Research Environmental Policy Analysis

SaltyBEATS is a three-year EU-funded research project exploring how salt-tolerant plants (halophytes) can restore degraded lands and support sustainable food production. Combining science and stakeholder collaboration, it develops Nature-based Solutions and tools to scale resilient saline agriculture across Europe and North Africa.

Contact information: Dr Kate Negacz

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This COST Action aims to build a global transdisciplinary network of scientific experts and engaged stakeholders in the field of salinity research in the context of food security, sustainability and the intensifying climate crisis. Our activities will focus on: (i) understanding responses to heterogeneous soil salinity and other combined stresses in the soil-rhizosphere-plant continuum; (ii) building a knowledge-base to improve water and soil management, and crop production on salt-affected lands; (iii) showcasing the total value of salt-affected lands and saline landscapes; (iv) connecting various stakeholders involved in saline agriculture; and (v) developing targeted policy frameworks for the proper salinisation management, bringing saline agriculture as a complementary component in the European food security agenda for coastal and inland salt-affected lands. Mutual knowledge exchange and sharing best practices will contribute to more sustainable use of salt-affected lands and enhance the resilience of the landscape as a whole.

This study was conducted in collaboration with Università degli Studi di Firenze, Eötvös Loránd University, National Research Council of Italy, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, University of East Sarajevo, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Copernicus University, Lancaster University, Agricultural University of Tirana, University of Novi Sad, University of Gothenburg, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Centre of Biotechnolgy of Borj Cedria and more.

Contact information: Dr Kate Negacz

For more information, please visit the sites https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA22144/ and https://sustaincostaction.eu/

Eastern Africa faces severe agricultural challenges as a consequence of soil and water salinisation. Due to its long coastline, the effects of salinity are particularly severe in Mozambique, and excessive land clearing is exacerbating the degradation of the land. While initial efforts on Saline Agriculture have focused on classical approaches such as crop salt tolerance and improved soil/water management, there is a pressing need for more comprehensive solutions, harnessing the whole spectrum of agroecological management solutions adapted to salt-affected agricultural systems. At the same time, despite the severity of the salinity problem, Mozambique still lacks a consistent institutional approach to address the issue (including policy, education and research).

CARE addresses the knowledge and skills challenges within SEKU by providing targeted training and equipping the organization with the necessary expertise and resources. This program can enhance our understanding and capabilities in implementing saline agriculture for climate- and water-smart practices. CARE focuses on the following points:

• Saline Agriculture: Training on the principles, techniques, and best practices of cultivating salt-affected crops and managing salinity issues in agriculture as a form of climate- and water-smart Farming. This includes soil, water and crop management in saline environments. Through this, SEKU can educate on climate-resilient agricultural practices, including water management, soil conservation, and adaptation strategies for changing climatic conditions.
• Sustainable Partnerships and Networks: Building skills in establishing and maintaining sustainable partnerships with farmers, research institutions, and experienced groups in salinity treatments to ensure long-term collaboration and knowledge sharing on for instance mapping techniques.
• Policy and Advocacy: Knowledge on advocating for policies that support climate adaptation and saline agriculture at local, regional, and national levels, and the ability to contribute to policy discussions effectively.

By addressing these knowledge and skills gaps through CARE, SEKU can strengthen its overall functioning in saline agriculture and become a centre of excellence for research, training, and outreach activities in creating and implementing resilient farming systems for salt-affected crops.

This study is conducted in collaboration with Delphy, SEKU, The Salt Doctors and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Contact information: Dr Kate Negacz

With new networks established and global actions such as the Saline Water & Food System Partnership and the Global Campaign on Salinisation, the awareness of saline agriculture is increasing but more research is needed in the arid and semi-arid areas with salinised groundwater, especially in the Sub-Saharan Africa. The potentially saline groundwater affects food production but the extent and location of this problem is currently unknown. Additionally, saline initiatives in Sub-Saharan African countries have not been mapped yet.

Governance for biodiversity has expanded beyond the multilateral negotiations in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). A recent report, ‘Beyond the CBD: Exploring the institutional landscape of governing for biodiversity‘, identifies 108 international and transnational cooperative initiatives with relevance for biodiversity. The initiatives operate outside the auspices of the CBD, engaging nearly 10,000 non-state (e.g. companies and non-governmental organizations) and sub-national (e.g. cities and regions) actors, in various biodiversity-related policy fields such as energy, fisheries, agriculture and forestry. 

Scientists today see mounting evidence that the entire earth system now operates well outside safe boundaries. According to a recent scientific assessment of the international Earth System Governance Project, human societies must change course and steer away from critical tipping points that might lead to rapid and irreversible change, while ensuring sustainable livelihoods for all. This requires a fundamental transformation in current patterns of consumption and production.

Governance  and  institutions  are  increasingly  becoming  a  central  concern  within  the  more quantitatively oriented modelling and scenarios  community. In  order  to understand  the  effectiveness of  institutions  in steering  society and the  international system at  large  towards sustainability, a number of approaches have been developed  within  International  Relations  and  global  environmental  governance  research,  that potentially can be  integrated  into  the on-going  attempts  to  model  political  developments  and  interventions. The  quest  for  integration  of  social  science  research  into  more formalized  methodologies  such  as  modelling,  computer simulation and scenario development  represents  one  of  the  cutting-edge  research  frontiers in sustainability politics.  The  research  project  involves  a  two-step  methodology,  which  is  based  on  the  idea  of institutional  diagnostics. In  the  first  step,  the key  features  of  the  issue  and  the  issue-area will be identified as clearly and sharply as possible. The  second  step deals  with  defining the  nature  of  the  institutional  arrangements needed  to mitigate the problem  in question or to  find ways  to  adapt  to  its  impacts. The  key challenge  is  to  formalize  the  aforementioned  qualitative  factors,  through  quantitative  techniques, such as computer based modelling.

Contact information: Prof. P.H. Pattberg.

W11-005 PBL Background 10June2011 FINAL.pdf

W11-003 PBL Biodiversity 10June2011 FINAL.pdf

Multi-stakeholder partnerships have become a much applied new mechanism in global environmental governance. At the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development the idea of multi-sectoral partnerships was taken to the intergovernmental stage — with the so-called Partnerships for Sustainable Development presented as an official outcome of the summit. These partnerships usually bring together governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector; in contrast to the traditional outcomes of international summits such as intergovernmental treaties or declarations. Thus far, more than 300 partnerships have been formally registered with the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

This offers the opportunity for new, extensive, and comparable empirical research as well as renewed theoretical insight. The PARTNERS project hosted by the Department of Environmental Policy Analysis at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is interested in three interrelated questions: first, under what conditions did partnership arrangements emerge in global environmental politics? Second, how do they influence global environmental politics? And finally, how do partnerships perform in terms of democratic legitimacy and accountability or transform these concepts? To answer these questions, the research project developed a methodological approach that brings together quantitative and qualitative elements. The quantitative part consists of the Global Sustainability Partnerships Database (GSPD) which profiles the partnerships regime in the sphere of United Nations, as well as structured surveys that reflect the assessment of different sectors on the influence of partnerships. The qualitative part includes in-depth qualitative case studies, semi-structured interviews, as well as text and discourse analyses.

The project is now focusing further on two specific areas of investigation. Discourses around the Partnerships for Sustainable Development, specifically the discourses of privatisation of governance, sustainable development, and participatory democracy, are analysed from a historical, post-structuralist perspective. Also in-depth studies are conducted on partnerships in the Asian, in particular Chinese, context; in collaboration with the EU Science and Technology Fellowship Programme in China (STF-China) and the Renmin University in Beijing.

Contact information: Prof. Philipp Pattberg.

SALAD (Saline AgricuLture for ADaptation) is a transcontinental, innovative research project in the field of food systems and climate. It addresses the research area of food security under climate change through saline agriculture, aligning vision, research and practice among European and African countries focusing on saline agriculture upscaling. The project involves both basic and applied transdisciplinary (biophysical, social, cultural, agronomic, economic and environmental) research. It includes a consortium of four countries from the European Union (EU): Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and two from Africa: Egypt and Morocco. SALAD focuses on promoting innovative technology deployment and improving climate resilience through saline agricultural practices.

This study was conducted in collaboration with ILVO, Kafr-El-Sheik University, University of Florence, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Salt Farm Foundation, Van Hall Larenstein, Universite Cadi Ayyad, KU Leuven, and Universitat Oldenbu.

Contact person: Dr Kate Negacz.

For more information, please visit the project website where you can also find the publications.

The SALAD project has as objective to improve the resilience of food production in saline and potentially saline agricultural areas in the Mediterranean and North Sea regions by: 

• supporting the development and sustainable use of innovative salt-tolerant crops,
• identifying and further developing crop cultivation adapted to saline conditions,
• exploring and testing innovative market development techniques and instruments with the goal of upscaling crop/food chains across the EU and Africa,
• exchanging knowledge and transferring practical and adaptive solutions.

SALAD involves 11 partner institutions from six countries in Europe and Africa, with IVM as project leader. The project receives a total funding of 1.4 million euros from the ERANET Cofund on Food Systems and Climate. 

Contact person: Dr Kate Negacz.

NEWAVE is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (ITN) on the ‘Next Water Governance’, funded by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, which aims to equip a new generation of future water governance leaders with fundamental knowledge, advanced skills, and adequate tools to address current and future water governance challenges.

In 2021, the AQUACONNECT project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NWO) has been added to the EPA water governance portfolio), which will seek to advance the Dutch and global  discussion on circular water use in delta areas, and involves 21 partners, including various industrial companies, consultancy firms, water boards and Dutch provinces. The project is led from Wageningen University and EPA provides the work package leadership on Integrated Assessment and Societal Change. 

Contact person: Prof. Dave Huitema.

In its most recent Energy Union package, the European Union puts citizens at the core of the clean energy transitions. Beyond policy, disruptive innovations in energy sectors are challenging the traditional business model of large energy utilities. One such disruptive, social innovation is the emergence of new clean energy communities (‘newcomers’). The possible benefits of these ‘newcomers’ for their members and for society at large are still emerging and their potential to support the goals of the Energy Union is unclear.

With the RESILIO (Resilience nEtwork of Smart Innovative cLImate-adapative rOoftops) project, 10,000 m² of smart blue green roofs are being realized in Amsterdam. This is necessary because it rains more often and harder, as well as getting hotter. Excess rainwater is stored underneath the green layer of plants on the roof. The water can be retained or discharged with a smart valve connected to the weather forecast. This helps us to keep our feet dry and our heads cool. The roofs provide space for new nature, and that is good for the city. We bring roofs to life!

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Climate action in the post-Paris policy landscape: The role of non-state initiatives in the transformation of Sweden into a fossil fuel-free welfare state.The Paris Agreement has opened up a new chapter in political efforts to tackle climate change. It provides a new flexible framework for moving the world towards decarbonization, leaving goal-setting and implementation up to states. The Paris Agreement also officially recognizes the importance of non-state (e.g. business and civil society) and sub-national (e.g. regions and cities) climate initiatives. The climate regime thus combines top-down elements of international cooperation with bottom-up elements of voluntary societal climate action. This rapprochement of the realms of state and non-state climate action challenges the state’s traditional role as rule-maker and regulator and instead invites governments to network and become coordinators and facilitators in what has been framed as polycentric climate governance. 

Global efforts to mitigate climate change have increased in number and scope over the past decade. The Climate Initiatives Platform – maintained by the United Nations Environment Program – contains over 220 transnational governance arrangements with relevance to climate change, in addition to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The proliferation of new institutions has created a patchwork of actors, rules and decision-making processes across private and public sectors that affect climate governance. 

Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEBs) have been positioned as a low carbon strategy by the European Union in its Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (Directive 2010/31/EU). The EU FP7 project NEXT-BUILDINGS focused on low energy buildings also called active houses, which are not only buildings, but active components in the overall integrated energy systems. The target was to demonstrate affordable solutions for social housing and revitalisation of town areas in the cities of Amsterdam (NL), Helsingborg (SE), and Lyon (FR). Researchers from EPA contributed by analysing end-user expectations and experiences with living in these energy-neutral city districts and homes, identifying lessons learned. 

Contact person: Dr Nicolien van der Grijp. 

See for more information: https://smartcities-infosystem.eu/sites-projects/projects/next-buildings

This project aims to explore the relationship between ‘world views’ (or: ‘philosophies of life’) and the ways these relate to goals and issues of sustainable development, including social-cultural change, individual environmental behaviour and policy attempts to influence these. Through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research methods – including surveys, in-depth-interviews and participative observation – the philosophical underpinnings of individual views, values, behaviours and lifestyles are explored. Special attention is paid to the dynamics of world views, that is, the changes in world view taking place, and their potential for strategies, practices and policies aimed at sustainable development.

Contact information: Dr Joop de Boer.