of 50 from 13 European countries. more
In 2014 World Population Program (POP) scientists studied predictors of economic growth in both developed and developing countries and also made an empirical study of the role of the new prospective aging measures as a predictor of income growth in Europe. more
The critical importance of technology and the resulting need for enhanced innovation efforts for climate protection was comprehensively assessed and illustrated through two major international modeling intercomparison exercises that were completed in 2014: the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF27) and the EU project AMPERE. more
The original Energy Primer, released in conjunction with the Report of the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), has been expanded and updated and made available both online and as a downloadable textbook, along with with support material for educators. more
Research by the Evolution and Ecology Program (EEP) on exploitation-induced evolution is assembling evidence and insights with respect to how human exploitation alters the heritable traits of targeted populations. Options are being developed on this basis for reducing unwanted alterations. more
Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) researchers and collaborators finalized the first fully verified carbon account for the Ukrainian forest for 1990-2010 and produced a forecast for the next 30 years. more
As at the end of January 2015 a study by the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Methods for Economic Decision-Making under Uncertainty (MEDU) research group was the most cited of all papers ever published in a top Springer journal. more
A series of improvements were introduced to the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program’s standalone fire model (SFM) which quantitatively estimates climate impacts on forest fires in Europe. more
Transitions to New Technologies (TNT) scientists are part of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), a scientific advisory panel established by the German government. Nebojsa Nakicenovic, one of the nine members of the WBGU since its inception, was reappointed in 2014 for a second term. more
Involving stakeholders is essential for elaborating and legitimizing public policy on disaster risk management during the post-disaster recovery process, as stipulated by the Rio Declaration and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015. Such processes are at the core of the Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) Program’s work on disaster risk governance. more
Fisheries play a key role in food security worldwide, but many aquatic food resources are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted. This reflects the failure of management systems devised to address competing demands on the multiple services rendered by aquatic ecosystems. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program continued the analyses of the mitigation potentials and co-benefits of specific emission control options. more
The Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group helped organize a series of IIASA presentations at the 2014 International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress in Salt Lake City, Utah, in October. more
Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program researchers work on conceptualizing the notion of sustainability and exploring different approaches to evaluating and quantifying it. more
An IIASA study for the first time estimates the trade-off between pension age and labor-force participation policies, showing that increasing labor force participation by as little as 1 or 2 percentage points could allow the pension age to be reduced by one year without increasing the burden on the working population. more
In 2014 the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program completed a new generation of projections of global future air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions that outline the impacts of future policy decisions. more
World Population Program (POP) scientists contributed to a growing body of research on defining new measures of aging based on human characteristics and demonstrated how such a test could be used as a measure for aging to compare different population groups. more
The Water (WAT) Program worked on a project on Progress in Renewable Energy and Biofuels Sustainability (PREBS14) which provides the analytical basis for monitoring, assessing, and evaluating the evolution of 27 European Union member states in implementing the RES Directive, based on a detailed analysis of the progress reports submitted by each of the EU member states. more
Collaborative high-level research by Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) found that losses from extreme floods in Europe could more than double by 2050, mainly due to climate change and socioeconomic development. The research allowed the first comprehensive assessment of continental flood risk and a comparison of the different adaptation options available to Europe. more
Risk, Policy and Vulnerability (RPV) research is critical in terms of overcoming the perception that insurance can contribute to risky behavior and thus disaster risk. It reveals how indexed systems, where payouts are triggered by an event parameter and not by loss claims, not only avoid moral hazard and encourage risk reduction, but can increase the access of the poor to much-needed safety nets. more
The Advanced Systems Analysis (ASA) Program coordinates the IIASA’s Futures Initiative on Eurasian Economic Integration, dealing with the complex issues of economic cooperation between countries of the Eurasian continent. more
The Energy (ENE) Program coordinated a number of major research community activities, in particular the further development of quantitative scenarios for the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), which form part of the new framework adopted by the climate change research community to facilitate the integrated analysis of climate impacts, vulnerabilities, adaptation, and mitigation. more
With the Ecosystems Services and Management’s (ESM) Earth Observation Systems research group, the Policy and Science Interface (PSI) research group developed a methodology to support assessment of forest management certification and policymaking. In 2014, this methodology was refined and applied to a case study in the boreal forest area. more
Fabian Schipfer of the Vienna University of Technology/Energy Economics Group, Austria, drew up scenarios aimed at developing strategies for the integration and extension of an industry based on renewable resources. more
Thomas Schinko of the University of Graz/Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change, Austria, investigated the economic impacts of a financial derisking approach for concentrated solar power (CSP) in four North African countries. more
Christina Kaiser is working in the Evolution and Ecology Program using a computer model that she developed and tested herself which simulates decomposing litter or soil at microbial-relevant scales to understand mechanisms emerging from complex microbial interactions at the microscale. more
Farid Karimi of the Environmental Research Group (EPRG), University of Helsinki, Finland, scrutinized the implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology from the perspective of socio-cultural structures. more
Thanicha Ruangmas of the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, investigates if emission reduction in Europe is due to adoption of pollution abatement technology or to a relocation of production to other regions. more
Floor Soudijn of the University of Amsterdam/Institute, Netherlands, examined predator-prey interactions to elucidate how the fishing of cod and sprat affects the Baltic Sea ecosystem. more
Piera Patrizio of the University of Udine, Italy, developed a biogas supply chain model to identify the optimal location for installation of new biogas plants and their most ecological and profitable technology and capacity options. more
Edoardo Borgomeo of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK, presented a sensitivity-based approach to testing the vulnerability of water resources systems to intense and persistent drought conditions, using a case study of London, UK. more
Volodymyr Blyshchyk of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine improved the models needed to estimate carbon stock in live biomass and carbon flux between the atmosphere and vegetation. more
Thi Luu of Kiel University, Germany, empirically analyzed the structure of the Spanish credit network, the temporal changes in it, and the systemic risk of overlapping portfolios. more
Hana Nielsen of the Department of Economic History, Lund University, Sweden, aimed to identify whether the regime change (from market to centrally planned economy) in Czechoslovakia had an impact on the domestic iron and steel industry. more
