Public Expenditure and Sustainable Public Finances Post-COVID

The COVID 19 pandemic resulted in a major increase in fiscal imbalances and public spending. Spending and debt ratios reached new historic records in many advanced countries. To some observers this means heightened concerns about sustainability, while others argue for even more public spending financed with more “interest-free” debt. The facts, however, show that more public spending would be a risky strategy given very high public debt ratios. Moreover, there is much room for expenditure reductions and efficiency gains, that would allow to attain more sustainable public finances, boost real economic growth, enhance resilience against crises and pay for future challenges such as population aging, climate change and geopolitics.

Traces of Transport at the Vienna Hofburg Roof Constructions

The Vienna Hofburg is a large complex of buildings of unique historic importance with historical wooden constructions from the 13th to the 20th century. Within its wooden roof constructions, rafting wedges were found, which proves that the timber used did not originate in the surroundings of Vienna but had to be transported to the city. An ascertainment of these residual traces in eleven wings of the Hofburg building was made; five different types (within two main groups) of rafting wedges and withies (softened twigs that can be used like short ropes to tie trunks together) were defined: (1) simple flat wedges, driven into the fresh wood; (2) round or squared wedges, with or without withies driven into bored wholes. It was not possible to trace back the origin of the construction timber by means of that typology. However, the combination of dendroprovenancing and historic records found in archives led to first results.

The rare Scottish endemic Hieracium fulvocaesium orange-flowered hawkweed (Asteraceae) is on the verge of extinction

The rare Scottish endemic Hieracium fulvocaesium Pugsley, orange-flowered hawkweed, is on the verge of extinction. Historic records indicate it was only known from the east banks of the River Naver, Bettyhill, Sutherland. Three plants were rediscovered in 2017. It is IUCN threat status ‘Critically Endangered’ and it requires urgent conservation work to conserve it in the wild.

Current status of the rare British endemic Gentianella amarella subsp. occidentalis, Dune Gentian (Gentianaceae)

Gentianella amarella subsp. occidentalis, Dune Gentian, is a rare annual of dune slacks endemic to Western Britain. Its current status was compared to historic records. A maximum of 2250 plants were found in ten subpopulations in four sites in 2019-2020. It was not refound in three sites and 15 subpopulations. It is assessed as IUCN threat category ‘Endangered’. Its primary vegetation type is SD14d Salix repens - Campylium stellatum dune slack Festuca rubra subcommunity, within which it favours short, open structure on dry, low nutrient soils. Conservation requires managing and creating its niche in the dune slacks.

Estimating extreme sea levels combining systematic observed skew surges and historic record sea levels

<p>The estimation of the sea levels with a high return period is crucial for coastal planning and the assessment of coastal flooding risk. Coastal facilities are designed to very low probabilities of failure and hence the design values are affected by significant uncertainties. Some recent coastal floods due to exceptional surges suggest that the design performed with the current statistical approaches may sometimes be significantly underestimated. This presentation is a contribution to the use of historical observations to improve the estimation of extreme sea levels. Historic records consist in observed major sea level values. The corresponding skew surges may be estimated but the exhaustiveness of historical skew surges, which is an essential criterion for an unbiased statistical inference cannot be guaranteed. . Indeed, Extreme skew surges can easily remain unnoticed if they occur at low or moderate high tide and do not generate extreme sea levels. This study proposes to combine, in a single Bayesian inference procedure, series of measured skew surges for the recent period and extreme sea levels for the historic period. The method is tested on four sites (tide gauges) located on the French Atlantic and Channel coasts. The proposed method appears to provide unbiased quantile estimates and to be more reliable than previously proposed approaches to include historic records in coastal sea level or surge statistical analyses.</p>

A ~1000-year 13C Suess correction model for the study of past ecosystems

Inferences about how an ecosystem has changed through time often rely on longitudinal records of species characteristics or niche parameters, and stable isotope analysis is a common tool employed to study changes in an organism’s niche. One of the most frequently used stable isotope measures is δ13C, a ratio of 13C to 12C. However, applying δ13C to historical samples comes with some methodological hurdles. One such hurdle is correcting for the 13C Suess effect or the change in atmospheric δ13C due to increased anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The change in the amount of carbon isotopes in the atmosphere through time can confound the study of historical shifts in species characteristics. No standard way of correcting for the 13C Suess effect has been suggested despite this problem. Here, I propose a standard 13C Suess correction model for the past ~1000 years using three prehistoric/historic records of atmospheric δ13C.