Papers by Stephanie Maier
E3S Web of Conferences
The consideration of sustainability aspects is becoming increasingly important at municipal level... more The consideration of sustainability aspects is becoming increasingly important at municipal level in order to implement the SDGs. Some municipalities already have their own concepts for individual SDGs, such as climate protection (SDG 13). There are many fields of action in which municipalities can initiate changes to contribute to the SDGs. An important field of action is the municipal task of planning, building and maintaining urban areas and surfaces sustainably. However, as this topic is quite complex, there is a need for a guide for municipalities on how to conduct such a sustainability assessment. The authors provide a practical guideline for communities to evaluate the sustainability impacts of urban surfaces and their management processes. The guideline has been developed with special focus on its applicability and the reduction of the complexity of the topic for local actors. The authors present the guideline, describe the underlying methods and the five subsequent steps th...
Sustainability
Targets to reduce global warming impacts of the transportation sector may lead to increased land ... more Targets to reduce global warming impacts of the transportation sector may lead to increased land use and negative land quality changes. The aim of this paper is to implement the Land Use Indicator Calculation in Life Cycle Assessment (LANCA®) model to assess land quality impacts and land use efficiencies (concerning occupation and transformation) of different example renewable transport energy systems for passenger cars. In addition, the land use impacts are normalized according to the Soil Quality Index building on LANCA® and included in the environmental footprint. The assessment is based on information from GaBi life cycle assessment software databases and on literature. Functional unit of the model is to provide annual drive of 18,600 km for a passenger car in the EU. The analysis includes examples of biomass, electricity, electricity to fuels and fossil-based energy systems. Our findings confirm previous research that biomass-based transport energy systems have risks to lead to...
The implementation of structural health monitoring (SHM) for management and maintenance of critic... more The implementation of structural health monitoring (SHM) for management and maintenance of critical transport infrastructures, such as bridges, dams or tunnels, is a widely established approach. Even though, SHM shows various technical limitations (e.g. relating to spatial capabilities of the sensors, high cost, repeatability or interpretation of the sensor measurements to support structural assessment and prediction of the infrastructure condition states). Furthermore, linking SHM with life cycle based methodologies such as life cycle costing (LCC) or life cycle assessment (LCA) is only recently discussed. The SENSKIN EC co-funded research project aims to overcome above mentioned challenges through development of a new sensor system and its integration within a Decision Support System (DSS) for proactive condition-based structural rehabilitation planning during the bridge life cycle. The DSS will include structural assessment models (exclusively based on sensor measurements for ass...
Forest Ecology and Management, 2021
This article outlines the coming of age of writing pedagogy in German institutions of higher educ... more This article outlines the coming of age of writing pedagogy in German institutions of higher education and explores the role of the 'Hausarbeit' in contemporary universities. Traditionally, the 6,000-12,000 word Hausarbeit was the mainstay of academic writing in all university courses in the social sciences and humanities in Germany. This assignment was tied into dominant discourse ('Humboldt discourse') in which the main point of higher education was to cultivate future independent scholars. Since 1999, the increasing predominance of 'Bologna discourse' has led to the radical restructuring of higher education across Europe. This discourse emphasizes internationalization, transferable skills and key competencies, i.e. the point of higher education is not primarily to cultivate independent scholars but flexible, creative and enterprising future professionals. With indications that the Hausarbeit could disappear in the Bologna process, we argue not only that it can be saved but also that it has a significant role to play in developing the new competencies. This will only happen, however, if students receive institutional writing support, and if writing curricula in Germany rise to the new challenges.
Sustainability, 2020
The sustainability of urban surfaces can be enhanced by introducing innovations. An ex-ante asses... more The sustainability of urban surfaces can be enhanced by introducing innovations. An ex-ante assessment of the potential sustainability impacts of innovations in urban areas can provide decision-makers with valuable recommendations for their selection before implementation. This knowledge helps to make the innovation more future-proof. Although a first methodological approach for such an assessment is available, there is no readily applicable set of indicators. Hence, this article proposes a holistic sustainability impact assessment method tailored to the management of urban surfaces and their innovations. For the development of the method, a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)-based, top-down approach is adopted. The proposed assessment method makes it possible to identify an innovation’s potential contribution to the achievement of the SDGs before its introduction. In this article, the assessment method is tested by evaluating the sustainability impacts of weed-suppressing joint fil...
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2020
Land is used and modified in its natural function for the cultivation of food and energy crops, f... more Land is used and modified in its natural function for the cultivation of food and energy crops, for infrastructure and other production purposes. Despite their global significance, land use impacts are still rarely addressed, although methods for integrating land use into Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) have been developed recently. This paper describes the development and calculation of regionalized characterization factors based on the LANCA® (Land Use Indicator Value Calculation in Life Cycle Assessment) method to be integrated into LCA using a geo information system (GIS). With the publication of the LANCA® characterization factors (Bos et al. 2016), land use impacts can be assessed at the country level. However, soil parameters as well as climatic conditions change on a small scale and are very site-specific. Therefore, there is a need for regionalized characterization factors. After a literature review, we describe the development of the five LANCA® indicators. Afterwards we present the conceptual framework for the calculation of GIS-based characterization factors and apply this framework to two examples, the indicators of mechanical filtration and physicochemical filtration. Finally, we apply the characterization factors in a case study. The region-specific characterization factors are calculated in a GIS environment yielding a map with values for mechanical filtration and physicochemical filtration per grid cell for various land use types. A case study shows that land use impacts fluctuate due to site-specific conditions such as pedological, topographical and climatic conditions. It can be shown that our calculation of regionalized characterization factors in global maps is feasible and facilitates an area’s potential for causing lower environmental impacts for a certain land use compared to other areas. Remaining challenges are related to input data quality, the comprehensibility of the results to practitioners that are not land use experts and the technical restrictions of LCA database and software providers. Through the presented regionalization of the LANCA® framework, a necessary prerequisite to method advancement is met as also region-specific characterization factors can now be calculated. In comparison to the published country-specific characterization factors in Bos et al. (2016), the developed regional GIS-based characterization factors are far more advantageous especially for large countries. Nevertheless, it has to be noted that an LCA including the evaluation of land use does not replace methods and tools like environmental impact assessment. When deciding on a preferable location for a specific land use nature conservation, geographical, geological and building law aspects must also be taken into account.
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 2019
The physical design of urban surfaces determines the management processes that are required to en... more The physical design of urban surfaces determines the management processes that are required to ensure that their intended functions are fulfilled within a set period of time and influences their linked material flows. Those flows are causing numerous environmental, economic, and social impacts. In the field of urban surfaces, there is a broad variety of innovations available that has the potential to contribute to a more sustainable environment and quality of life in cities. However, before implementing any kind of innovation, it is important to quantitatively and qualitatively assess its sustainability impacts in a holistic manner. While current assessment methods provide a suitable framework for the sustainability assessment of products and services, without modification, they cannot be applied to urban surfaces and related management processes. The herein introduced methodological approach is designed to overcome this problem by not only being tailored to the sustainability asses...
Sustainability, 2018
Various municipal solid waste management (MSWM) innovations have emerged in developing countries ... more Various municipal solid waste management (MSWM) innovations have emerged in developing countries in face of the challenges posed by increasing waste generation and poor MSWM practice. We present a methodology to assess the potential sustainability impact of MSWM innovations in a holistic manner. The Life Cycle Sustainability Analysis (LCSA) framework and the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals (SDGs) facilitated the methodology development. The result of applying the methodology to the case of waste bank (WB) in Bandung City shows that WB potentially generates the greatest sustainability impact in the resource recovery phase and the smallest impact in the collection and final disposal phase. All negative impacts could arise in the economic dimension. Surprisingly, WB as a national strategy to achieve 3Rs would not effectively solve Bandung City’s landfill problem. Almost all SDGs would benefit from the WB program under the assumed conditions. This methodology will faci...
Sustainability, 2019
Land use and land use change are among the main drivers of the ongoing loss of biodiversity at a ... more Land use and land use change are among the main drivers of the ongoing loss of biodiversity at a global-scale. Although there are already Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methods to measure this impact, they are still rarely used by companies and municipalities in the life cycle assessment of products and processes. Therefore, this paper highlights four main requirements for a biodiversity methodological framework within LCIA in order to facilitate biodiversity assessments: first, to consider the global uneven distribution of biodiversity and its risks with respect to vulnerability and irreplaceability; second, to account for the need to regionalize the impacts of land use; third, to consider the specific impacts that different land use types have on biodiversity; and fourth, to analyze the biodiversity impacts of different land use management parameters and their influence on the intensity of land use. To this end, we provided a review of existing methods in respect to conformit...
Sustainability, 2016
This paper describes a methodological approach for a sustainability assessment of development coo... more This paper describes a methodological approach for a sustainability assessment of development cooperation projects. Between the scientific disciplines there is no agreement on the term of "sustainability". Whereas the definition of sustainability within the context of development cooperation frequently highlights the long-term success of an intervention, the United Nations herald the inclusion of social, economic and environmental aspects. This paper proposes to bridge this gap by providing an analytical framework that uses nine impact category groups based on thematic priorities of sustainable development derived from the Sustainable Development Goals. Additionally, the long-term effectiveness of a project is taken into consideration. These impact category groups comprise the analytical framework, which is investigated by the Life Cycle Assessment and an indicator-based analysis. These data are obtained through empirical social research and the LCA inventory. The underlying concept is based on life cycle thinking. Taking up a multi-cycle model this study establishes two life cycles: first, the project management life cycle; and, second, the life cycle of a project's innovation. The innovation's life cycle is identified to have the greatest impact on the target region and the local people and is consequently of primary interest. This methodological approach enables an ex-post sustainability assessment of a built innovation of a development cooperation project and is tested on a case study on Improved Cooking Stoves in Bangladesh.
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Papers by Stephanie Maier