Culture-independent techniques were used for the detection of pathogenic bacteria in drinking water at potentially critical control points along the production lines at a German dairy company and a Spanish dry cured ham company. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) was used to describe bacterial population shifts indicating biological instability in the drinking water samples. Autochthonous bacteria were identified by sequencing the excised DGGE DNA bands. More specifically, real-time PCR was applied to detect a number of pathogenic bacteria, i.e. Listeria monocytogenes, Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis, Campylobacter jejuni, Enterococcus spp., Salmonella spp, Escherichia coli, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Due to the detection limits of the real-time PCR method, a specific protocol was established in order to meet the technical detection requirements and to avoid unwanted polymerase inhibitions. Autochthonous bacterial populations were found to be highly stable at most of the sampling points. Only one sampling point exhibited population shifts at the German dairy company. Enterococci and P. aeruginosa were detected in some water samples from these companies by molecular biology detection methods, but not by conventional culturing methods. Some opportunistic bacteria as Enterobacter sp., Acinetobacter, Sphingomonas sp. and non-pathogenic Bacillus, were also detected after DNA sequencing of DGGE bands.

Policymaking in the water–energy–food nexus is characterized by complex ecological, social, and economic interdependencies. Nexus research assumes these interactions to be overseen in the respective resource governance resulting in sectoral perspectives contributing to unsustainable outcomes. In Germany, the political priority given to the formation of an internationally competitive livestock sector by means of intensification, specialization and regional concentration has exerted sustained pressure on water and soil resources. The expansion of bioenergy plants promoted by the renewable energy act has exacerbated the situation. Despite the persistency of the ecological challenges, German policymakers only reacted when the European Commission referred Germany to the European Court of Justice. Current policy efforts to tackle the ecological problems are now provoking disruptions in the agrarian sector in regions with high nitrate concentrations in water resources. By combining the social-ecological systems framework with hypotheses derived from nexus research, we explore the interactions between food, water and energy systems and aim at understanding the unsustainable outcomes. We argue that the non-consideration of the complex interdependencies between the agricultural, the water and the energy system in policymaking and the divergence of policy goals constitute a major cause of unsustainable governance.

Wegen umfangreicher Cd-Emissionen eines Betriebes in Bad Liebenstein kam es zur Cd-Anreicherung in diesem Lebensraum. Boden, Wasser und Flora spiegeln die Cd-Belastung wider.

The challenges of the 21st century require resilient societies and a robust international regulatory framework [1]. The current disruptions to the global framework (most notably by the Covid-19 pandemic and the war on Ukraine) as well as the historic experiences especially of the Great Depression and the Lehman crisis (Annex II) elucidate the importance of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global regulatory framework. The SDGs provide new targets for resilient development. In this paper we set specific focus especially on SDG 17 “Partnerships for the Goals” and its aim of a free multilateral trading system (Annex I, SDG 17.10-17.12) for sustainable development [2]. Against this background the German Resilience Index was developed as a new measure for defining the resilience of the German society based on the SDGs including the explicit consideration of trade dynamics. The German Resilience Index (GRI) enables an analysis of the extent to which Germany has succeeded in building socio-economic-ecological resilience to defy the storms of globalization. The index is based on the German Sustainable Development Goals and the defined targets, considering also ethical values derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities of the InterAction Council and trade relations as corner stones of resilient development. The analysis thus provides a first approach for systematically considering the impact of Germany’s intensive participation in globalization and the ethical values of the German Sustainability Strategy and its SDGs. The results are important for the political decision-making process and the political as well as social discourse about the future course of sustainable, and thus resilient, development in Germany.

N-nitrosamines are potent carcinogens, particularly N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) and N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), which are commonly found in a variety of foods and drinking water. We calculated the food and drinking water intakes of NDMA, NDEA, and total volatile nitrosamines (TVNA) by Chinese residents in different provinces by multiplying the reported total diet study results by the nitrosamine contents in food and drinking water. The weighted content of nitrosamines in each category of foods and the concentration of nitrosamines in drinking water was obtained through literature review. The exogenous NDMA, NDEA and TVNA intakes of adult residents in 20 provinces ranged from 171 to 425 ng/d, 41 to 140 ng/d and 373 to 1028 ng/d, respectively. The main contributors to NDMA and TVNA intakes were vegetables, cereals, aquatic products, and meats while the main sources of NDEA intake were vegetables and cereals. The average total NDMA intake per capita in China (251 ng/d) was similar to that in Germany in 1991 (231 ng/d) but higher than that in the United States (136 ng/d), Canada (87.6 ng/d) and France (188 ng/d). Large differences in nitrosamine intakes were observed between the coastal provinces and inland provinces. Drinking water was estimated to contribute 13.1%, 1.3% and 10.8% of the exogenous intakes of NDMA, NDEA and TVNA, respectively. Based on our results, we recommend setting the NDMA drinking water criterion of 40 ng/L. Overall, this study presents basic information regarding nitrosamines intake via food and drinking water in China that will facilitate risk assessment, generation of health advisories and policy making.

The current global developments have the potential to cause a ‘perfect storm’ at the core of the Anthropocene: the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus. To discuss the ethical consequences of these developments, i.e., insufficient access to the life sustaining nexus resources, the analysis is focused on Rawls' theory of justice and its implementation in Germany with a special focus on the FEW nexus. Rawls stresses in his theory of justice the prominent meaning of institutions for a fair society to meet societal challenges and to meet the challenge of our time: a stable and just society.Hence, the realization of his ideas in Germany is scrutinized and income tax and value added tax are interpreted in the sense of Douglas North and John Rawls as institutions and formal rules of society. This paper focuses on taxes as the most important institutional incentive to organize and structure the political, social and economic cooperation and analyses how these incentives affect selected German households (all households, singles, single man and woman, and couples) with respect to income and FEW expenditures.The relevant income and usage data sample (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe (EVS)) for Germany is used for the analysis of the distribution of income types, FEW expenditures and the revenues of income tax and value added tax, i.e., the main instruments to manage the challenges of the FEW nexus. Therefore two distribution measures have been used: the dispersion of income, taxes and FEW expenditures and their skewness. Five household groups were selected for this analysis: All households, all single households, the single women households, the single men households, as well as the households of couples. The EVS data sample allows the analysis of consequences of the current societal conditions on the various households and thus serves to provide a deeper understanding of the differences between singles and couples but also between single women and men.

This data set presents a food web for the Flensburg Fjord, a brackish shallow water inlet on the Baltic Sea, between Germany and Denmark. The system has a benthic and shallow water pelagic component. This food web has two noteworthy attributes: (1) inclusion of metazoan parasites and other infectious agents and (2) inclusion of ontogenetic stages of parasites with complex life cycles. Data on the free‐living assemblages and parasitism were gathered during original field sampling and supplemented with information from additional published sources and local expert knowledge. Taxonomic resolution is generally high, although some functional or taxonomic groups (e.g., phytoplankton, macroalgae, and several groups of birds) are lumped into single nodes. Each ontogenetic stage of parasites with complex life cycles is treated separately and coded accordingly. For each node, we have included additional information such as taxonomy, life history, residency, and seasonality. Further, for each link, we define a specific interaction type. The web contains 180 nodes, 123 species/assemblages, and 1577 realized links. Of the 123 species/assemblages, 6 are basal, 70 are free‐living, and 45 are infectious. We present the data and metadata in the system‐neutral format standardized by R. F. Hechinger and colleagues, and thus we recognize variables that are not represented in our data set but may be added by further study.

Only a combination of nutrient load abatement and food-web management proved efficient for the management of water quality in the deep stratifying Wupper Reservoir. Reduction of nutrient loading, was completed in winter 1992/1993, but resulted only in reduced winter/spring mixing of phosphorus concentrations. Since the capacity of the diatom spring bloom to remove nutrients from the trophogenic layer of this slightly eutrophic water-body was never exhausted, the surplus of total phosphorus available to support summer algal growth remained unchanged. Thus, nutrient reduction alone did not improve the water quality, as expected. Subsequent replacement of the smaller Daphnia cucullata by the larger Daphnia galeata-hyalina complex that was attributable to successful food-web management did, however, result in a shift from a turbid to a clear water regime in 1999. Clearly, the zooplankton community, and therefore food-web structure, played an integral role in nutrient recycling and in the repartitioning of the phosphorus pool. As diatom settling and grazing became much more tightly linked with the appearance of the larger-bodied Daphnia galeata-hyalina complex, which exploits lower-level food resources as early as May, daphnids increasingly acted as a sink for phosphorus. This increased export fluxes out of the pelagic zone and leaves a smaller surplus of total phosphorus to support the accumulation of summer algae. Consequently, water transparency and total chlorophyll concentrations in summer improved with food-web restructuring, indicating real oligotrophication of Wupper Reservoir driven by internal feedbacks.

The growth response of juvenile round gobies was tested in various salinities to assess the potential performance of the species in widely differing salinities in the Baltic Sea and adjacent waters. An experimental approach analysed the survival, daily food intake and growth of juvenile Neogobius melanostomus from the brackish water region of the Kiel Canal, Germany. Round gobies (TL = 61.5 ±5.3 mm; n = 40) were fed ad libitum (diet = mysid shrimp; energy content = 4.7 cal per mg dry weight) at salinity levels of 0.1, 7.5, 15 and 30 over 12 weeks. Two replicate tanks (125 × 30 × 30 cm; 100 L) were maintained for each salinity level, each holding five specimens at a mean temperature of 19.90°C (±0.64°C; n = 136). Survival at all levels was 100%, except for 0.1 with 90%. Mean daily food intake (% of body weight) increased from salinity level 0.1 to 15 (from 17.76% to 19.95%); specimens at level 30 showed a more diversified and lower mean food intake (18.44%). Mean cumulative body weight gain appeared greatest at a level of 7.5 (224.52%), closely followed by 0.1 (206.57%) and 15 (191.92%). In contrast, fish growth was significantly lower at a salinity level of 30 (100.57%). Results of the experiment indicate that salinity tolerance estimates of the round goby made by other authors are too low regarding specimens that stem from brackish habitats. Growth patterns of some specimens, even in the salinity 30 treatment, show that a further spread of this species into regions with higher salinities is quite possible.