Contribution of Local Agenda 21 to Practical Implementation of Sustainable Development: The Case of the Czech Republic

Local Agenda 21 (LA21), a voluntary tool for implementing sustainable development (SD) in local level, is one way of implementing sustainability principles in practice. Twenty years after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Conference in Rio de Janeiro, which made the first reference of LA21 (intended as a framework for the twenty-first century respecting SD principles), this article deals with evaluating the real contribution of this initiative to the implementation of SD in practice on the example of selected municipalities in the Czech Republic. This contribution is examined by a comparative analysis of the indices of change in selected indicators (three to four indicators for each pillar of SD) for municipalities involved in the LA21 initiative in comparison with reference municipalities, which have not been involved in LA21 so far. The analysis results indicate that different trends in some of the indicators can be observed in municipalities implementing LA21 and in the others. This applies, in particular, to the environmental indicators (such as the degree of waste separation, indicating in part the degree of environmental awareness), but also to some of the economic ones (municipal capital expenditures indicating investment activity).     

The Cold War and environmental history: complementary fields

The Cold War was not only for the hearts and minds of people, it was also for their mouths and bellies, that is, for food, energy and raw materials. This signified a global power struggle over the control of natural resources. In addition to the increasing consumption of natural resources and resulting pollution, the destructive capacity of the weapons of mass destruction compelled human beings to recognise that their activities could ultimately endanger the planet earth. The Cold War was a propagator and framework for the birth of global catastrophism and also for the emergence of a global environmental awareness. Nature, its exploitation and also gradually its protection, opened up yet another front in the Cold War. Yet the relationship between the Cold War and the environment was reciprocal. On the one hand, concerns over environmental contamination or destruction called into question the meaningfulness of the Cold War itself. On the other hand, the specific sociopolitical structures of the Cold War deeply affected the emergence of environmental ideas, ideals, organisations and activities in different continents.     

The anatomy of difference: comprehending the evolutionary dynamics of economic and spatial structure in the Austrian and Czech economies

The research on the economic convergence of Central and Eastern European countries towards the old EU members is voluminous, and it has an obvious appeal to both policy-makers and public. Unlike the traditional literature concerned with selected macro-patterns of the European convergence process, this paper presents a comparative study of two economies, attempting to comprehend more nuanced aspects and underlying mechanisms shaping their evolution. It examines the evolutionary dynamics of the structure and spatial organization of the Czech and Austrian economies since the late 1980s. Therefore, as a basis for subsequent analysis, the conceptual part attempts to systematize the key specific factors of the former command economies. The empirical results show that, despite significant similarities in the structure of these economies, the absolute and relative productivity as well as the spatial relatedness of the main types of industries reveal important differences between these two countries. These distinctions tend to be disregarded when making inferences about the European convergence process on the basis of traditional literature concerned predominantly with macro-patterns. Consequently, this study shows that since the collapse of socialism, Czechia has been reintegrated into the global economy in a different way from Austria, implying different evolutionary trajectories in the future.     

The impact of language borders on the spatial decay of agglomeration and competition spillovers

There is now strong evidence that “soft” institutions are interrelated with the working of the economy. For example, in a geographical setting there is evidence that language borders affect interpersonal relationships, but there is no equivalent evidence regarding the effects of language borders on agglomeration or competition spillovers. This paper examines whether language affects the geographical extension of agglomeration and competition spillovers by observing the geography of employment patterns in a linguistically discontinuous setting. Our findings, for the first time, provide empirical evidence that language borders shape the distance decay of competition spillovers, independent of governance, and institutional issues.     

Regional embeddedness,relatedness and inter-regional linkages among less developed regions in Central Europe

This paper aims at a comprehension of existing intra-/inter-regional production flows in a dynamically transforming, export-oriented economy in Central Europe. Drawing on evolutionary economic geography combined with input–output approaches, we have assessed the sectoral compositions and relationships between regions from a buyer-supplier interactions perspective. Inspired by contemporary literature we applied concepts of regional embeddedness, relatedness and vertically related variety. Conceptually we argue that the degree of embeddedness of regions is differentiated and spatially non-random. The differences will depend to a large extent on the economic characteristics and on the ability of key actors and institutions in these regions to respond actively to changing opportunities and threats. Empirically we have found: that economically more developed regions are relatively more embedded in terms of production flows and have greater sectoral variety, whereas regions with high export-dependence are economically backward, and have higher concentration of industry and negative associations with innovation activity and overall innovation potential. The intensity of interregional production flows increases as the regional economies vary more from each other, but beyond a certain level of structural difference the rate of mutual flows decreases; and that the intensity of interregional relations depends on the relatedness of the economic bases.     

Arch Dam-Fluid Interaction Considering Reservoir Topology

The magnitudes of the hydrodynamic pressures at the dam-fluid interface depend on the amount of energy transmitted to the fluid by the vibration of the reservoir boundaries. Although the reservoir topology can have a considerable impact on the amount of generated energy, it has still not been adequately addressed. This article treats an arch dam-fluid interaction considering a compound wave field of compressive and dilatational waves in a reservoir with a complex topology. A truncation surface was located at a distance beyond which the simulated wave field has only negligible effects.