European Geographer 7 - Scientific Symposium 2010

Magazine from the European Geography Association for students and young geographers

The European Geographer the Scientific Symposium 2010

7th issue September 2011

* Offshore wind energy in Northwest Europe * Space pioneers in the Havelland area * The emerge of metropolitan region Rotterdam - The Hague?

ISSN: 1605-6566

The European Geographer, Edition 7

Colophon The EGEA Magazine is a publication from the European Geography Association for Geography students and young Geographers. The EGEA Magazine is published twice a year. The magazine is produced for the EGEA community, EGEA partners and all others interested in EGEA, Geography and Europe.

Postal address: EGEA Faculty of Geosciences - Utrecht University P.O.Box 80.115 NL-3508 TC Utrecht Telephone: +31-30-2539708 E-mail: egea@egea.eu E-mail EGEA magazine: egea.magazine@egea.eu Website: www.egea.eu Editors of the seventh issue: Inge Wiekenkamp, Maike Metzkow, Jan Smutek, Jakub Ondruch, Maria Cristina Onet, Olga Chernopitskaya, Sille Marie Myreng, Annika Palomaki Graphic Design: Anne Blok, Daniel Metzke and Inge Wiekenkamp Contributing authors: Lena Puschel, Martijn Claes, Luuk Stelder, Ruben Maes, Dominique Chasseriaud, Michael Poulsen, Thijs Brugman, Stefan Esch, Miguel Geraldes, Sandra Sosnowski, Pieter Jan Karstijns, Estela Nadal Romero, Els Verachtert, Jean Poesen.

Photos: Martijn Claes, Luuk Stelder, Ruben Maes, Dominique Chasseriaud, Thijs Brugman, Stefan Esch, Pieter Jan Karstijns, Simon Reichenwallner.

Coverphoto: Daniel Metzke Authors are completely responsible for the content of their articles and references made by them.

The editors would like to thank: Peter Adelaar – Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University Roos Saalbrink – EGEA BoE Secretariat Director 10/11 Karl Donert - president of EUROGEO and UK National Teaching Fellow at Liverpool Hope University All authors EGEA is supported by: ESRI EUROGEO Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University

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Content

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Lena Püschel

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Martijn Claes, Claus Larsen

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Pieter Jan Karsijns, Luuk Stelder

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Stefan Esch

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Sandra Sosnowski, Dominique Chasseriaud

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Thijs Brugman

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Ruben Maes

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Michael Poulsen

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Miguel Geraldes

Editorial: The Scientific Symposium 2010 & the Special Scientific Edition of the European Geographer

Assessment of offshore wind energy in Northwest Eu - rope: Development of a GIS Model

The application of GIS in accessibility research the shift in relative accessibility with the introduction of the Dutch rail network

Space pioneers in the Havelland area (West of Belin)

Appropriation and recreation of space through out resistance:The example of the Hannoversche Wend land

The emerge of metropolitan region Rotterdam -The Hague? A comparison with metropolitan regions Mittel deutschland and Øresund in the field of governments and policy.

Evaluating the piping erosion susceptibility of loess-de rived soil horizons using the pinhole test

The EU Blue Card - the quest for high skilled migrants

GIS analysis on the location of peat bogs in continental Portugal, as ancillary tool to phylogeographic research Europe

The Scientific Symposium 2010

Editorial: The Scientific Symposium 2010 & the Scientific Edition of the European Geographer

is more an adventure and struggle for high skilled migrants than a real invitation (Michael Poulsen, EGEA Copenhagen)?

That something small like a pinhole test can provide important information about Scientific Symposium 2010 erosion risks of loess based soils (Ruben Maes, EGEA Leuven) or that there Two Moderators, six Presentations and a is no real definition of “the European room full of interested EGEAns. That was Metropolitan Region” even if it already the Scientific Symposium in numbers. exist (Thijs Brugman, EGEA Utrecht)?

The idea of having a Scientific Symposium at the Annual Congress (AC) was A Geographical Information System is developed by the Scientific Committee known to be a useful tool and can solve and the AC Organizers in order to add a many questions in our world of Geography. new scientific aspect to the Annual Con- The fascinating applicability of GIS can be gress of EGEA. With this initiative we shown by many examples; it can be used to wanted to offer EGEAns the opportunity compare travel times over the centuries for to present their scientific work, the results modeling accessibility of places (Pieter Jan of e.g. their bachelor or master thesis, to Karsijns, Luuk Stelder, EGEA Groningen) a bigger group of young geographers. as well as to determine the best location for offshore wind energy plants in the North We challenged EGEAns to take their Sea with the help of different modeling pachance and test their presentation skills. rameters (Mathijs Claes, EGEA Leuven).

At the end of the subscribing deadline, Searching for signs of resistance in the Wend20 abstracts were handed in. Together land was an exciting journey, which showed with the Scientific Coordinator of the AC, us what a new definition of space can create Sosnowski, Dominique the Scientific Committee started the hard (Sandra work of choosing the presenters. After in- Chasseriaud, EGEA Mainz). tensive discussions, a very long e-meeting and several pros and cons 6 abstracts The Special Scientific Edition of were chosen out of 20. In this editorial, the European Geographer the Scientific Committee would like to thank all EGEAns, who took the chal- Our Presenters introduced us to new lenge and handed in an abstract. After and interesting themes, on which 8 month of preparations, hard work and they worked very intensively, e.g. durthoughtful planning our presenters intro- ing their Bachelor or Master thesis. duced us to a big variety of geographical They accepted the challenge and antopics at the AC 2010 in Poiana Zanelor. swered all questions during the Symposium in a confident way. To give more EGEAns Who knew, that the European Blue Card the chance to be introduced into their re-

Lena Püschel , EGEA Osnabrueck

search, the European Geographer offered to publish articles from the presenters of the Scientific Symposium and from all other people who handed in an abstract.

Our Special thanks go to Karl Donnert, president of EUROGEO and UK National Teaching Fellow at Liverpool for helping the editorial board of the European Geographer and the Scientific Committee to produce this Special Scientific Edition of the European Geographer.

Scientific Symposium 2011 reloaded Because of the great success of the Scientific Symposium 2010, there will also be a next one at the upcoming Annual Congress 2011, which will be organized by EGEA Muenchen & EGEA Erlangen. This AC is going to take place from 10th - 15th of September 2011 in Ebermannstadt, Bavaria, Germany. Same as last year, there will be a Scientific Symposium.

Make sure you will be there!!!

Lena

Source: Simon Reichenwallner

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Assessment of offshore wind energy in Northwest Europe Development of a GIS Model

tial data as inputs and concerting them to data that can be quantified and localized.

Martijn Claes, Claus Larsen, Aalborg University, 2009

In the second phase, some restrictions were added to approach a more realistic view of reality. Several areas were excluded for building wind energy parks. These excluded areas contained oil & gas fields, protected environmental areas (Ramsar) and areas that fell within a viewshed. This model is described as the “restrictive model”.

Introduction Large amounts of fossil energy are produced and used by humans and this increases global warming. The growth of electricity needs goes hand in hand with our dependency on fossil fuels. Alternatives for this dependency are renewable energy sources, for instance wind energy. Onshore wind turbines dominate the wind energy landscape, but there is little potential left on land [Europa, 2008]. Offshore wind energy could provide a lot more energy than it does today. The North Sea can be an appropriate area for the gain of offshore wind energy, but there has to be cooperation between the different countries that possess territorial waters in the North Sea (figure 1).

To help achieve this cooperation, a tool should be made available that will estimate the potential (resources and costs) of offshore wind energy in the sea area of these countries. The aim of this project is to provide a model that can be used to calculate the potential available energy, the cheapest location for producing energy and the cost of this energy. A GIS model was a good way to turn the spatial data available into quantified data.

“How can a model be created so it can estimate the possible future placements for offshore wind energy parks in the chosen case area, the North Sea?”

Figure 2: Schematic overview of the basic model inputs

Methodology Two models were developed to estimate the most suitable locations for offshore wind energy parks. The first model is the “basic model”, which is based on 3 main inputs: • Bathymetry of the chosen case area • Wind data of the case area • The relative connectivity of points to the European power grid The sea depth is important because of the building costs for the foundations of a wind energy park. The potential wind energy determines the amount of energy a given wind turbine can produce. The more wind, the more energy created. The distance to the shore is important because the only way to get the produced electricity to the shore is via power cables that follow the seabed.

The longer the cables, the higher the cost.

In order to produce an estimate of the economics of a given wind energy resource in a given area, it is necessary to quantify these three spatial factors. This can only be done using a model that can take spa-

1.Basic Model One of the methods that can be used to find the most feasible areas for offshore wind energy parks is the concept of “Levelized Production Cost” (LPC) by Kühn [2001]. The LPC establishes a break-even cost of energy production. This is the minimum energy price at which energy can be sold in order for a project to have a balance of zero at the end of its expected lifetime. The LPC formula consists of the total investment costs (I), the yearly operation & maintenance costs (O&M) and the annual energy production (E):

I is the total initial capital cost in €/km², O&M represents the yearly costs in €/ MWh for the operation and maintenance of the wind turbines and E is the annual energy production in MWh/year * km².

The investment costs are split up in different parts: foundation cost and grid connection costs which are the variable costs, and the fixed costs, including turbine costs and other costs. The factor a is used to annualize the investment cost for the lifetime of the project and its value can be calculated by the following formula:

In this formula i is the interest rate and y

Figure 1: The chosen case area

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Figure 3: Schematic overview of the restrictive model inputs

is the expected lifetime for the project. For this model, a lifetime of 20 years and an interest rate of 6% are assumed. These values can of course be edited by the user of the model.

grid will increase with increasing distance to the power grid access points on land.

The formula for the grid connection costs is a linear formula, which is empirically derived: (fig.5)

1.1 Investment costs (I) The total investments cost can be calculated as follows:

a. Foundation costs The foundation cost of a wind energy park can be calculated based on the sea depth: This relationship has been quantified by Gooch et al. [2008]:

c. Fixed Costs The remaining costs are fixed costs.

These include turbine, consultancy, electric installation and control system costs. They were calculated using a constant value from the Danish Energy Agency [DEA, 2004] for the total investment costs. This value is 1.600.000€/ MW. As each windmill produces a power of 5MW and there are 0.577 per km², the fixed costs can be calculated as follows:

Where: k = the initial cost for one foundation = 251.719

d = sea depth in meters.

This gives the following result when the bathymetric model is used as input factor (d) in the given formula: figure 4.

The cost-depth model has been worked out in €/km² by calculating the amount of foundations needed per km². This was 0.577 foundation/km² (own calculations). b. Grid connection costs Typical for offshore wind energy parks is the added complication of transferring power from several kilometres out at sea.

These transmission costs can be calculated using a cost-distance model, where the price for connection to the power

1.2 Operation & Maintenance costs (O&M) The operation & maintenance costs for offshore wind energy will be higher than those for onshore wind energy. This is due to the decreased accessibility of wind energy parks in the sea. Boats and/or helicopters are required to perform maintenance. There is also the problem that maintenance cannot be performed at all times due to adverse weather conditions.

Wind speeds higher than 12 m/s and wave heights over 2m hinder the maintenance of the wind energy park [Rademakers et al., 2002]. In this project a constant value of 10€/MW will be used [DEA, 2004].

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1.3 Energy Production a. Wind speed model The model uses a wind model to determine the energy output for offshore wind turbines. The wind model used was created based on an image, shown in figure 6, of European wind [Energicon, 2005]. The image was imported into ArcGIS and georeferenced, to fit a known country outline. The isolines of the images were then drawn up as a polyline shapefile. This shapefile was then transformed into a raster using the Topo-to-raster tool and used as an input to the model. b. Annual Energy production The potential energy that a wind energy park can produce in one year depends on the wind speed power curve and the wind speed frequency distribution in a certain area. When the mean annual wind speed is known, the following formula [Boyle, 2004] can also be used to make a rough estimate of the electricity production in KWh per year from a number of wind turbines in a wind energy park: E = Annual energy prowhere duction K= 3.2 and is a factor based on typical turbine performance characteristics and an approximate relationship between mean wind speed and wind speed distribution v = the annual mean wind speed. The wind speed map will be used as input factor.

A= is the swept area of the turbine in m². To calculate this area the rotor diameter of a 5MW wind turbine has been used. This is 120m. The following formula has been used: 2. The Restrictive model: “A step closer to reality” Unfortunately the basic model does not provide a realistic view of the situation, because only a few physical factors are taken into account. In this second model an attempt has been made to approach reality by adding restrictions to the basic model, by reducing the amount of potentially available space for placing wind turbines in the North Sea. 2.1 Oil & Gas fields

Figure 4: Cost-depth model in €/km²

The locations in the North Sea where oil and gas resources are available are not suitable for placing wind energy parks. The buffer area surrounding these fields has been chosen based

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ing boats away, which could otherwise cause overfishing. These areas could be preferable to locate wind energy parks.

2.4 Viewshed analysis

Figure 5: The cost distance model

on a qualified guess. If this guess is wrong it could be altered to any given size in the model.

The model itself just uses the buffer size as an input to its calculations. Different users of the locational model might have different perspectives and therefore requirements concerning the size of such a buffer.

2.2 Ramsar areas Ramsar sites are created based on the Ramsar convention. It is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands.

The stakeholders of this treaty defined protected wetlands which have an ecological, botanic, zoological and hydrological value, where the importance as a habitat for water birds is a main issue [Ramsar, 2008]. These (offshore) areas are not suitable for the building of wind energy parks because their construction and operation will disturb the natural habitats of these water birds. That is why they have been excluded from the locational model.

2.3 Fish breeding areas Another change to the basic model concerns fish breeding areas. In comparison with the other layers, this layer doesn’t have a restrictive function.

The presence of wind energy parks has a positive influence on the development and conservation of fish breeding areas. The foundations of the wind turbines protect the breeding areas, by creating artificial reefs and by keeping trawling fish-

A viewshed analysis is included in the restricted model. The reason for including a viewshed analysis is a growing antipathy against on-shore wind turbines [Bishop and Miller, 2006].

Studies carried out by Bishop and Miller [ibid] showed that the further away from the shore the wind turbines are located the better. The study further shows that moving/working wind turbines were better liked than still standing/non working wind turbines. The argument was that “when the turbines are moving they are seen as being ‘at work’, doing good, producing energy” [Bishop and Miller, 2006; page]. This citation suggests that the survey group in [Bishop and Miller, 2006] could live with sea-based wind turbines that are within visual range, as long as they are doing what they were meant to do: producing clean renewable energy.

3. Results The basic model provides a map with “Levelized Production Costs” (figure 7). It is clearly visible that the Western Danish seawaters are the most suitable region to build off-shore wind energy, with a production price starting from 24€/MW. The areas south of Ireland and Norway are characterized by very deep seas, which implies high production costs. There is however a large area that spans the Danish, German, Dutch and English EEZ that could be recommended as suitable locations to build offshore wind energy parks.

The restrictive model (figure 8) adds restrictions to the basic models output.

Figure 6: The image used in the creation of the wind model, Source: Energicon, 2005

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The “holes” in the North Sea are the removed oil and gas wells. After adding the restrictions, the picture changes and some different areas can be identified as better than others. For example, the light yellow spot in the British sea territory, also known as Dogger Bank (figure 9). Dogger Bank is a sandbank that has an area of approximately 17.600km². The water depth ranges from 15-36 meters [Timegun, 2008].

Dogger Bank is also an important fishing area as shown in figure 9.

The implementation of wind energy in this area would also be a protective factor for the fish population in this area, but could cause problems with the fishing industry.

The Western Danish sea territory was another possible implementation area, as described in the basic model:. It has however become less accessible due to the presence of a Ramsar area at the Danish West coast which prohibits a cheaper connection to the power grid.

Apart from Dogger Bank and the western sea territory, figure 10 shows that there are areas along the English, Irish and French coast that show great promise.

By adding the Viewshed analysis to figure 8, and producing figure 10, it can be seen that the visibility factor has an impact on the usable area for offshore wind turbines. For instance it can be seen that the inner areas of the Danish sea are greatly affected by it. Great care should be used when deciding the extent of the visibility factor because of the rising cost per produced MWh of electricity from the wind turbines.

Conclusion The project formulation was as follows: “How can a model be created so it can estimate the possible future placements

Figure 7: LPC map of the Basic model

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ec.europa.eu/climateaction/(Accessed: 18th of December, 2008) Gooch, S.A., Guerrero C.A., Rodriguez, R.A., Wisniewski, J., 2008. An Energy and Cost Based GIS Approach to Offshore Wind Farm Site Mapping.

Kühn, M., T.T. Cockerill, G.J.W. van Bussel, W. Bierbooms, and R. Harrison, 2001. Combined technical and economic evaluation of the Northern European offshore wind resource. Journal of Wind Engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, pp. 689-711 Rademakers, L.W.M.M. & Braam. H., 2002. O&M aspects of the 500MW offshore wind farm at NL7. DOWEC project.

Ramsar, 2008. The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Available on: http://www. ramsar.org/ (Accessed: 18th of December, 2008) Timegun, 2008. Fisherman’s Fright. Available on: http://www.timegun.org/fish_ fright.html (Accessed: 18th of December 2008).

Figure 8: LPC map of the Restrictive model

for offshore wind energy parks in the chosen case area, the North Sea?” Working questions: • How can a geneal model be created to address this problem?

• How can this model be applied to other scales than the case area?

It can be concluded that the main purpose of the project has been fulfilled. A working model that can be used to estimate the possible future placements for offshore wind energy parks in the chosen case area. Even more so it was found that the created model works in any given case area, be it small or large.

The methodology section largely answers the first working question in its thorough review of the buildup of the basic model, the restrictive model and the application of the restrictive model. The application of the restrictive model would be one way to go to a smaller scale with the model using an existing calculation as an input to another calculation based on a smaller case area.

The conclusion to the last working question is based on the preparation of the inputs to the model. If the intended use of the model is of a large scale then the basic inputs are needed and the calculations should be done with a large cell size to limit the calculation time and the amount of data. When working on smaller scales it is more important to use more inputs to get a more correct image of the complexity of reality. In general it can be said that the larger the scale the fewer inputs are needed. The opposite is correct as well.

The smaller the scale, the more inputs are needed to understand the complexity of the given case area.

Figure 9: Dogger Bank, Source: Timegun, 2008

The final conclusion is that the results of the model are only as good as its inputs. Great care should be taken when setting up the model and making sure that all the input values and data is correct for the given case area.

Reference List Bishop, I. D. & Miller, D. R., 2006. Visual assessment of off-shore wind turbines: The influence of distance, contrast, movement and social variables. Renewable Energy. Vol. 32, pp. 814-831.

Boyle, G., 2004. Renewable Energy: Power for a sustainable future. Oxford University Press, pp. 266-268.

Figure 10: LPC map of the Restrictive model with a viewshed included

DEA, 2004. Technology Data for Electricity and Heat Generating Plants. Available on: http://www.ens.dk/graphics/Publikationer/Forsyning_UK/Technology_Data_for_Electricity_and_Heat_Generating_Plants/html/chapter19.htm (Accessed: 18th of December 2008) Energicon, 2005. European Wind Resource Map. Available on: http://energicon.co.uk/Documents/wind%20data%20%20europe.jpg (Accessed: 18th of December, 2008) Europa, 2008. Climate Action, Energy for a Changing World. Available on: http://

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The application of GIS in accessibility research

The shift in relative accessibility with the introduction of the Dutch rail network Pieter Jan Karsijns, Luuk Stelder, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen While digitizing and combining data from From a traditional economic geographer’s point of view, the development of new or improved infrastructure is often linked to economic development, especially in peripheral areas. But when a transportation innovation emerges throughout an area everywhere at the same pace, it is very questionable whether this development creates advantages for a specific city or region. When the travel time and expenses halve on all routes from every city to every other city in a given region, this changes nothing concerning the relative (economic) position of any of these cities.

Though small differences are present throughout the country, the introduction of the Dutch railway network is a fairly typical example of equally spread advancements in infrastructure (Veenendaal, 2004). Since 1839 this mode of transportation expanded to an all time high in the early thirties of the 20th century (figure 1). Combining old rail maps with new GIS applications provides us with the opportunity to analyze this process and see whether such a revolution in transportation may have led to specific advantages to certain places. More clearly; did the introduction of this network merely result in an absolute change in accessibility, or can we detect a relative shift?

While digitizing and combining data from old maps and archives, a GIS model was created in which the development of accessibility for 33 cities in the Netherlands could be monitored for any given year during the period between 1838 and 1931, the growth period of the Dutch rail network. In doing so, creating the possibility to calculate whether the introduction of the rail system caused a shift in relative accessibility among the top 33 cities of the Netherlands.

The concept of relative accessibility Throughout academic history, a variety of measurements have been applied in researching accessibility issues (Hine, in Knowles et al. 2008). Makri (2001) defined time, costs and efforts as the main dependent variables for accessibility. However it can be argued that costs and efforts are inherent to the time of travelling, thus leaving time to be a fairly stable variable for simple analyses (van Wee, Dijst 2002) as is conducted here.

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Figure 1: The Dutch Railnetwork in 1931, Source: Karsijns, P.J., Stelder, L.. 2010

To calculate the accessibility of a city at a given moment in time, a network was created, digitizing old maps using ArcGIS and attributing the connections with data on the first year of operation and the applied maximum speed. In this network, all cities are connected to one another with lines (here, rail connections), each having a specific ‘resistance’, in this case the time it takes to travel this line. This hands the opportunity to calculate the total travel time to all other cities from any given city. The results differ over time, with changing ‘resistance’ to distance as more accessible and faster rail transportation was introduced.

Figure 2 shows the results of the above applied to the 33 biggest cities in the Netherlands. This first calculation is

based on a ‘rail-less’ situation, drawing straight lines between cities, al having the same traveling speed (5 km/h) .

This will, obviously, give a typical centre/ periphery view of the Netherlands (figure 2), with the more central cities having the lowest accumulated travel time.

The shift in accessibility only starts when adding the rail system and comparing the differences between two or more years.

At a first glance, the same calculation with the total rail network of 1931 (figure 3), doesn’t provide a very different view.

The relationship between cities stays the same, since cumulative travel times will still be the lowest in central places. Only when we start to compare the difference in difference over time, can the relative shift

in accessibility be observed.

The accessibility shift When comparing the pre- and post rail results of the analyses, the most notable result is the dramatic drop in absolute travel times the introduction of the rail network induced, for all of the connected cities.

Figure 4 shows the fastest and the slowest developing city (e.g. Delft and Emmen), both dropping over 90% of original travel times. Though there is a clear difference in the speed of the decline, we can see the eventual drop in travel time is almost the same, which would support the theory of hardly shifting relative accessibility.

As to the shift in relative accessibility, this can be calculating by dividing the cumulative travel times at T=0 by those in T=1, here being the years 1838 and 1931, which will give the relative amount of declining travel times for each city. Visually this results in a map of the shift in relative accessibility, as is shown in figure 5. The blue areas gaining more profit from the introduction of the railways and the red areas profiting the least. Comparing this map to figures 2 and 3, a pattern emerges in which the centre of accessibility has clearly shifted towards the east of the country.

This mainly results from the predominant east-wards direction of the main connections, granting the more eastern cities a relative advantage to the west. Secondly, intra-regional connections in the west did not evolve very efficient, leaving these cities with relatively high travel times to one another.

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the barrier the Zuidersea became with the introduction of fast rail transportation. In the rail-less era, traveling over water was as fast, if not the fastest, way of travel thus granting the northern areas a direct and reliable connection to the west. The new situation offers a much faster way of transport, but one that is land bound, resulting in large detours on route from north to west (and vice-versa, another reason for the loss of the leading position of the western cities).

Conclusion This research relies heavily on a few assumptions of reality, included in order to model the real world. One example was in making travel time the sole dependent variable of accessibility, while actual costs of traveling and the personal effort it takes were not included. Also, a 100% connectivity of railway lines was assumed. This is also a highly unlikely situation, since a high number of very small, private owned rail road operators (often exploiting merely one line) dominated the late 19th century, making train transfers a timely and difficult operation (Sluiter, 2002). Also, the frequency in which trains departed was not taken into account, something which could very well vary a great deal regionally.

A second major fact is the high loss in relative accessibility of part of the northern region. This is a direct consequence of

Most of these assumptions were made due to time constraints, but are in effect not so important, considering the main goal was in researching the application of GIS in accessibility research. The model created is extremely flexible, it could be used now to evaluate the actual rail network of any given year within the research period. Furthermore, the constraints given to every rail line would be very easy to ad-

Figure 2: Total Travelling Time 1838 Source: Karsijns, P.J., Stelder, L.. 2010

Figure 3: Total Travelling Time 1931 Source: Karsijns, P.J., Stelder, L.. 2010

Figure 4: Percentage of Original Travel Time Source: Karsijns, P.J., Stelder, L.. 2010

just. If further research were undertaken, it could provide quantifiable data on the missing assumptions that could be blended into the model, making it a more accurate and very powerful tool for further accessibility research.

References Hine, J, 2008. ‘Transport and Social Justice’ in Knowels et al. (eds) ‘Transport Geographies; Mobilities, Flows and Spaces’ Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

Makri, M.B., 2001. Accessibility Indices, a Tool for Comprehensive Land-Use Planning. School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Stockholm.

Sluiter, J.W., 2002. Overzicht van de Nederlandse spoor- en tramwegbedrijven. Matrijs, Leiden.

Veenendaal, A.J., 2004. Spoorwegen in Nederland: van 1834 tot nu. Boom, Amsterdam Wee, B. van, Dijst, M., 2002. Verkeer en Vervoer in Hoofdlijnen. Couthino b.v , Bussum.

Figure 5: Shift in Relative Accessibility 1938-1931 Source: Karsijns, P.J., Stelder, L.. 2010

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Space pioneers in the Havelland area (West of Berlin)

Figure 1: Area of research and location of space pioneers, Source: Google maps; revision by Lauer, 2011

Stefan Esch, EGEA Tuebingen Background Some rural regions in East Germany have been experiencing a significant decline in population and function thinning for decades. Among the reasons for this is a generative behaviour which has dramatically changed since 1990 and therewith led to a significantly low birth rate, as well as the departure of young people in the childbearing age.

The consequences of these processes are diverse and include not only an additional worsening of the demographic situation but also an occasionally precarious economic condition of these regions. A structurally dangerous decline in the demographic, economic, social and functional situation can already be noted.

However, one can also find certain developments that seem to counteract the trends outlined above. The so called “space pioneer phenomenon” is an example of people and small networks settling in the empty, functionally thinning regions of East German states (IRS, 2009; IRS, 2010). Once there, these people “invent” new functions in the area ranging from lowtech, organic-farming and craftwork to new media. Many different professions and live-

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lihoods, such as returning gentry families (disappropriated during communist time), design- and knowledge workers and artists can be identified as “space pioneers”.

Previously, these circumstances have only been described on the basis of case studies (see for example: David, 2009).

Even though “space pioneers” are seen as a major factor for a new valorisation of empty areas, this assumption has still been lacking qualitative research.

Therefore, a student project was carried out in the Havelland area (West of Berlin) which tried to quantify this new phenomenon and to analyse its spaceconcerning influences and potentials.

about their seasonal presence?

3.

What types of space pioneers can be identified?

4. Based on which reasons and backgrounds did the space pioneers settle in the Havelland area? How important were the special characteristics of the area for their choice of settlement?

5. To what extend are the space pioneers cross-linked locally/ regionally with other pioneers/ the metropolitan area of Berlin?

6 With which impulses do the space pioneers contribute to a local/ regional development?

7. Which problems do occur and how are the space pioneers supported?

Objectives

Methodology

In order to get better knowledge of the amount and activities of space pioneers in the Havelland area, the project dealt with the exploration of answers on the following questions:

The research project was introduced through a seminar dealing with the regional geography of the Havelland area as well as some basics on empiric research methods. An important step during preparation was the accurate definition of the term “space pioneer”, which can be seen as ”(…) a collective term for people and micro-networks that try to put unused rural areas back into economical and cultural value. By doing this, space pioneers serve as precursors and set impulses for

1. How many space pioneers can be found in the Havelland area and where are they located?

2. Which kinds of activities do they have? Are these activities full-timeor part-time-jobs?

What

the activation of endogenous potential in the affected regions” (Koalick, 2007).

Once this term was established, the area of research was identified. Focusing only on the rural parts of the Havelland region, all towns and the suburbanisation zone of Berlin were ignored (figure 1). Furthermore, ex ante research on the possible locations of space pioneers in the area was carried out and guidelines for the procedure of qualitative interviews were designed.

During the field work, two teams (six students each) travelled through the area of research by car. They asked people on the street at random, questions such as: “Do you know anyone who has moved in this area after 1990, who has built up a small firm, an art studio, an organic-farm or something similar?” The research group then drove to the address mentioned, rang the bell and asked for an appointment. During the appointment itself, an interview with the potential space pioneer was held according to the guidelines set up (figure 2).

Afterwards, the recorded interviews were transcribed and all the unimportant information was filtered out. The final results of the research project have been visualised in maps, posters and a printed report.

Results Concerning the seven research questions, the following conclusions can be drawn:There are around 60 people in the Havelland area that can be defined as “space pioneers”. Besides a concentration located in the ‘one-hour-toBerlin’ distance area (mostly in eastern spots),, almost no space pioneers could be found in the middle of the research area. In contrast, further clusters were located at scenic sites (lakes, riverbanks) in the western area of research.

The activities of space pioneers were

very diverse, ranging from organic-farming, restaurants and alternative tourism activities to art studios and small firms.

Furthermore, these people often set up local associations supporting cultural and political participation. Most of the pioneers earned their living by carrying out their activity and are permanently present.

Concerning the classification of space pioneers, three main groups could be identified: craftsmen, farmers and artists. Each of these can be further divided into those that were only active in a commercial sense and those that also have a high cultural / tourist potential.

The major reasons for their settlement in the Havelland area were: more independence, cheap living and working space (art studios), new inspiration, living in the countryside; closeness to Berlin; pure nature. Whereas most of these attributes can also be found in other rural areas, artists particularly emphasised the special characteristics of the Havelland area.

For most of the space pioneers, the distance to Berlin was very important: On the one hand most of their customers were located there; on the other hand they did not want to live in complete isolation.

Nonetheless, local and regional crosslinkage of space pioneers is getting greater the longer they lived in the rural area.

The impact of single space pioneers on their environment was not very high.

However, observed as a whole, they can highly contribute to a better image of the Havelland area and serve as a nucleus for endogenous potential.

The problems facing space pioneers in the Havelland area ranged from high administrative bureaucracy to conflicts with neighbours and bad Internet connections.

Some of the space pioneers were funded by programmes of the European Union or local authorities to realise their goals.

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Conclusions The research project carried out in the Havelland area was a first approach to quantify the activities of space pioneers in the rural area of East Germany. Even though very interesting results have already been obtained, there remain some open questions, e.g. concerning the rural population’s view on the activities of space pioneers. Furthermore, similar research could be done in other rural areas, facilitating an inter-region comparison.

References and further reading Budke, A. 2006. Raumpioniere als Akteure der Stadtentwicklung. In: M. Dickel & D. Kanwischer (eds.): TatOrte. Neue Raumkonzepte didaktisch inszenieren. Berlin, pp. 221-228.

David, O. 2008. Der Professor, der Doktor und die Dörflichen. Ethnographie eines Raumpionierprojekts in der Uckermark. Tuebingen. Final thesis.

Kinder, S. (ed.) 2011. Raumpioniere im Havelland. In preparation.

Koalick, G. 2007. Raumpioniere. Available from: http://web.tu-dresden.de/Darstellungslehre/_ pdf/hauptstudium/bildsprache/ws0708_KerzigTanja-Raumpioniere.pdf (Accessed 20 March 2011) Lange, B. und U. Matthiesen (2005). Raumpioniere. In: P. Oswalt (eds.): Schrumpfende Städte. Band 2 - Handlungskonzepte. Berlin, pp. 374-383.

Lauer, H. (2011): Untersuchungsraum und Verteilung der Raumpioniere. In: S. Kinder (ed.): Raumpioniere im Havelland. In preparation.

Leibniz-Institut für Regionalentwicklung und Strukturplanung (IRS). 2010. Raumpioniere im Stadtquartier. Zur kommunikativen (Re-) Konstruktion von Räumen im Strukturwandel. Available from:http://www.irs-net.de/profil/ forschungsabteilungen/forschungsabteilung-3/ leitprojekt.php (Accessed 20 March 2011) Leibniz-Institut für Regionalentwicklung und Strukturplanung (IRS). 2009. Raumpioniere im Stadtquartier. Zur kommunikativen (Re-) Konstruktion von Räumen im Strukturwandel.

Available from: http://www.irs-net.de/download/ forschung/LeitprojektFA3.pdf (Accessed 20 March 2011)

Figure 2: Typical interview situation with a space pioneer, Source: Esch, 2010

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Appropriation and recreation of space throughout resistance The example of the Hannoversche Wendland

Figure 1: Manifestation in front of the interim storage facility,

Sandra Sosnowski, Dominique Chasseriaud, EGEA Mainz Introduction In the academic year of 2008 the entities of Egea Mainz, Berlin and Munich organized an excursion to the Region of Wendland in Germany. This region in northern Germany with one of the lowest densities of population (41 persons per km2) and its rural structure may not seem so interesting at first sight, but looking closer into it reveals many important aspects for geographers. Research needs to consider the course of events for the last 40 years. The rural life of the local population changed dramatically in the 1970’s, when the German government decided to construct several nuclear waste management centres and a nuclear reprocessing plant in Gorleben, a village in the region.

This decision provoked an unexpected resistance among the local and national population. In 1980, the government an-

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Source: DOMINIQUE CHASSERIAUD, 2008.

nounced that deep drilling investigations would be started, but only a few days later, a resistance camp with a village of huts was constructed and the “Independent Republic of Wendland” declared. Since then, the anti-nuclear resistance has been active in the region with slogans like “Gorleben soll leben” (Gorleben shall live) and “Gorleben ist überall” (Gorleben is everywhere).

Today, there exist many different creative civic resistance initiatives. Mass demonstrations and the new appropriation and reinterpretation of space by the people of the region have led to the fact that many parts of the original government plans, including the reprocessing plant, were not fulfilled. But even today the Wendland is dealing with one of the biggest problems of our time: How to regulate the final deep repository of highly radioactive waste produced by nuclear reactors. The salt dome next to the village Gorleben is the only place in Germany where investigations are done for this purpose. About once a year highly radioactive waste is

transported to the interim storage facility in Gorleben. This provokes considerable conflicts. But today, the Wendland does not only have the reputation of being just a rural area with small villages and high unemployment rates with nuclear problems, but it has also become a model region for sustainable development with a popular image in Germany.

We decided to organize this excursion because we were interested in the protest performed in the region of Lüchow-Dannenberg (official name for the region) and how it may interrelate with the fact that the Wendland has become a model region when talking about sustainability and renewable energies.

The existing literature did not only include scientific literature but also flyers, newspapers, etc. from the region. During our fieldwork we applied a mixture of methods: We carried out expert interviews but also talked to people visiting a cultural event. As geographers we tried to “read” the space, by analyzing symbols and codes spread

They are defined by a certain continuation in time. Another important aspect is the lack of a structured and hierarchic organization. Instead they are characterized by a loose organisation of different forms and actions within the movement (Bender, 1997). Bender (1997) says that a social movement is network mobilized by informal networks like families, friends, etc. Following the argumentation of Rucht (1994), a social movement is a system of social action carried by a collective identity. It consists of mobilized networks of groups and organisations that want to provoke a societal change by using protest. This shows that collective identities play an important role when it comes to protest movements. That is why we want to talk about that concept in the next part of the paper.

identity.

Also, fundamental for producing and stabilizing a collective identity are rituals.

These are defined actions that are repeated on more or less regular bases. They have a tying and affirming function within groups. The participants take actions in those rituals to demonstrate their commitment and togetherness. Those rituals can take place on micro, meso and macro levels (Petermann, 2007). A ritual underlines the borders of insiders and outsiders (Giesen, 1999).

To conclude this section we can point out that the development of a collective identity is a complex process and is formed throughout communication and at different levels.

Collective Identity

Since this article deals with the new appropriation, creation and redefinition of the Wendland during the last decades we have to introduce some basics about space and place here. As cultural geographers we do not take the perspective of determined container spaces because we do not believe in them. We rather apply a relational concept of space.

From a relational and constructivist perspective: “(…) we recognise space as the product of interrelations; as constituted through interaction (…)” (Massey, 2005).

That means that we, as acting subjects, are producing space in a constant process that is never to be completed (Petermann, 2007). Those actions and relations though happen in physically and metrically describable places, but even these places are never neutral. Everyone interprets them selectively and based on his or her own biography. A place as a relational concept is the focus of a mixture of social relations (Mahon & Keil, 2008).

Identity is a lifelong process of defining oneself by making distinction to others (Berg, 1999). This also happens within collective identities. Also here inner and outer borders are drawn to others. This means that identity is not something we have but something we do (Vester, 1996).

As we already stated, such a collective identity is fundamental for the functioning of a social movement. Fahlenbrach (2002) describes the becoming of such an identity as the development of a network based on communication. That is why the communication between the individuals and groups that are part of the movement is essential for the “making of” a collective identity. all over the Wendland. We also visited some important places of protest.

Social movement It is important to give a theoretical introduction a priori talking about the happening in the Wendland-region. First we want to talk about social movements as the form of protest movements that we consider to be virulent in the Wendland. As their name already implies protest movements are not fixed and stiff they rather change constantly and stay flexible so that you could say they always move. Therefore it is not easy to define them scientifically. We will present some basics with which most literature agrees on.

Külz (2001) writes that a social movement is a collective actor trying to achieve political and societal changes. But to be able to talk about a social movement its claims need to concern a fundamental change in society’s structure or values. What makes them different from one-time events like demonstrations is their time of duration.

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The construction of the inner self always includes the construction of the outer alien. The alien is fundamental to define the self. Whereby the inner is seen as the good and right and the outer as the bad and wrong (Bückmann, 2007). To draw these borders in a social movement emotional identification with its goals and ideas is important. Actual situations of protest like a demonstration function as a polarization of the inner and outer. Therefore, these situations of confrontation have a highly stabilizing character for the collective identity (Fahlenbrach, 2002).

Another very important aspect for the formation and stabilisation of such an identity are symbols and visual codes.

It can come to that extreme that all the knowledge, goals, etc become readable in a symbol (Jäger, 2007).

Furthermore Fahlenbrach (2002) writes that a collective identity is linked to a common habit and lifestyle. The expressivity of lifestyle and habits confirms who belongs to the group. It marks the collective

Space and Place

Field research during the excursion The field research, was carried out with 25 students and two lecturers from Egea Mainz and Munich, it took place in 2008.

The initiation for the excursion came from the students and it was mostly self-organized, each entity preparing one day of activities dealing with different aspects.

We decided to visit the Wendland with its ongoing social movement provoking special processes that we considered to cover many interesting topics for geographers.

The Wendland region is located in northern Germany, it used to be bordered on three sides by the former German Democratic Republic and is now located in the middle of Germany. With its size of ca.

1,200 Km2 it has an average size of a German county and corresponds to ¼ of Bistriţa-Năsăud County . With a population density of 41 persons/ Km2 it is one of

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the lowest in Germany, lower than BistriţaNăsăud County (58 persons/ Km2).

The following section connects the above described theories with the situation at the region named “Wendland” by its inhabitants, seen by the students and especially by the authors. We enforced the critical view on field research, as Lippuner (2003) considers it as essentially important to focus not only on the subject of research, but also on how the subject is seen by the researchers during the research. Both of the authors are enthusiastic about the life style in the region and Dominique Chasseriaud is originally from this region. Both of us try to keep the necessary scientific distance, but we are aware about the illusion to be objective.

The Wends, in German “Wenden”, settled in the region in the 7th century naming it Wendland. During the 1980’s the protest movement took over this name to symbolically split off from the German state, seeing no future in a state promoting nuclear energy and so providing no possibility for a living in harmony with nature. The name can be seen as a symbol for a wish to live in an alternative world. This spirit came up during the existence of the resistance camp made by protesters in 1980 occupying the construction site and so delaying the ongoing construction work of the deep drilling implemented by the government. During one month, people from all over Germany came to visit the camp and its residents, living an utopian life by constructing, farming, and living together.

At this time many activists decided to stay in the region, trying to continue their utopian way of life in small communities with self-supply gardening or starting as organic farmers. The excursion group itself stayed in an organic farmhouse, and we visited an eco-village in the neighbouring region. To understand better about the actual life of people living in the region, we carried out several interviews, including those with three experts of the resistance and several locals.

People living in the Wendland are proud of the area and identify themselves closely with the region. The question of being opposed to nuclear-energy or not goes through all society levels, from worker to lawyer, from doctor to pupil, cutting through families at home and friendships at school. Everybody is free to have its own opinion, but the network of protesters was very present in everyday life in the region because of the numerous events throughout the year connected with it. The best example for such an event we could find was the “Kulturelle Landpartie”, which took place during our excursion. This twoweek event is taking place every year since 1989 and is an opportunity for many

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Figure 2: Manifestation between Gorleben and the interim storage facility, Source: DOMINIQUE CHASSERIAUD, 2008.

artists to open their house and transform their barn, lobby or garden into an atelier or public stage. Its origin lies within the nuclear resistance. For this reason we always discovered some documents or comments about Gorleben next to or in ateliers, spectacles and workshops and we even joint an evening comedy full with many hints to the resistance. Meanwhile the event has a well-known reputation in cities like Hamburg and Berlin.

The second event, attracting people from all over Germany to the Wendland, is the nuclear transport of highly radioactive waste to the interim facility in Gorleben.

The first occasion took place in 1995, about 15 years after the protest camp and the beginning of the resistance. It was accompanied by 15,000 policemen to secure it against thousands of protesters. Up to today, there have been eleven transport events. In November 2010 the twelfth was scheduled. During these manifestations and at all the other events throughout the year, the anti-nuclear-movement of Wendland is living its togetherness and is stabilizing its identity by its separation from others. The nuclear transport, with its high number of policemen and with the strong feelings of local habitants of being in an occupied zone, strengthens the collective inner identity with its outer borders. Some of those situations of confrontation and demonstration can be seen in figures 1 and 2.

Supporting elements for a collective identity are coded symbols, readable especially to insiders. We find them widely spread in the landscape of the Wendland and in daily life. We discovered many X-signs made by wood or printed on stickers, flyers, posters, trucks, cars. Other widely seen symbols are the laughing red sun on yellow background and a green tree together with the slogan “Gorleben shall live”.

Some, more rarely seen symbols were the “Wendenpass”, an alternative Passport for the “Republic of Wendland”, originally produced during the resistant camp in 1980, the unofficial Wendland-driving licence for protest-vehicles produced by local farmers, pure silver-coins with resistance symbols as unofficial currency, and there have been unofficial issued stocks for the salt dome, where the deep repository of highly radioactive waste is planned to be established. Some of these symbols can be seen in figures 3 and 4. Interesting to note was that there was even a licence plate with an X used as a symbol.

In Wendland there are different groups that are connected but do not depend on each other. We got a deep insight by an expert interview with the well-known activist Jochen Stay. He explained to us that there was no strict hierarchy leading all groups. The first, and maybe most coordinating group is the “Bürgerinitiative Lüchow-Dannenberg”, founded in 1977 just at the beginning of the resistance.

Besides them, there are now many other

Figure 3: Symbols on car, Source: DOMINIQUE CHASSERIAUD, 2008.

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many interesting aspects of geography and is concerned with important themes of our time, there will be another project of the Mainz University with students. It is planned to get deeper into the complexity of effects provoked by social movements.

Of course, we want to thank all other participants because without them it would be impossible for us to write this article.

References Bender, H. 1997. Die Zeit der Bewegung – Strukturdynamik und Transformationsprozesse: Beiträge zur Theorie sozialer Bewegungen und zur Analyse kollektiven Handelns. Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Hochschulschriften.

Figure 4: X-Symbols in a garden, Source: DOMINIQUE CHASSERIAUD, 2008.

groups like the farmers “Bäuerliche Notgemeinschaft”, the people older than 60 “Initative 60”, generally older people called “Graue Zellen”, pupils and groups organizing sit-in protests like “Widersetzen”, “X-100-mal-quer”, or “Ausgestrahlt”. The groups are very heterogenic but have more or less the same goal: constrain the nuclear transport, stopping nuclear energy production, starting the research for a final deposit place for nuclear waste with convincing scientific research, and others.

society. Ever since the beginning of the resistance, the region is trying to change towards renewable energy. The goal is to cover their demand of energy only by renewable sources. There are many wind energy plants, biogas block power stations, and solar cells in use. We can also find a strong tendency towards ecological farming and resistance to genetically changed products.

In a second expert interview with Dieter Schaarschmidt we got told that people do not only want to show their protest but also the possibility of living of renewable energies, organic farming, and that they want to live a life with a special (ecological) lifestyle. We got the opportunity to climb a wind energy plant and to visit a biogas plant, the first and only one in Germany providing biogas as fuel for vehicles using natural gas. Schaarschmidt explained details about renewable energy and confirmed that in the Wendland there is the highest rate of organic farmers in Germany. People experiment with different renewable techniques and different ways of life. To be an utopist person in the Wendland is not unusual and all these elements are enforcing the identification with the Wendland. All these actions are creating the space people today connect with the name “Wendland”.

Through symbols, resistance and the historic declaration of the “Independent Republic of Wendland” (Freie Republik Wendland), a new interpretation of the region’s identity has been established and a new kind of space was created. This new interpretation of space and the new “ecological” identity in the region initiated new creations like “Model region for renewable energy and ecologic farming”. The new space called Wendland is like a big cluster of people fallen out of conventional

The social movement in the region started in the late 1970’s, and since then up until to today the protest movement against nuclear energy provokes a high level of identification with the Wendland. The question being pro or against nuclear power goes through the whole Wendlands society, dividing and connecting people of all ranks and ages.

Conclusion

During our research we discovered that due to the resistance a new and very unique identity in the region has been developed. Symbols and recurring events are manifesting this identity. Events like manifestations confront and therefore distinguish the inner from the outer especially when powerful police operations are taking place. We found many symbols, places and activities of resistance against nuclear power that today are highly integrated into daily life. At the same time, organic farmers, artists, renewable energies, and communes provoke an image with an exceptional lifestyle. The resistance has led to a new appropriation and creation of space by the people in the region and is maintaining it alive.

Future prospects This paper provides an introduction to the theme and the processes going on in the Wendland. Since this region covers so

Berg, W. 1999. Kollektive Identität: Zugänge und erste Überlegungen. In Kulturunterschiede. Interdisziplinäre Konzepte zu kollektiven Identitäten und Mentalitäten, ed. H. Hahn, 217-238. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation.

Bückmann, E. 2007. Dem Fremden auf der Spur: Postmoderne Identität zwischen Eigenem und Fremden. Marburg: Tectum-Verlag.

Fahlenbrach, K. 2002. Protestinszenierungen: Visuelle Kommunikation und kollektive Identitäten in Protestbewegungen. Wiesbaden: Westdeutsche-Verlag.

Giesen, B. 1999. Kollektive Identität: Die Intellektuellen und die Nation. Frankfurt am Main: SuhrkampVerlag.

Impact-mailorder 1990. Anarchie-Aufkleber. Available from: http://www.impact-mailorder.de/Aufkleber/Anarchie-Aufkleber::2502345.html (Accessed 25. August 2010) Jäger, M. 2007. Deutungskämpfe: Theorie und Praxis kritischer Diskursanalyse. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

Külz, H. 2001. Das Management von sozialem Protest: Die Aufrechterhaltung und Ausweitung von sozialem Protest durch seine Integration in den Alltag am Beispiel des Castor-Transports nach Gorleben im März 2001. Konstanz: Universitätsbibliothek.

Lippuner, R. 2003. Alltag, Wissenschaft und Geographie: Zur Konzeption einer reflexiven Sozialgeographie. Available from: http://www.uni-jena.de/ unijenamedia/Bilder/ faculties/chgeo/inst_geogr/Sozialgeographie/Texte+Lippuner/Alltag_Wiss_Geogr-p11249.pdf (Accessed 28 August 2010) Mahon, R. 2008. Space, Place, Scale: Zur politischen Ökonomie räumlich-gesellschaftlicher Redimensionierung - ein Überblick. In Politics of Scale: Räume der Globalisierung und Perspektiven emanzipatorischer Politik, ed. M. Wissen, 35-55. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot.

Massey, D. 2005. For space. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Petermann, S. 2007. Rituale machen Räume: Zum kollektiven Gedenken der Schlacht von Verdun und der Landung in der Normandie. Bielefeld: TranscriptVerlag.

Rucht, D. 1994. Modernisierung und neue soziale Bewegungen: Deutschland, Frankreich und USA im Vergleich. Frankfurt/New York: Campus-Verlag.

Vester, H.-G. 1996. Kollektive Identitäten: Von der Völkerpsychologie zur kulturvergleichenden Soziologie und interkulturellen Kommunikation. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation.

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The Emergence of the Metropolitan Region Rotterdam - The Hague A Comparison with Metropolitan Regions Mitteldeutschland and Øresund in the Field of Government and Policy Thijs Brugman, EGEA Utrecht Long before the start of my Master thesis, I discovered the concept of metropolitan regions during my internship at the municipality of Rotterdam at the end of 2008.

Rotterdam Airport was about to change name, as The Hague would be added to it.

This was all part of the closer cooperation between Rotterdam and The Hague in the new atmosphere of the Rotterdam - The Hague metropolitan region (Figure 1). My job was to find out how Rotterdam - The Hague Airport could develop its surrounding area, with the existence of the metropolitan region. Via case studies of other regional, cooperating airports in north-west Europe, I got to know about possibilities of the new concept, especially in the field of city branding.

However, the description of what metropolitan regions consist of was actually very unclear. How was it possible that two separate cities could suddenly call themselves a metropolitan region, while hardly anything has changed from the old situation? At first it seemed to be a new concept as one of many this region had before. After Randstad, concepts as CityBond, Deltametropolis and Southwing had been successively presented the last decade as the new solution or approach for spatial planning in this area. The question remained if the concept of the metropolitan region faced the same fate as previous, apparently slightly successful, concepts.

years ago they were not considered relevant, whereas nowadays the European information exchange network for metropolitan regions METREX has over 50 members. The definition of a metropolitan region however is not fixed within METREX, as the aspiration for becoming a metropolitan region is the only criteria for access. Even descriptions of scientists, policies, structures, European programs and the metropolitan regions themselves hold many variations of the term metropolitan region. The development of metropolitan regions can be seen as a process, where the current situation is only a snapshot. When described in a simple manner, metropolitan regions usually exist of medium-sized cities, creating a profile with the surrounding region. Cooperation or an overarching structure of several cities or municipalities is usually the case.

Within metropolitan regions, three types of structures can be recognized; monocentric, polycentric with one core or polycentric with several cores (Aring & Reuter, 2006; Berg et al., 2000; Houtum & Van Lagendijk,2001; Salet, 2003; Scott, 2001).

In this research the focus is specifically on the polycentric metropolitan regions with several cores, as the research area Rotterdam - The Hague is organized in such a way. Through the help of the list

of members of METREX the metropolitan regions Mitteldeutschland (Figure 2) and Øresund (Figure 3) have been selected as case studies.

According to Heywood’s (2006) theoretical framework about criteria for effective metropolitan policy, five metropolitan features are formed.

1. The metropolitan region has an accountable representation 2. The delivery and coordination of services are publicly arranged within the metropolitan region 3. The spatial planning and regulation of the metropolitan region is in accordance with the planning of other governments 4. The representation of the metropolitan region prevails over the representation of the own (local) government 5. Within the metropolitan region there are sustainable policies and capacities to maintain natural and social capital.

These five metropolitan features have been compared in terms of relevance for the metropolitan regions via the analysis of the three different research areas, as a method to find out to what extent they are metropolitan regions.

Methodology In this regional research different research

When starting my thesis, the main goal was to determine how the approach of Rotterdam and The Hague was in line with successful concepts of metropolitan regions in Europe. This led to the research question: To what extent can metropolitan region Rotterdam - The Hague be compared with other European metropolitan regions in the field of government and policy?

To avoid subjective and political favoured comparisons, the regions were not selected on a basis of data, but of structure and policy.

European metropolitan regions Within Europe, the rise of metropolitan regions can be seen as a new trend. Twenty

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Figure 1: Approximate reproduction of the daily urban systems of Rotterdam and The Hague and (future) metropolitan region Rotterdam – The Hague, Source: Metropoolregio Rotterdam – Den Haag, de agenda, 7 april 2009, p.5.

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Figure 2: Participating federal states in the Mitteldeutschland metropolitan region, formerly known as the SachsenDreieck, Source: http://hildebrandt-projektbuero.de/bilder_zu_artikel/projekte/ metro/metro_karte.jpg

methods have been used. First, scientific literature and articles have been referred to as a source of information. Secondly, many institutional documents, reports and articles have been used. In total as many as 20 different government levels exist in the four different countries. Several websites have been consulted to provide information about structures of organizations and policies. Besides a theoretical foundation, these sources also provided a lot of background information.

The research has been completed with qualitative research in means of interviews. These interviews were administered face-to-face in each region. I chose for an open interview in a way of a conversation, as the information needed from each interview varied considerably. In total 13 interviews have been arranged, five in Netherlands, four in Germany, three in Denmark and one in Sweden (see references).

Quantitative research was omitted as the research of policy plans and government structures are hard to measure. Furthermore, this subject is in such an early stage, that the people directly involved were able to provide more up-to-date information than other sources.

Different government structures The extensive analysis of the policy documents with relevance to metropolitan policy showed that the influence of government differs for each country. The Dutch

structure of government illustrates a topdown pattern, where the functions are decentralized to both the provinces and local authorities and where most issues are decided in consultation between the different levels of government. The initiative of Rotterdam - The Hague to develop itself as a metropolitan region is therefore also in accordance with the other policy levels.

The metropolitan region is represented in administrative couples, as two representatives of municipality Rotterdam and The Hague cooperate on different fields of interest of the metropolitan region. This is a very loose structure.

limited capabilities. This bottom-up structure is also valid for Sweden, but with a national government which doesn’t intervene much at all. Local authorities have particular influence on spatial planning, although Skåne can be seen as an exception due to an experimental reorganization with an increase of regional competence.

The organizational structure of the Øresund metropolitan region is quite extensive. With 36 representative politicians in the Öresund Committee and a number of administrative structures set up for the inhabitants and visitors, the Øresund region is extremely organized.

Germany demonstrates a top-down structure, whereas the federal national government leaves many functions to the federal states. Local government is less important, but still enjoys considerable influence. This can also be traced back to cooperation within the metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland, where the cities are represented. However, metropolitan policy matters are generally left to the federal states. Mitteldeutschland has a relatively organized structure, with among other things four working groups, a steering committee and a communal committee.

‘Win-win thinking’

In the administrative sphere, Denmark and Sweden are organized differently.

Denmark experiences a fairly committed national government, but local authorities perform many functions. Therefore a bottom-up structure can be recognized, where the regional government layer has

From the comparison between the metropolitan regions, it appears that the metropolitan features for effective metropolitan policy are not well adaptable for metropolitan regions with a polycentric structure with several cores. These metropolitan regions have no accountable representation, as the creation of a new policy layer is a complicated and long lasting process.

At the moment the metropolitan regions are in an early stage of development and do not yet have the necessity for a directly chosen executive board. Firstly auto mechanisms will need to be developed, in order to make the cooperation within the region run smoothly. For now the local level experiences take priority over the representation of metropolitan regions. This is partly because of the limited policy areas of the metropolitan regions.

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Figure 3: Øresund metropolitan region, Source: http://www.oeresundsbron.com/object.php?GSID=&obj=8b000c

Residents have little to do with the development on the metropolitan scale, except in the sphere of the ‘daily urban systems’ (Figure 1), which becomes larger through cooperation. It is not possible to talk about an all-embracing strategy for the region; instead, there has been a specific focus on those policy areas where profit can be achieved by means of cooperation between cities and regions. This cooperation characterizes the investigated polycentric metropolitan regions; the basis of which is to combine forces and create a European competitive region. By doing so one can see common profiling through the metropolitan region, but ultimately each city keeps developing itself according to its own strategy. The degree in which the ‘win-win thinking’ is maintained determines the degree of success of the cooperation. Within the metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland it has been observed that cities may even seek to hinder cooperation in cases where others gain more profit from the cooperation than their own city. Compared to this region the Øresund and Rotterdam - The Hague metropolitan regions perform better in this context, as they tend to stress longterm surplus value of the collaboration. If a city would drop its own priority on some issues, the region as a whole could benefit from this situation, including that city.

Long-term planning The process to become a strong metropolitan region takes a long time, especially concerning institutional change. Actually, there are no polycentric metropolitan regions who act as a government. Before this might take place, research suggested

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that a fully integrated region would need to be established for a period of about thirty years. During the interviews the example of the metropolitan region Rhein - Neckar was cited and they made it clear that it took at least 20 years of cooperation before a region has a good enough structure to start thinking about institutional changes.

So it is important to mainly focus on cooperation rather than institutional changes.

Within the cooperation it is also important to work on a project-by-project basis. In Mitteldeutschland there has been too much discussion about the structure of the region, though there was no basis from which such developments could be built on. Common problems would serve as a starting point for future cooperation.

The project-based approach of Rotterdam - The Hague can therefore be seen as a more suitable operating procedure.

Limitations in goals The metropolitan regions have a provisional weakness, in that they lack the opportunity to form policy independently via the committees, as they don’t have legal authorities and obligations. The policy paper of the metropolitan region only represents the common ideas of the participating parties, but also the lack of institutional instruments forces the execution to be happened via the cities separately. So it is not practically possible to talk about a policy of the metropolitan regions. This does not alter the fact that the circumstances to have a common spatial policy are more favourable in Rotterdam - The Hague than in other metropolitan regions.

Furthermore, the strong tradition of dialogue between the different administrative levels in the Netherlands means that there is an opportunity to develop the metropolitan region in the future. At the same time the local authorities are not so powerful to introduce changes in all the areas. Still the Rotterdam - The Hague metropolitan region does not have to cope with differences in national or regional policies, which can create obstacles as illustrated the case between Denmark and Sweden and that between the federal states of Germany.

A rapid expansion of the metropolitan region Rotterdam - The Hague seems foolish. As the example of Mitteldeutschland indicates, it is of vital importance to create a solid basis on which future developments can be based. In cases where strong political unity has been created, other parties could join the concept. However, cooperation with new actors on a project basis can also be realized, without the actual joining the overarching regional goal. Only in cases when large financial funds become available, which demand larger cooperation, will it be interesting to leave this path. The example of European Interreg funding in the Øresund region shows that many achievements can be realized with large financial resources.

At this moment in time, the Rotterdam The Hague metropolitan region does not have a clear organization structure. The way in which the region operates makes it unnecessary. With future expansion or with an intensification of regional cooperation, the need for an organizational struc-

The Scientific Symposium 2010 cases of the Ruhr Area and the Basque regions.

Urban Studies, vol. 38, no 4: pp.747-767.

Salet, W. Thornley, A. Kreukels, A. 2003. Metropolitan governance and spatial planning; comparative case studies of European City-Regions.

Londen etc.: Spon Press.

Scott, A.J. 2001. Global city-regions: trends, theory, policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Interviews Aarts, Martin, Rotterdam (2009) - Municipality of Rotterdam, spatial planning; city development and housing. Representative METREX Rotterdam.

Boot, Luc - Rotterdam (2010) - Municipality of Rotterdam, policy coordinator, department of development; Strategy matters.

Figure 4. Rough reproduction of the daily urban systems

ture will emerge. In such circumstance, specific political representation, as in the case of the Öresund Committee, can make direct negotiations easier. In a larger context, the Øresund region also incorporates different collaborative platforms, where an information platform, a project platform and a lobby platform can be distinguished. By separating these platforms via different offices, more focused functioning is stressed and improved coordination promoted. The metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland shows that working groups with their own focus areas are the ideal way to unite the representatives of the administrative departments of the cities, together with the interested parties from related sectors. In a similar way, concrete collective cooperation projects can be set up, which illustrate public-private cooperation, which in turn creates more involvement, ideas and possibilities.

To conclude It is difficult to indicate whether one can talk about European metropolitan regions, especially in the field of government and policy. Their polycentric structure does not lend itself to an overarching structure. The main focus should be on cooperation, where common interests can be gained. The concept of metropolitan regions is an interesting development, which takes many years to develop and confirm whether it can actually become a successful concept. Rotterdam - The Hague did not make itself felt in a European perspective, due to its limited organizational structure. However, the cooperative parties stay realistic and have set up the cooperation steadily, without creating too high expectations. According to the resources and the previous developments the cities were involved in, this seems to

be the right move. Even though the policy of metropolitan regions on a European scale is almost absent, the policy paper of the Rotterdam - The Hague metropolitan region shows similarities with the other case studies. With good implementation and integration with other policy documents at other government levels, a good basis could be achieved. In terms of government, Rotterdam - The Hague is intentionally not developed within the structure.

In a European perspective they are no exception, although a better organization structure could be introduced. It is not significant that Rotterdam - The Hague cannot be defined as a metropolitan region; in essence, there are more regions in Europe which have actually little to do with metropolitan regions.

Nevertheless, the metropolitan region is more about the way of thinking and the growth process in the development of the region; as together cities can experience benefits of scale, as well in their own regional area as at the European level.

References Heywood, P. 2006. The metropolitan region, the new challenge for regional planning. Available from: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/7941/1/7941.pdf (Accessed 7 September 2009) Aring, J. & Reuter, I. 2006. Regiopolen zwischen Metropolregionen und Peripherien. Intentionen und Ergebnisse einer Tagung am 14.09.2006 in Kassel. Manuskript. Available from: http:// bfag-aring.de/pdfdokumente/Aring_2006_RegiopolenTagung2006_Bericht.pdf.

(Accessed 10 November 2009) Berg, P.O. Linde-Laursen, A. Löfgren, O. 2000.

Invoking a Transnational Metropolis: The Making of the Øresund Region. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Houtum, van H. & Lagendijk, A. 2001. Conceptualising regional identity and imagination in the construction of Polycentric Urban Regions: The

Broeyer, Conny - Leiden (2010) - Municipality of Leiden, chairwoman of the committee for space and accessibility, committee member education and society, PvdA party member.

Salet, Willem - Amsterdam (2010) - Prof. of urban and regional planning at the faculty of social and behavioral sciences, University of Amsterdam.

Kooijmans, Jan Willem - The Hague (2010) - Municipality of The Hague, department of urban development, policy; department spatial planning and monuments. Representative of METREX The Hague Luczak, Urs - Dresden (2010) - Head coordinator Metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland.

Egermann, Markus - Dresden (2010) - Doctoral for Metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland & researcher at the Leipziger Institute of ecological and regional development.

Burdack, Joachim - Leipzig (2010) - Prof. Dr. at the Leibniz-institut für länderkunde, former contact person METREX from Leipzig.

Opitz, Jan - Leipzig (2010) - Administrative employer city planning Leipzig, second contact person Leipzig for Metropolitan region Mitteldeutschland.

Zinn, Jarl - Copenhagen (2010) - Senior adviser, project manager city of Copenhagen for infrastructure, truck transport and rail roads. Former METREX contact person and former member of the Öresund Committee.

Matthiessen, Christian Wichmann - Copenhagen (2010) - Prof. Dr. at the Geografisk Institut Københavns Universitet, expert in the field of the Øresund region.

Ohlsson, Kristina - Malmö (2010) – Municipality of Malmö, Senior adviser and department of spatial planning.

Carlsen, Anette Vedel - Copenhagen (2010) - Senior advisor, Öresund Committee, Secretariat.

Due to the relevance, only the interviewees are mentioned together with a few relevant articles.

The full Master’s thesis can be read online at: http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/studenttheses/2010-0601-200246/UUindex.html. In the document you can find a fuller list of references

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Evaluating the piping erosion susceptibility of loess-derived soil horizons using the pinhole test Ruben Maes, EGEA Leuven co-authors: Estela Nadal Romero , Els Verachtert, Jean Poesen Introduction Piping erosion (also termed tunnel erosion or subsurface erosion) is defined as “the hydraulic removal of subsurface soil, causing the formation of subsurface channels in the natural landscape” (Boucher, 1990). The subsurface channels or pipes are induced by a high flow shear stress on the pore walls due to a rapid flow of soil water through macropores (Botschek et al., 2002). In Europe, piping erosion occurs in a wide range of climatic, geological, topographic and land use settings.

Estimations of the total area in the EU at risk from piping erosion exceed 260 000 km² (Faulkner, 2006). Piping occurs in gleysols and organic peat (histosols) in upland areas in northern Europe, in the marls in southern Europe as well as in the collapsible loess belt of north and central mainland Europe (Faulkner, 2006). In the Pleistocene, this belt was covered by a high-erodible aeolian sediment – loess – and makes part of a large loess belt that covers large areas of Northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and extends further eastwards into Poland and Ukraine (Poesen, 1993).

In the past, piping has not always been taken into account because it is not directly visible at the surface. Nowadays, it has become clear that piping also plays an important role in gully development (Poesen, 1993; Faulkner, 2006). Rill and gully erosion phenomena initiated by piping are accepted as a critically important soil process in a wide range of European environments.

Figure 1: Methodological scheme, Source: Ruben Maes, 2010

of the susceptibility of different loess-derived soil horizons to piping. By carrying out laboratory analysis using the device, the authors aim (i) to evaluate the effect of different hydraulic heads, (ii) to evaluate the response of different loess-derived soil horizons (clay-enriched horizon (Bt), decalcified horizon (C1) and calcareous horizon (C2)), and (iii) to assess the effect of different initial moisture contents on the hydrological and erosion response.

Objectives

Methodology

Piping phenomenon has been observed in many regions of Europe and other parts of the world. Overall, only qualitative observations have been made in the field because it is difficult to measure piping. No standardized widely applied methodology exist to assess susceptibility of soils to piping. Quantitative data on the susceptibility of soils to piping are still scarce. This research aims at evaluating the usefulness of the pinhole test device described by Sherard et al. (1976) for the assessment

In 1973, a new laboratory test (pinhole test) was developed by James L. Sherard for direct measurements of dispersibility and erodability of compacted finegrained soils in which water is caused to flow through a small specimen (Sherard et al., 1976). The main purpose of the test was providing reliable identification of dispersive clays, which were responsible for many failures of earth dams and serious erosion problems in other earth structures in Australia (Sherard et al., 1976). Piping

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within earth dams and embarkments has caused a number of collapses with high costs of human life and economic damages (Selby, 1993). Initially it was not intended to be used as a quantitative test for measuring erosion rates as a function of time, but after some years, the test became used all over the world for assessing the susceptibility of different soil horizons to dispersion without reporting large problems. Dispersibility is assessed by observing effluent colour and changes of flow rate through the hole, measuring sediment concentrations in the effluent and by visual inspection of the hole after completion of the test. Disturbed samples are taken, and analyzed with the pinhole test device using distilled water (EC, 26 µS cm-1) and 4 hydraulic heads (50, 180, 380 and 1020 mm)(figure 2).

Materials Three different soil horizons were tested.

Samples were taken between Leuven and Brussels (Belgium) in the collapsible Bel-

The Scientific Symposium 2010

gian loess belt. During the last Glacial period (W端rm, 100.000 BP until 12.00 BP), this area was covered with loess. The loess covers Tertiary sand deposits with a depth ranging from a few centimeters to more than ten meters. In the study area, the thickness of the loess deposits was about 2.5 m.

Decalcified (C1) and calcareous (C2) soil samples were taken in a sunken lane bank in Koorbeel Dijle. Samples of clayenriched horizons (Bt) were taken in Bertem, in a soil pit that was dug 0.6 m deep at the border of a cultivated field. At a depth between 40 and 60 cm, hydrological processes, leaching, transformation, clay enrichment and sedimentation had already occurred. According to USDA classification, the texture of all horizons was silt-loam. The main characteristics of the studied soil horizons are shown in table 1.

Table 1: Main characteristics of soil horizons sampled. (MC=Moisture content; BD = Bulk density). Source: Ruben Maes, 2010

Results

Discussion and conclusion

In general, experiments have shown that the clay-enriched horizon (Bt) is less susceptible to piping than decalcified loess (C1) and significantly less susceptible than calcareous loess (C2). From these experiments, it is clear that pipe flow discharges inclease linearly with rising hydraulic head (H, mm) (figure 3). The hydraulic head represent the water pressure

Piping erosion is induced by Hortonian overland flow in the research area. Because of the formation of structural and depositional crusts in the field, infiltration rates decrease from more than 100 till 2 mm h-1. If surface run-off water on the loess plateau flows down and suddenly gets into a macropore (created by animals and roots), the water will start erod-

above the pinhole. The flow discharge of the water under saturated conditions is determined by the hydraulic head of the soil. The higher the hydraulic heads, the higher the hydraulic gradients and the higher the pipe flow discharge (Qw, cm続 s-1) and sediment discharge (Qs, g s-1) will be. During a test with a constant H, Qw and Qs due to pipe erosion. In general, Qw and Qs decrease with increasing initial soil moisture contents.

ing very quickly and the subsurface pipes will easily increase in dimension until the roof collapses (Poesen, 1993). According to the pinhole test results, clay-enriched horizons are less susceptible than decalcified loess and significantly less susceptible to piping than calcareous loess.

Field observations revealed that the presence of CaCO3 in the silt and clay fractions of loess increased its susceptibility to piping and gully formation. Since the aeolian W端rm deposit of the loes, the calcareous loess (C2) was never compacted by external environmental processes. By contrast in the C1 horizon, no hydroconsolidation occurred in this sediment. Calcareous dust was only compacted by its own weight. In a dry state, the physical arrangement of loess particles is normally characterized by a low bulk density. Once the calcareous loess is wetted for the first time, the soil structure will change and the soil will collapse because there will be some rear-

Figure 2: (A) Pinhole test device; (B) module components; (C) successful experiments; (D) failed experiment with a C2 sample (too wet), Source: Ruben Maes, 2010

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The European Geographer, Edition 7

rangements of particles resulting in a loss of volume and a corresponding increased bulk density (Faulkner, 2006). This explains why calcareous soils are also called collapsible soils. Due to a lack of clay and a low organic matter content, calcareous loess is vulnerable to water erosion. Acid percolating water has already transformed the structure and content of the decalcified loess. The CaCO3 has already been dissolved and the soil structure is changed.

For the quantitative data out from the experiments, the pinhole test device seems to be a reliable tool for measuring piping.

Quantitative results obtained from performed laboratory experiments for measuring piping erosion agreed well with field observations of resistance to rill and gully erosion (Selby, 1993).

In this research, the pinhole test device was evaluated for identifying the susceptibility of different soil horizons to piping.

The validated experimental results will help to predict where in a loess-derived soil profile pipes might develop.

References Botschek, J., Krause, S., Abel, T., Skowronek, A., 2002. Piping and erodibility of loessic soils in Bergischer Land, Nordrhein-Westfalen. Institut für Bodenkunde, Universität Bonn, Bonn, Germany, pp. 241-246.

Boucher, S.C., 1990. Field tunnel erosion – its characteristics and amelioration. Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Victoria, pp. 64.

Faulkner, H., 2006. Piping hazard on collapsible and dispersive soils in Europe. Flood Hazard Research Centre, University of Middlesex, Middlesex, United Kingdom, pp. 537-559.

Poesen, J., 1993. Gully topology and gully control measures in the European loess belt, Farm Land Erosion: in Temperate Plains Environment and Hills. Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., pp.221-239.

Selby, M.J., 1993. Hillslope material and processes. Oxford University Press, second edition, Oxford, pp. 206.

Sherard, J., Dunnigan, L., Decker, R., Steele, F., 1976. The pinhole test for identifying dispersive soils. Journal of the Geotechnical Engineering Division, American Society of Civil Engineers, Lincoln, Vol. 102, nr1, pp. 69-85.

Soil Science Society of America, Glossary of Soil Science Terms, Available from: http://www. soils.org/files/publications/soils-glossary/figure-1.pdf, (Accessed: 23th of may 2010).

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Figure 3: Graphical results of the performed pinhole test experiments, Source: Ruben Maes, 2010

The Scientific Symposium 2010

The EU Blue Card - the quest for high skilled migrants Michael Philip Poulsen, University of Copenhagen Introduction The competition for high-skilled migrants poses a recent development within the field of labour migration. A 2008 headline from Newsweek said: “The EU has a plan to lure talented foreigners to its shore, setting up a new global race – for brains” (Underhill 2008). At first sight it might sound a bit macabre. This plan, nonetheless, is a new initiative proposed by the Commission of the European Union in 2007 and adopted by the Council of the European Union on May 25 2009 under the name of the EU Blue Card. Thus, the EU Blue Card is an attempt to compete in the global war for talent, a war mainly fought between the countries or regions with the highest GDP per capita.

This study examines the engagement by the EU in this competition by addressing the problematic: How is the EU Blue Card designed in order to ensure the attraction of high-skilled migrants? And, how does it correspond with the idea of attracting high-skilled migrants?

The issue will be considered as a bipartite question. The first part revolves around the package of benefits and rights the Blue Card offers in order to attract high-skilled migrants. The second part takes this a step further partly by contemplating how this package corresponds with the wish to engage in a competition for high-skilled migrants, i.e. does the package of rights and benefits compose a potent engagement in attracting high-skilled migrants, and partly by contemplating how the high-skilled migrants are selected from the huge pool of all migrants.

Methodology Due to the relatively recent nature of the initiative, little research has been done on the EU Blue Card and thus the basis for evaluating it vis-à-vis the intentions behind it is very limited. However, temporary foreign worker programmes (TFWP’s), as I will argue the Blue Card is, is not a new concept, and there are important prior experiences to draw on in an analysis of the Blue Card. The same applies to the global competition for high-skilled migrants. The literature is rich in both areas, but it has only sparsely been linked to the Blue Card. Thus, in this study I argue that to some extent it is possible to give a mean-

Figure 1: the EU Blue Card, Source: http://media.photobucket.com/image/blue%20card/Wenda79/BluecardEU.jpg?o=101

ingful, though tentative, evaluation of the structure and the framework that the Blue Card provides for attracting high-skilled migrants.

TFWP’s became widespread across the world after World War II. Though they are all put under the same label they often differ substantially on several aspects.

Martin Ruhs provides an excellent analytical approach for recognizing these differences, based on the parameters of numbers, selection and rights: ``(i) the number of foreign workers to be admitted; (ii) the mechanism for selection and recruitment; and (iii) the bundle of rights and entitlements to be accorded to foreign workers after admission´´ (2003:4). In this way TFWP’s can be characterized by on the one hand their restrictive provisions regarding how many and who to let in, and on the other hand on how generous they are regarding rights.

The first parameter refers to the arrangements for managing numbers. This can be done through quotas, permit fees, or labour market tests (Ruhs 2003). A laissezfaire approach is also an option, were for example the demand from the employer determine the numbers of labour immigrants. The second parameter refers to the mechanisms for selection. These can be designed to match supply with demand in terms of skills. The skills in demand can differ widely from scheme to scheme but may relate to education, specialization and work experience or alternatively turn in another direction and focus on sponsorship, nationality or language. Lastly, the third parameter refers to the rights the immigrant is entitled to. The question of rights concern most aspects of life and are often much smaller in scope than those

applying to natives. It includes social and economic rights such as pension, access to healthcare, marital rights, family reunification etc. Labour market rights, such as the right to join unions, holidays and leaves, may be restricted too.

However, the Blue Card is an initiative meant to constitute the European engagement in the global competition for highskilled migrants. When recognizing this it is important to be fully aware that certain choices have been made when targeting high-skilled and excluding low-skilled migrants. Such a programme is based on the distinction between these two groupings (or more for that sake). Thus, being central to the understanding of modern TFWP’s engaging in this competition, the concept of skills and the benefits and problems related to the grouping of ‘high skills’ will briefly be discussed.

The analysis following in the next section will be based the policy parameters described above. As the scope of this paper does not allow for a full account of the analysis only a few, though central, articles in the directive will be emphasised in order to illustrate the relevant points.

Background of the EU Blue Card The name itself, the EU Blue Card, might lead the mind to the American Green Card. To what extent it actually resembles the Green Card is outside the scope of this paper, but it nonetheless constitutes an answer and an engagement in the global competition for high-skilled migrants.

In order to cope with this competition, the European Union (excl. Denmark, UK and Ireland) adopted the EU Blue Card in May

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2009 (Council of the European Union, 2009). The idea started with Jakob von Weizsäckers’ ‘A European Blue Card Proposal’ in 2006. The relevance of this initiative, he argued, is evident in the failure of single member states to attract highskilled immigrants despite the introduction of several policies (von Weizsäcker 2006).

Compared with USA, Canada, and Australia where the percentage of high-skilled immigrants relative to the total population amounts to 4.5%, 10%, and 8% respectively, many EU-countries lag critically behind with the share staying well below 2%. Von Weizsäckers’ initial idea with the Blue Card was that instead of 27 different national systems, the Blue Card could provide a coherent, uniform and transparent application procedure that gave the immigrant access to the whole EU labour market (von Weiszäcker 2006 and Cerna 2008).

The year after von Weiszäcker proposed the Blue Card, the President of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Durão Barroso, repeated the concern of EU lagging behind and called for the introduction of a European Blue Card (Barroso 2007).

In his opening remarks at a meeting in Strasbourg October 23 2007 he acknowledged that ``we [the EU] are not good enough at attracting highly skilled people.

Nor are we young or numerous enough to keep the wheels of our societies and economies turning on our own´´ (ibid.:2).

Thus, the need for the EU to participate in the global competition for high-skilled migrants outlined above was made explicit at the highest level.

The next section will analyse how the Blue Card is designed in order to engage is this competition with regard to the policy parameters of rights, numbers and selection.

The EU Blue Card As Ruhs & Martin (2008) and Solimano (2008) point out, highly-skilled migrants are in demand and as a result can to a large extent pick and choose between different destinations. While culture and climate may also be a factor when choosing between destinations, rights are a factor that governments can manipulate. This may explain the dedication to the matter of rights as part of the Blue Card.

The Blue Card does provide the prospective immigrant with quite favourable conditions (Council 2009). It affords a package of rights and benefits consisting of social, health care, and labour rights based on equal treatment with nationals of the member state concerned. The right

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to family reunification within 6 months is another potentially big pull-factor as well as the prospect of gaining permanent residency which is automatically granted after 5 years. Thus, the Blue Card, as a temporary foreign workers programme, represents a strong initiative in terms of attracting high-skilled migrants.

These conditions however unavoidably also look attractive to a much larger pool of potential immigrants than those preferred.

Thus, some mechanisms for sorting the wanted immigrants from the unwanted immigrant are needed. It is stated in article 6 that ``This Directive shall not affect the right of a Member State to determine the volume of admission of third-country nationals entering its territory for the purpose of highly qualified employment´´ (Council of the European Union 2009:article 6). Thus, the demand is ultimately determined by the willingness of individual governments to admit immigrants. One consequence of this is that the Blue Card holder cannot move to another country to work for the first 18months and even after that she will have to apply for a new Blue Card in the member state she wishes to move to (ibid: article 18). Thus, national borders are effectively maintained and mobility severely restrained.

Another mechanism is the need to have a work contract or binding job offer. This is a particularly attractive paragraph for member states in that it minimizes the risk of having to provide certain welfare benefits and the immigrants will most likely contribute positively to the state economically (von Weizsäcker 2006, Fachini & Mayda 2009).

The economic argument can also be made for giving preferential access to high-skilled workers. Following von Weizsäckers’ argument, the economic effects of high-skilled immigration are generally positive while low-skilled immigration has more ambiguous effects (2006). Therefore, it is relatively easy to argue that there should be opened up for high-skilled immigration. A problematic, however, lies in how to define skills and how to differentiate between low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants. The directive provides its own guideline for this, saying that an applicant needs to attest fulfilment of specific conditions where required and otherwise attest relevant higher professional qualifications (Council 2009: article 5), where higher professional qualifications can be obtained through formal post-secondary higher education of at least three years or a minimum of five years of professional experience (ibid: article 2). However, the concept of skill is in itself is very ambigu-

ous and any demarcation of high-skilled immigrants is debatable. The EU definition is very broad, placing nurses, teachers and laboratory assistants in the same box as scientists and professors .

The above suggests that the Blue Card on the one hand does offer a quite extensive set of rights and benefits and on the other hand provides some restrictive measures for regulating the numbers and composition of immigrants in terms of skills and job opportunities. These provisions however necessitate a discussion of to what extent the Blue Card can be conceived as a common EU scheme aimed at attracting just the high-skilled migrants. The following section will continue on this discussion.

A common EU scheme for attracting high-skilled migrants?

As argued above the Blue Card does offer a quite comprehensive set of rights and benefits. One right however, that has been dramatically compromised when compared with the original version proposed by von Weiszäcker is the immediate access to the whole EU labour market.

This has reduced the benefit of a common EU scheme to a mere standardised application procedure requiring the migrant to lodge an application each time he or she wishes to obtain a Blue Card valid in another member state. This includes qualifying for the selection criteria each time; selection criteria which are largely based on national standards. For regulated professions there may be different requirements in terms of education among member states, and differing standards for accreditation of educations obtained outside the EU may in general result in varying selection criteria (Collett 2009b).

This lack of mobility for Blue Card holders was considered again at a recent conference on labour migration in Malmö. One speaker, Elizabeth Collett, found the adoption of the Blue Card an important step for the EU albeit the directive was adopted in a ``diluted´´ form (2009a). Along with other speakers, such as Gregory Maniatis (2009), she called for a greater focus on making intra-EU mobility work. Whether this will succeed in representing the EU as one big labour market and, thus, function as a pull-factor for high-skilled migrants is an empirical question that we need time to reveal for us. Certainly though, it is a factor where EU cooperation could carry great benefits.

The question of mobility is being put to the fore because it exposes the fact that the EU is still composed of many national entities that are very reluctant to concede any

sovereignty. Thus, the Blue Card has the potential to attract high-skilled migrants, though not to the EU per se but rather to the single member states. As for the selection criteria mentioned above, this is also evident in how the package of rights and benefits is constituted.

The rights that are granted the immigrant (and family) upon arrival are as mentioned based on equal treatment with nationals.

This does not ensure equal treatment across the EU but on the contrary highlights the differences in the scope of these rights between member states (Collett 2009a). Thus, instead of constituting a pan-EU immigration scheme providing access to the whole EU labour market, the Blue Card rather resembles a plethora of national schemes.

Another point is the question of skills. As the Blue Card is promoted as an initiative to attract high-skilled migrants the application of the term ‘high-skill’ deserves a closer look. While acknowledging that it provides some very good conditions in terms of attraction, the selection of highskilled migrants includes a very broad group that, arguably, extends beyond the high-skilled. So who is it exactly that Europe wants to attract? In his speech at the meeting in Strasbourg in 2007 Mr. Barroso emphasized the role of the Blue Card in making the EU a competitive knowledgebased economy: `We need a European approach to legal immigration if we want to be serious in becoming the most competitive, knowledgebased society in the world.´´ (Barroso 2007:3) This need was reiterated in the final Directive (Council 2009: introduction paragraph 3 and 4). With respect for the merits of all professions, it can be argued that the designation ‘high-skilled’ in relation to a knowledge based economy should only apply to the highest educated and specialized workers. With the Blue Card Directive including health professionals, teachers of all school levels, laboratory technicians and assistants, it risks watering down the concept of ‘high skills’. This very broad category blurs the distinction between on the one hand knowledge enhancing occupations and on the other hand disciplines that are indeed essential for our societies but hardly contribute to the competiveness of a knowledge-based economy. It is, though, on par with other programmes such as the American H-1B programme that requires a bachelor degree or equivalent from the migrant. In this perspective it is on line with the concept of the global competition for high-skilled migrants, but looking merely on the skill-level required,

such a claim can be questioned (Martin, Lowell & Bump 2009).

It may indeed be argued that it rather includes the ‘right’ migrants, understood as the migrants that are, or are projected to become, in critical shortage and who is politically acceptable to let in. However, taking another perspective, this provides opportunities for attracting much needed labour which may not pose a problem in itself. On the contrary it may very well show that the Blue Card provides an important framework for attracting the most demanded migrants.

Conclusion Until recently, the engagement in the competition for highly-skilled migrants by European countries has been based on national schemes. However, on May 25 2009 the EU adopted the European Blue Card, a pan-European TFWP for attracting highskilled migrants.

Excess demand of any good implies rising costs for that good. This is the ordinary supply and demand model proposed by economic theory. The literature on the ‘global competition for high-skilled migrants’ suggests that this also applies as the demand for high-skilled migrants is bigger than the supply in which case the cost is rights and benefits. While culture and language may also affect the choices of prospective migrants, rights are a factor that governments can manipulate.

This paper argues that in the design of the Blue Card, the EU has created a scheme affording migrants a package of quite extensive rights and benefits. Based on the principle of equal treatment with the national of the member state concerned, it offers the Blue Card holders the same rights and benefits, in terms social, health care, and labour rights, as those that apply to nationals. It also provides for family reunification within six months and the right to permanent residency after having held a Blue Card for five years. Thus, as a TFWP in the global competition for highskilled migrants the Blue Card is an important strategic initiative.

The application of skills, however, is found to be very broad and, arguably, waters down the concept of ‘high-skills’ and in this regard blurs the idea of the competition for high-skilled migrants. With respect for the merits of each occupation, not all in this wide range of occupations, though essential to our societies, contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the knowledge based economy that is politically emphasized. Nonetheless, with the ageing society that the European Community, the US

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and other rich economies face, this paper points towards that the wide inclusion of occupations provides some opportunities for sustaining the economic and welfare basis of these societies.

A further point this paper reveals is the missing EU or community aspect of the Blue Card. By upholding their autonomy, especially with regard to immigrant mobility, the member states have comprised one of the potentially very big merits of the Blue Card. These are the merits of better efficiency due to a more mobile labour force and greater attractiveness due to a much larger job market. In its current form the Blue Card scheme hardly poses anymore than a plethora of national, albeit standardised, immigration programmes across the EU with national job and labour markets retaining their size and national regulation. Thus, the Blue Card does not represent a common pan-European policy but rather reflects the member states reluctance to concede power to the EU. Although, it is ultimately an empirical question of how well the Blue Card fares in attracting high-skilled migrants, this paper should be seen an initial step in understanding the Blue Card and in anticipating the consequences of it. Further studies could enhance this understanding.

This could be studies of the negotiations between the different levels of the European society from citizen to Commission; it could be the importance and potential of harmonizing labour markets; and it could be that the very idea of the global competition for high-skilled migrants should be revised. Whatever the next step, it is a very new initiative and it should be most interesting to witness the implementation and development of it.

References Barroso, José M. D. (2007), ‘Opening remarks of President Barroso – Legal Immigration’ SPEECH/07/650, 23 October. Available on: http://europa.eu/rapid/searchAction.do (Accessed: 11th of January 2010) Cerna, Lucie (2008), ‘Towards an EU Blue Card?

The Delegation of National High-Skilled Immigration Policies to the EU Level’, COMPAS Working Paper, no. 65, pp. 1-27.

Collet, Elizabeth, 2009a. Building a competitive immigration policy in Europe. Conference on Labour Migration and its Development Potential in the Age of Mobility, October 15-16 in Malmö, The Swedish Presidency of the European Union, pp.

18-23. Available on: www.se2009.eu/en/meetings_news/2009/10/15/ labour_migration_and_its_development_potential_in_the_age_of_mobility (Accessed: 11th of January 2010)

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Collett, Elizabeth, 2009b. Blue Cards and the ‘global battle for talent’, commentary at the conference on Labour Migration and its Development Potential in the Age of Mobility, October 15-16 in Malmö. The Swedish Presidency of the European Union, pp. 18-23. Available on: www.se2009.eu/en/meetings_news/2009/10/15/ labour_migration_and_its_development_potential_in_the_age_of_mobility (Accessed: 11th of January 2010) Council of the European Union, 2009. Council Directive on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purpose of highly qualified employment. Council Directive 2009/50/EC of 25 May. Available on viewed 11 January 2010, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/RECH_ legislation.do (Accessed: 11th of January 2010) Fachini, G. & Mayda, A. M, 2009. The Political Economy of Immigration Policy. UNDP Research Paper, no. 3 (April).

International Standard Classification of Occupations, 2008. ISCO-08 Structure and preliminary correspondence with ISCO-88. Available on: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/stat/ isco/isco08/index.htm (Accessed: 21st of August 2010) Maniatis, Gregory A., 2009. Building a Common Understanding About More Effective Migration Policies in the European Union. Conference on Labour Migration and its Development Potential in the Age of Mobility, October 15-16 in Malmö, The Swedish Presidency of the European Union, pp. 18-23. Available on: www.se2009.eu/en/ meetings_news/2009/10/15/labour_migration_ and_its_development_potential_in_the_age_of_ mobility (Accessed: 11th of January 2010).

Ruhs, Martin, 2003. Temporary Foreign Worker Programmes: Policies, adverse consequences and the need to make them work’, Perspectives on Labour Migration, no. 6, International Labour Organization, pp. 1-50 Ruhs, Martin & Martin, Philip, 2008. Number vs.

Rights: Trade-Offs and Guest Worker Programs.

International Migration Review, vol. 42, no. 1, pp.

249-265.

Solimano, Andrés, 2008. Causes and Consequences of Talent Mobility. A. Solimano (ed.),The International Mobility of Talent, Oxford University Press, Oxford (UK), pp. 1-19. von Weizsäcker, Jakob, 2006. A European Blue Card Proposal’, Horizons Stratégiques, no. 1, July, pp. 1-13.

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GIS analysis on the location of peat bogs in continental Portugal, as ancillary tool to phylogeographic research in Europe Miguel Geraldes Introduction to the project: The aims Glacial refugia are characterized by the persistence of high genetic diversity and can have contributed to Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot (Médail & Diadema 2009). Their identification may be critical in spatial planning policies and conservation strategies as they constitute significant reservoirs of genetic diversity. The Iberian Peninsula is considered one of the three peninsulas in Southern Europe (together with Apennine and the Balkan Peninsulas), which acted as glacial refugia for many species of present wide distribution in Europe. Of the 52 refugia identified by Médail & Diadema (2009) for the Mediterranean bioclimatic region, 25 are included in these three peninsulas. The Iberian Peninsula has the highest number of refugia (11) being therefore propitious for research.

The bogs of southern Europe are, other than the mountains ones, relict ecosystems from past cold climates. Ever since the Holocene warming commenced more than 11 thousand years BP (Vieira, 2004), they have become isolated and their communities were fragmented into a disjunctive biogeographical distribution (Honrado et al., 2001). The southwestern low-altitude sub-littoral bogs are thus exceptional (Neto, 1997; Arsénio et al., 2009), and its communities may have played a major palaeogeographic role (Neto, 1997, 2009).

Portugal has in Estremadura, along the Sado River and coastal Alentejo several peatland areas with isolated populations of species of optimal temperate. The aim of this essay is to highlight recent findings concerning the classic Theory of Mediterranean Glacial Refugia during LGM, which states those were “characterized by the persistence of high genetic diversity and can have contributed to Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot (Médail & Diadema, 2009)”. Three European peninsulas (Apennine, Iberian and the Balkanian) acted as glacial refugia in the South for many species of present wide distribution in Europe.

In 2000 Godfrey Hewitt wrote a comprehensive paper in which he encompassed the European Holocenic recolonization route paradigms, underlining the role of east-west barriers for all species, estab-

lishing the so-called leading-edge model of post-glacial colonization. Another model is being debated by some authors notwithstanding. Indeed, “in contrast to the expanding edge, the low-latitude limit (rear edge) of species ranges remains understudied, and the critical importance of rear edge populations as long-term stores of species genetic diversity and foci of speciation has been little acknowledged (Hampe & Petit, 2005)”. These authors introduced the Rear-edge Hypothesis or Rear-edge Model. Little attention has been paid to the rear edge populations notwithstanding. The genetic study (phylogeographic) of European populations, combined with morphological and phytosociological approaches, will aim to explain its palaeobiogeographical meaning, encompassing Quaternary climate oscillations and anthropogenic climate changes.

Material & Methods The information from the largest survey of peatlands ever made in Portugal (Seneca, 1999, 2002) and also data of abiotic variables - e.g. altitude, slopes, temperature, precipitation, runoff - from the Portuguese Institute for the Environment - were added to a GIS platform, in the context of a doctoral thesis focused on phylogeography of European peat bog populations, establishing a set of analytical functions, which reveals a correlative location of peat bogs according to certain attributes of environmental variables. The aim was to understand which minimal values of the variables are necessary for bogs to exist. With such information, modeling may allow the reconstruction of both past and potential distributions, expanded from glacial refugia (Schmitt, 2007), and the direction of Quaternary post-glacial migration routes.

A GIS-Database will be built on peat bog abiotic factors, allowing populations to be vectorized and selected for analysis. Remote sensing and field work will correct flaws due to using the information available - points rather than polygons - in vectorising the mire populations. During a three-year field work, flora inventories on bog communities will be filled in after Braun-Blanquet Method (Géhu & RivasMartínez,1980). These phytosociological rosters will be analyzed statistically. DNA samples will be collected as well, providing green material to be used in AFLPPCR (Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism) analysis. Restriction enzymes will be used to digest genomic DNA fol-

lowed by ligation of adaptors to the sticky ends of the restriction fragments. After DNA extraction, digestion of total cellular DNA will be carried out with one or more restriction enzymes and ligation of restriction half-site specific adaptors to all restriction fragments. Selective amplification of some of these fragments will be performed with two PCR primers that have corresponding adaptor and restriction site specific sequences. The DNA sequencing will then be feasible trough electrophoretic separation of amplicons on a gel matrix, followed by visualization of the band pattern. Analysis of cpDNA loci will follow.

Further on, the impact of several scenarios of climate change on peatlands in Europe, using abiotic, biological and phytosociological factors, like resilience and dispersion, and including introducing data from ex situ experiments in Potsdam, Germany, will be also modeled. With modeling, predictive maps based on extrapolation of the relationships between variables and factors will be produced. Applying the algorithm Bioclim and using the software Open Modeller with a GIS, all possible logical relationships will be modeled and evaluated.

Expected results Four taxa will be researched: Drosera intermedia Hayne (Droseraceae),,Genista anglica L. (Fabaceae), Gentiana pneumonanthe L. (Gentianaceae), and Cirsium palustre L. (Asteraceae). An UPGMA clustering of populations will be performed, as well as neighbour joining diagrams based on genetic distances (Nei, 1978). Maximal parsimony trees and spanning networks will also be done. After these analytical results, the glacial refugia for these species are expected to be pinpointed. These areas will be mapped where the allele frequencies prove to be higher, revealing populations with higher genetic diversity, which signify in former differencing centers, the so-called glacial refuges.

The data from fossil pollen records described in the bibliography and geomorphological data (sedimentation) of bogs will contribute to past climate calibration through use of the ecological amplitude of the four species as a bioindicator. Hence the migration routes are expected to be correlated with the evolution of Palaeoclimate in Europe. The possible post-glacial colonization routes will be proposed.

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A model of actual and future climatic data in the IPCC Climate Change scenarios will be carried out, defining climate envelope boundaries for the 4 taxa in these scenarios. The common garden ex situ experiments with peat bog plants in University of Potsdam (Germany) will help to test for “Rear-edge-hypothesis” (Hampe & Petit 2002), shedding light on the limit adaptations to an increasingly warmer climate and its associated environmental changes (higher decomposition and nutrient availability (Schwarzer et al., 2010).

All the previous results will be gathered and a selection of priority allele-rich peat bog areas for conservation of in Europe will be made. This ought to support some land-planning proposals for menaced peat lands in Europe.

Discussion Many taxa of animals and plants have been already object of such research.

This significance had been acknowledged before (Hewitt, 2000). The routes for post-glacial colonization where drawn from southern refugia: the ‘Hedgehog paradigm’ (no biogeographical barriers); the ‘Bear paradigm’ (the Alps as main barrier), the ‘Grasshopper paradigm’ (the Pyrenees and the Alps acting as barriers).

A fourth paradigm was later added - the ‘butterfly paradigm’ -, in which only the Pyrenees act as main barrier (Schmitt, 2007). Themes like the Holocenic migration routes, the presence of biogeographical east-west barrier in the separation of genetically differentiated populations, or the discovery of extra-Mediterranean differentiation centers have been thoroughly analyzed, as well as modeling the impact of climate change in many leading-edge species (Hampe, 2004). Regarding this whole bunch of new fresh data being carried into the discussion, questions will arise and need to be answered. From the distribution of peatland species regarding Quaternary climate oscillations through the characterization and location of glacial refugia with these plants did exist, going past what way did the Holocenic migration routes of studied peatland species take or where the individuals were able to come across the east-west biogeographical barrier (the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Carpathians-Transylvanian relief system), many conclusions will be drawn from the present work.

Conclusion of your research topic The use of points was restrictive. The flaw was present due to use of available information - points rather than polygons

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- in vectorising the bogs. Using remote sensing and field work, this will be corrected. The results will be condensed into thematic maps and a database, and the richest populations in genetic diversity will be correlated with the most threatened populations according to the model results. Hence, proposals for environment management, protection and recovery of genetically the richest and endangered peat bog communities of Europe will be made.

Those populations from the latitudinal rims of the distribution range have dynamics which set up the pace for species responses to expected climate change.

Thus “marginal rather than central populations commonly harbor the bulk of species genetic diversity (Hampe & Petit, 2005)”.

Only further research of this disproportionate importance, combining the genetic study (phylogeographic) with morphological and phytosociological approaches, will be able to assess the response of the whole range in future scenarios.

This project is focused on contributing to understand the critical and disproportionate function that rear edge populations of four peat-specialist species have for the survival and evolution of biota, bringing together recent findings from the fossil record, phylogeography and ecology. The response of this vegetation in future evolution scenarios concerning recent and prospective climate changes under Global Change will be modeled, concerning that it has been widely accepted that the anthropogenic climate change caused by production of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity is producing poleward range shifts of numerous taxa, communities and ecosystems (Parmesan & Yohe, 2003).

The huge differences in ecological features, dynamics and conservation requirements that are found in rear-edge populations, when compared to from those of other populations of the range, may lead into failure of conservation practices for rear edge populations, mainly when the models do not “incorporate more detail and attain greater biological realism (Hampe, 2004)”. The present project aims to help filling this gap, clarifying whether the mountain chains worked as biogeographical barrier in the separation of genetically differentiated populations or ecological intrinsic barriers to genetic flow took the lead in southern Europe. Let alone the possibility of any of these taxa having an extra-mediterranean differentiation center (Habel et al., 2010).

References Arsénio, P., Neto, C., Monteiro-Henriques, T., Costa, J.C. (2009), Guia Geobotânico da Excursão ALFA 2009 ao litoral alentejano, Quercetea, 9: 4-42.

Géhu, J.M. & Rivas-Martínez, S. (1980), Notions fondamentales de Phytosociologie. In Cramer, J. (ed) Syntaxonomie, Vaduz.

Habel, J., Drees, C., Schmitt, T. (2010), Review Refugial Areas and Postglacial Colonizations in the Western Palearctic. In Habel, J., Assman, T. (eds) Relict Species. Phylogeography and Conservation Biology. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Hampe, A. & Petit, R.J. (2005) Conserving biodiversity under climate change: the rear edge matters, Ecology Letters, 8: 461–467 Hampe, A. (2004) Bioclimate envelope models: what they detect and what they hide, Global Ecology and Biogeography, 13: 469–471.

Hewitt, G. (2000) The Genetic Legacy of the Quaternary ice ages, Nature, 405: 907–913.

Honrado, J., Séneca, A., Caldas, F.B., Ortiz, S. (2001) Complexos de vegetação turfófila nas serras do Parque Nacional de Peneda-Gerês (Subsector Geresiano-Queixense, Sector Galaico-Português, Região Eurossiberiana), Quercetea, 3: 197-211.

Médail, F., Diadema, K. (2009) Glacial refugia influence plant diversity patterns in the Mediterranean Basin, Journal of Biogeography, 36, 1333–1345.

Moreira, M.E., Neto, C. (2005) “Parte VI – Vegetação”. In Medeiros CA (ed) Geografia de Portugal, Vol.I – Ambiente Físico. Círculo de Leitores, Lisboa, 417-482.

Neto, C. (1997) A Flora e a Vegetação dos Meios Palustres do Superdistrito Sadense.

Centro de Estudos Geográficos, Lisboa.

Schmitt, T. (2007) Molecular biogeography of Europe: Pleistocene cycles and postglacial trends, Frontiers in Zoology, 4: 11.

Schwarzer, C., Heinken, T., Luthard, V., Joshi, J. (2010) Experimental Study – Adaptation of Plant Glacial Relicts to a Changing Climate. In Endlicher W, Gerstengarbe F-W (eds) Abstracts of Lectures and Posters of the Continents Under Climate Change Conference on the Occasion of the 200 Anniversary of the HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin. April 21-23, 2010, Berlin.

Vieira G (2004) Geomorfologia dos planaltos e altos vales da Serra da Estrela. Ambientes frios do Plistocénico Superior e dinâmica actual.

PhD Thesis, University of Lisbon, Lisbon.

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Picture impression Scientific Symposium 2010

Photos made by: Jan Grade, Simon Reichenwallner, ZackAdrian and Tobias Michl

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7th issue September 2011

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