Field of Research

The research focuses on the urban ecological functionality of green spaces in different urban environments in Central Europe, aswell as in China (ecofunctionality of green spaces using the example of Shanghai, cooperation with the East China NormalUniversity Shanghai). Numerous other research projects are being carried out in Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Coole Bäume und Sensoren – ein FFG-Talente-Regional-Projekt

Durch ihre kühlende Wirkung und die Speicherung von CO2 beeinflussen Bäume positiv unser Klima. Im Projekt CO2BS verbindet der Baum als außerschulischer Lernort die Interessensbereiche Mensch, Natur und Technik. Dabei werden Schüler:innen selbständig forschend tätig und erhalten erste Einblicke in Natur und Technik.

Project Leader: Assoz. Prof. Dr. Angela Hof

Duration: 2020-2023

Info: https://urban-tree-climate.sbg.ac.at/

Foto

SUNRAISE – SUSTAINABLE NATURAL RESOURCE USE IN ARCTIC AND HIGH MOUNTAINOUS AREAS

Barrierefreiheit: Kurzbeschreibung des Bildes

SUNRAISE IS AN ERASMUS + (CAPACITY BUILDING IN HIGHER EDUCATION) PROJECT THAT PROMOTES SUSTAINABLE MANAGEMENT OF ARCTIC AND HIGH MOUNTAIN ECOSYSTEMS IN BHUTAN, INDIA AND RUSSIA.

Project Leader: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2017-2021
Funding: EU (Erasmus +)

SUNRAISE is a 36 months (2017-2020; extended 12 additional months) Erasmus+ project that aims to promote sustainable management of Arctic and highmountainous ecosystems in Bhutan, India and Russia (partner countries – PCs) through enhanced tertiary education linked tolabour markets and wider stakeholder circles. This aim will be achieved through the following objectives:

1. To revise and upgrade selected BSc, MSc & PhD programs in PC higher education institutions to make them end-user- oriented& policy-relevant, and enhance opportunities for life long learning (LLL) education.

2. To develop SUNRAISE open education environment Platform (SUNRAISER) and online training services of the new generation(MOOC) for qualitative improvement of the education process and academic workflow support among universities andstakeholders across the PC and EU Member States.

3. To create sustainable feedback mechanisms to end-users, ensuring adaptive and practice-relevant teaching contents,knowledge co-production opportunities and stakeholder support to post-project course development and teaching.

4. To develop capacity for academic mobility, shared experimental facilities and joint research by PIs and beyond.

Achieving of these objectives will significantly enhance the quality of educational provision in partner countries, as the expertiseof the whole consortium will become available to individual and group learners (including the students from other programs and,in particular, the learners from remote regions). PhD students will access research facilities at other partner countries throughjoint research arrangements and benefit from new methods and richer data for their thesis. Likewise, revision of researchagendas PhD studies and integrating to them emerging problems and methods will build teaching capacity at PC HEIs andmotivate business and policy actors to engage in closer cooperation. The proposed vehicles for such engagement are national(Russia) and regional (India & Bhutan) SUNRAISE sector collaborative platforms to be set-up for the Arctic and HighMountainous Areas to create a “community of practice”.

The project partners:

Russia

– Russian State Hydrometeorological University, St.-Petersburg

– Gorno-Altaysk State University,Gorno-Altaysk

– Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk

– NGO Altai-Sayan Mountain Partnership, Gorno-Altaysk

India

– Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

– Kumaun University, Nainital

– Central Himalayan Environment Association, Nainital

Bhutan

– Royal University of Bhutan

– University of Bremen, Germany – Project Coordinator

– Salzburg University, Austria

– Estonian Life Science University, Tartu, Estonia

– Erda Research, Technology, Education, Rijswijk, the Netherlands

– RZ. Research. Management. Communication, Lund, Sweden

Coordination of the development of SUNRAISE courses in partner universities

As project leaders for Work Package 2, our project team in Salzburg is responsible for the coordination and revision of SUNRAISE courses and learning materials developed/ updated by partners in Bhutan, India and Russia. This includes the collection and revision of all materials regarding each of the courses, in order to ensure that: 1) on the one hand, courses of high quality are produced, in terms of both the contents provided and teaching methods used; and 2) on the other hand, all administrative considerations have been taken into account, so that the courses developed and/ or updated are later recognised as eligible results of the project by the European Union.

Activities related to the coordination and revision of courses have been significantly intensified during the years 2020 and 2021. A detail reporting of all activities carried out till the moment was completed in April 2020 and afterwards updated in February 2021. Additionally, syllabi and other materials have been compiled and thoroughly assessed. The communication with partners has been constant. A detailed quality assessment was conducted of the courses updated/ newly developed by partners P7 (Gorno-Altaisk State University, Russia), P9 (Royal University of Bhutan, Bhutan), P11 (Kumaun University, India) and P12 (Jawaharlal Nehru University) in spring and summer 2020 and 2021. The work was led by Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste and produced by MSc. Marc Gimenez Maranges from University of Salzburg (Austria) and BSc. Cléa Slimani from Chambéry University of Savoie Mont Blanc (France).

Creation of the learning module “Ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas”

As a very important part of Work Package 2, a learning module for Master’s and PhD students was developed from January to May 2019 on the topic “Ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas”. The main aim of this module, which has been awarded 3 ECTS, is to familiarize master’s and doctoral students with ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas. Therefore, the module has been divided into 3 parts: 1) an introduction to ecological aspects of urbanisation; 2) case studies on urban nature and urban rainwater management; and 3) a detailed chapter on urbanisation in mountain areas. The materials were developed to be presented in two versions: e-learning and in-class version. The work was led by Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste and produced by MSc. Marc Gimenez Maranges from University of Salzburg (Austria), MSc. Laura-Bethia Campbell from Cornell University in Ithaca (USA) and BSc. Kristýna Kohoutková from Mendel University in Brno (Czech Republic).

Piloting of the learning module “Ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas” at the Royal University of Bhutan – August 2019

The suitability of the in-class version of the learning module “Ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas” created by our research team was demonstrated in the form of a piloting with master’s students at the Lobesa Campus of the Royal University of Bhutan from August 14 to 15, 2019. The course was conducted by Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste and prepared by Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste and MSc. Marc Gimenez Maranges from University of Salzburg (Austria). An international team of teachers was involved: Univ. Prof. Dr. PK Joshi from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi (India); Univ. Prof. Dr. Prakash C. Tiwari from Kumaun University in Nainital (India); Univ. Prof. Dr. Bhagwati Joshi from Kumaun University in Nainital (India); Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste; and MSc. Marc Gimenez Maranges from the University of Salzburg (Austria). The piloting was a great success and gave the participants new ideas for their further studies.

Creation of the SUNRAISE research framework

During the second half of the year 2020 and in 2021, steps for the creation of the SUNRAISE research framework have been undertaken, in coordination with the project leaders and the other project partners. A listing of research areas, which might potentially be included in the framework, have been identified and shared with the remaining partners in order to add any relevant missing themes. This listing of topics has been the basis for the creation of a survey that has been distributed among the partners. Analyses of the survey responses have revealed the research profile of each Russian, Indian and Bhutanese partner university, as well as common and dissimilar concerns, enablers, barriers, etc. in research development. This will underlie the subsequent definition of research strategies embraced within the frame of the SUNRAISE research framework. Work on this latter task is still underway.

Summer School in Krasnoyarsk and the Altai Mountains – July 2018

The summer school in Krasnoyarsk and in the Altai Mountains (Russia) offered doctoral students and young scientists the opportunity to study best practices in the area of monitoring and early warning in the rapidly changing socio-ecological systems of mountain regions. The summer school was co-organized by SUNRAISE and took place from 15 to 29 July 2018. Introductory events were held at Siberian Federal University and the Stolby Nature Reserve. Theoretical and methodological training took place in the Manzherok camp facilities in the Altai Mountains and field research participants travelled to Lake Teletskoye and Katun Nature Reserve.

IT meeting in Tartu – May 2019

An IT meeting was organized by the Estonian University of Life Sciences in Tartu (Estonia) from May 20 to 24, 2019. The aim was to provide all project members with basic knowledge of e-learning tools and to discuss their possible implementation in each of the institutions involved. Discussions about future steps for the successful development of the SUNRAISE project were also undertaken. In addition, our team used the meeting to present our results and to share the recently developed learning module “Ecological aspects of urbanisation in mountain areas” with all project partners.

Summer School in Salzburg – July 2019

The summer school was organized in collaboration with SUNRAISE and the Society for Urban Ecology (SURE). The aim was to examine the challenges faced by people and the environment in the current context of environmental change and to find solutions to them. A variety of topics were covered, including urban agriculture, urban climate, urbanisation patterns and near-natural solutions in cities and mountain areas. The Alps were used as a study area for this purpose. The summer school enabled knowledge and ideas to be exchanged between students and lecturers from countries with very different socio-ecological conditions. These include: Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, Romania, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Estonia and Colombia.

Immediately after the end of the summer school, concepts for urban ecology and mountain areas were put into practice by supervised group research activities during the research week. This was done by an international team led by Univ. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste and constituted by BSc. Krýstina Kohoutková from Mendel University in Brno (Czech Republic), Dr. Meryem Hayr Kanat from Yildiz University in Istanbul (Turkey) and Dr. Arifa Karadag from the Ege University in Bornova (Turkey). Three research topics were provided and worked with the students: urban agriculture, urban trees and citizen science.

Annual SUNRAISE meeting in Salzburg – July 2019

The meeting took place from July 9-10, 2019 at University of Salzburg and was organized by our team together with the project managers. The aim was to report on the status of the research project and to discuss and exchange ideas for future strategies for improving the project results and upcoming SUNRAISE events with all project members. Our research team was able to share the results and future intentions regarding the learning materials developed with the other project members.

SUNRAISE Meeting-Programme

Summer School in Pskov – July and August 2021

The summer school in Pskov (Russia) offered students and young researchers the opportunity to learn from hands-on project and research experiences on the science, technology, management and policy of borderlands. The school took place from 24 July to 6 August 2021 and was held at Pskov State University, which is a highly acclaimed research and training centre for the development of borderland areas. The four introductory days of the school gave an overview of sustainability challenges faced by borderlands. Over the next days, the participants had the opportunity to apply the concepts learnt in a more practical way through groups projects, etc.

Further information can be found at School descriptions

TOWARDS GREEN CITIES

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE OF ECOLOGICAL URBAN AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Project Leader: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2015-2017
Funding: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN)
The aim of the project is to capture and describe the current significance, values and potentials of urban biodiversity andecosystem services – in the context of sustainable urban development during ongoing urbanization processes. In particular, thecurrent developments and different approaches in China and Germany will be examined. The strategic goal is a long-termrecognition of the potentials and a greater consideration of urban and peri-urban green spaces in urban planning anddevelopment.
A first product is the Policy Paper (see Publications, Grunewald et al. (2016)). The project products are based on theparticipation and follow-up of two German-Chinese workshops, a several-day study visit to China and the implementation of twoproject-accompanying working groups.
Prof. Breuste took part in this project in April 2016 with his own lectures at the project-accompanying working group meetingwith the workshop “Urban Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services” and the 9th German-Chinese Workshop on Biodiversity with afocus on Urban Ecosystem Services and methodology of Natural Capital Accounting in Nanjing and Xianju / China. This waspreceded by the Fifth Sino-German Environment Forum (19-20 April 2016) in Nanjing, China “The way forward to inclusive andsustainable growth – how to overcome the implementation challenge”.
The project will be published in 2017 with a book: Grunewald, K. et al. (Ed.) (2017): Towards Green Cities – Urban Biodiversityand Ecosystem Services in China and Germany. Springer Briefs in Environmental Science cooperated by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Breuste.

Book publication Toward Green Cities

LOCAL RECREATION AND PERCEPTION OF NATURE IN THE SUBURBAN AREA: WHICH ROLE DOES “NATURE” PLAY FOR THE INHABITANTS OF ISTANBUL?

A COOPERATION WITH YILDIZ UNIVERSITY ISTANBUL

Project Leader: Univ.Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste / Prof. Meryem Hayir
Duration: 2017-2019
Funding: EU (Erasmus) / TÜBITAK (The Science and Technological Research Council of Turkey)
The cooperation, which has already been initiated by several visits from the Yildiz University Istanbul, Department of Geography(Prof. Meryem Hayir), was further developed by a visit of Prof. Breuste in Istanbul and the realization of a course for students onthe topic “Urban Ecosystem Management”. It was agreed to expand cooperation on ecological urban development through aresearch project. For this purpose, a first topic “Urban recreation and perception of nature in the suburban area” will be startedin a comparative fashion between the Region of Salzburg and Istanbul. The focus is on determining the demand for near-naturalrecreation in the city periphery, the supply and their perception. This should lead to a concept for the development of near-natural recreation, based on the potential of the regions, demand and environmental education. In addition, it was agreed toregularly exchange lectures and to prepare an excursion in the Istanbul area.

URBAN GREEN IN SHANGHAI, CHINA

SINCE 2007, THERE IS A CLOSE COOPERATION WITH THE PARTNER INSTITUTION EAST CHINA NORMAL UNIVERSITY (ECNU) IN SHANGHAI WITH REGULAR VISITS OF MEMBERS OF THE RESEARCHGROUP IN SHANGHAI.

Project Leader: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2015-2017
Funding: Chinese-German Center for Science Promotion
Since 2009, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Breuste has a guestlectureship on the topic Urban Ecology at the School of Ecological andEnvironmental Sciences as well he is working on joint projects and research with the head of the school, Prof. Junxiang Li. Sincethen, five qualification projects have been completed successfully together with the University of Salzburg. In addition, regularsummer schools (2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016) were held at the ECNU in cooperation with the Researchgroup UrbanLandscape Ecology. Joint activities are particularly oriented towards research.

URBAN AGRICULTURE

ASEA UNINET PROJECTS WITH CHULALONGKORN UNIVERSITY, BANGKOK

Project Leader: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2017
Funding: AseaUninet
Urban Gardening, a stabilizing factor for city dwellers in food production, recreation and social cohesion
.As part of the longtime cooperation with the Research Center Social Research Institute of Chulalongkorn University (CUSRI),Univ.-Prof. Dr. Breuste hold in December 2016 a lecture at the University of Chulalongkorn on Urban Gardening.
In 2015, the 6th International Workshop on “Ecological Aspects of Urban Development”, organized in cooperation with thearchitecture faculty of Kasetsart University Bangkok, local authorities, NGOs and PhDs, was organized with different examples ofthe agglomeration of the megacity Bangkok. The theme of the International Forum 2015, which was jointly organized with theResearch group Urban Landscape Ecology, was “Urban Green Space: Eco-socio- cultural views”. The event was held with thesupport of AseaUninet. From Salzburg side was Prof. Dr. Breuste involved with a lecture paper. Associate Professor SuwattanaThadanit, President of the Association of Thai Planners, Senior Advisor to CUSRI and member of the Faculty of Architecture ofKasetsart University Bangkok, brought in the perspective of thai urban planning, especially with the example of Bang Krachao inthe agglomeration of Bangkok. They emphasized the potential importance of urban agriculture and gardening for securing thelast available space.

GEOPARK ERZ OF THE ALPS

PROJECT “ERZ OF THE ALPS – COPPER LANDSCAPE PONGAU” (2011)

The project “Erz of the Alps – copper landscape Pongau” was the beginning of a partnership between GeoGlobe and the Research group Urban Landscape Ecology . The project serves the sustainablepromotion of summer tourism in the historic mining region around the communities Bischofshofen, Hüttau, St. Veit and Mühlbacham Hochkönig. The project was launched in October 2011, with a term of 3 years and a project volume of 3 million euros. Theaim of the various project stages is the achievement of Geopark certification by UNESCO. Since November 2015, the GeoparkErz of the Alps, call itself as part of the UNESCO World Heritage. The central visitor center of the UNESCO Geopark was built in2014/2015 in the ski jump area of Bischofshofen.
Completed master theses on the subject:
GRILLMAIR, MARTIN (2017): Development Trends of the Alpine Landscape in the Geopark Erz of the Alps.

NETWORKED SCIENCE: WHICH “NATURE” IS VALUED IN URBAN PARKS?

A COMPARATIVE STUDY CONDUCTED IN SALZBURG, AUSTRIA AND SZEGED, HUNGARY

Project Leader: Dr. Peter Szilassi / Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2016-2018
Promotion: Erasmus
Since 2016, together with the University of Szeged, Hungary and the University of Salzburg, an Erasmus project has beenrunning leaded of Peter Szilassi (University of Szeged) and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste (University of Salzburg). The focus ison the perception of a city park visitor about his / her preferences of a “beautiful” park. Photographs which is taken byparticipants of the study in the respective cities in a selected city park are used to analyze which (natural) objects trigger whichsenses among the participants. This should be achieved, among other things, by answering a few questions about thephotograph taken.

URBAN SPRAWL VERSUS COMPACT CITY

AN INDICATOR-BASED APPROACH TO EVALUATE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

Project Leader: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breuste
Duration: 2015-2017
Funding: Knowledge Transfer Center (WTZ)
The focus of this WTZ (Knowledge Transfer Center) project is the assessment of biodiversity in city parks. The two cities ofPoznań, Poland and Salzburg, Austria are used as case studies for empirical surveys leaded by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Jürgen Breusteand Ass.-Prof. Dr. Angela Hof of the University of Salzburg (AG Urban and Landscape Ecology).