A market concept for media problems: A few theses
The author explores the concept of markets and marketplaces and how they apply to media and research on media activities. He argues that media markets cannot be considered to be self‐defining, self‐regulatory systems because of their interdependent relations with other subsystems in society, and that traditional regulatory policies are inadequate for dealing with contemporary media because of changing temporal and social factors.
Ein Marktmodell zur Analyse ökumenischer Prozesse
Die gegenwartige Periode der Kirchengeschichte ist wiederholt als eine Ara der OOkumene beschrieben worden. Innerhalb des amerikanischen Protestantismus findet man diese Behauptung leicht bestatigt, wenn man nur die augenfalligsten Anzeichen okumenischer Betatigungen betrachtet, z. B. die Entwicklung einer Vielfalt von Formen interdenominationaler Zusammenarbeit und eine auffallende Neigung der Denominationen zum Zusammenschlus. Auserdem kann man beobachten, das die Idee der Okumene, die bisher nur unbedeutende theologische Kreise beschaftigte, zum Gegenstand starksten Interesses und hochster Aktivitat von denominationalen Organisationen und deren Funktionaren wird. Jedoch gleichzeitig mit dieser Verbreitung eines neuen okumenischen Geistes ist ein Denominationalismus wiedererwacht, dessen Kennzeichen ein erneutes Betonen des historischen Erbes und der eigentumlichen theologischen Position der jeweiligen Denomination ist. Dieses paradoxe Zusammentreffen des okumenischen Gedankens und des Denominationalismus wird im allgemeinen erkannt, aber unterschiedlich gedeutet. Einige Interpretationen sehen diese beiden Phanomene als antagonistisch und antithetisch; dabei wird der Denominationalismus gewohnlich als der Bosewicht hingestellt, der die Einigung der Kirche verhindert 2. Andere, deren Vorstellungen den offiziellen Ansichten des Weltkirchenrates nahekommen, betonen, das — theologisch ausgedruckt — die okumenische Aktivitat nicht im Widerspruch zur Wiederentdeckung und Bestatigung der jeweiligen denominationalen Identitat zu stehen brauche 3.
Impacts of climate and land use changes on flood risk management for the Schijn River, Belgium
Abstract Flooding is the most common natural disaster in Europe. Modern flood risk management relies not only infrastructure development but also on governmental and non-governmental actors applying legal, economic and communicative water management instruments. Within the European Union (EU), flood management closely relies on policy set at the EU and national levels. It is now recognized that a sound understanding of climate change is required in addition to current management by taking into account land use change and socio-political context, as climate and land use changes have major impacts on hydrological responses. This paper investigates the hydrological behavior due to urbanization under current and future climate scenarios of high summer and high winter rainfall for 20 sub-catchments of the Schijn River, located in the Flanders region near Antwerp, Belgium. As urbanization increases and existing rainfall-runoff models neglecting the specific behavior of urban runoff, a hydrological model was developed based on a basic reservoir concept and applied to the existing rainfall-runoff model (PDM) flow to examine the specific urban contribution. Results revealed that peak flow for urban runoff and the total peak flow (i.e. rural and urban runoff) were significantly higher (i.e. ranges from 200% to 500%) than the existing rainfall-runoff model (PDM) flows, because of faster and more peaked urban runoff response. The impact of climate change on current and future conditions was also assessed by estimating peak flows with respect to return periods from the flood frequency curve. The predicted peak flow of high summer future climate scenario was significantly higher (i.e. ranges from 200% to 250%) than that of the current climatic condition for this region. Furthermore, hourly peak flow and daily volume ratios of 100-year return period for the highest, lowest and average impervious area were projected for the time horizon of the year 2100. It is concluded that climate change impacts contribute the most in producing peak flow in coming years, while increased urbanization takes the second place for both hourly and daily values. Results on urbanization effect and climate change impact assessment are useful to the water managers for spatial planning, emergency planning and insurance industry.