News | engela - energy landscapes

The conference and workshop on “Exploring New Landscapes of Energies” (CONGEO 2011) being realized on August 1-4, in Brno, Hotel Continental has been already the 8th presentation of the geographical conferences organized by the Department of Environmental Geography at the Institute of Geonics, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It continues the tradition of biennial international meetings of geographers and other social scientists dealing with contemporary global and regional problems. This year’s event was organized in the context of a recently initiated research project: “Energy Landscapes: Innovation, Development and Internationalization of Research (ENGELA)”, which is aimed at accelerating international collaboration in research in the field of energy and landscape interrelationships.
The conference consisted of blocks of lectures, presentations and discussions, working groups meetings, and a whole-day thematical excursion. The conference was attended by more than 50 participants (of which 30 ones actively presented a paper or a poster) from 12 countries of Europe and overseas (Germany, Great Britain, Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, USA, Canada and Australia). As concerns the branch specialization, there contributions from the field of geography, landscape ecology, sociology and ethnography were presented and discussed, and some representatives of the public administration and developers from the energy sector were involved as well.
It was the aim of the conference to cover a wide spectrum of concerning issues: conceptual and methodological challenges of new geography of energies; the social–political acceptance of renewable energy innovation; energy development and its impacts on the landscape character and landscape aesthetics; the role of renewable energies in multifunctional agriculture; energy production and its impacts on the local identity and social and land-use conflicts; the issues of power and environmental injustice in land-use policy and politics; the role of geographical information systems (GIS) in landscape planning and energy development; etc.
During the whole day excursion the participants could get to knot some examples of successful and controversial energetic projects in the South-Moravian region, respectively the Znojemsko region (e.g. wind farm in Břežany, solar parks in Dobšice and Krhovice, biomass station in Velký Karlov) and to see some tourist attractions of the region (city of Znojmo, Podyjí National Park, Hnanice village with local vine production).

Generally, the conference can be evaluated as very successful and inspiring (that was confirmed by very positive response from foreign and homeland participants) and beneficial as concerns the aims and future activities of the project. A lot of new working contacts among scientists and specialist from different countries were established with a potential of future cooperation on common research and publication activities.

Conference CONGEO 2011  „Exploring New Landscapes of Energies“ 

We have the honour of inviting you to the CONGEO 2011 international conference on “EXPLORING NEW LANDSCAPES OF ENERGIES”. It is the 8th presentation of the geographical conferences organized by the Department of Environmental Geography at the Institute of Geonics ASCR, which continues the tradition of biennial international meetings of geographers and other social scientists dealing with contemporary regional problems.

This year’s conference is organized in the context of a recently initiated research project: “Energy Landscapes: Innovation, Development and Internationalization of Research”, aimed at accelerating international collaboration in research in the field of Energy and Landscape Interrelationships.

Suggested topics:

-          New energy geographies: conceptual and methodological challenges

-          Social-political acceptance of new energy technologies

-          Energy development, landscape character and landscape aesthetics

-          New energies for multifunctional agriculture

-          Local identity, sense of place and land-use conflicts

-          Power, environmental (in)justice and politics of land-use

-          GIS for landscape planning and energy development.

The tradition of the CONGEO conferences indicates that the organizers should create a familiar milieu for 30 - 40 scientists, not just to present their papers but also to discuss their research more informally and to establish new personal contacts. The conference is open to all academics and professionals dealing with the program issues - both geographers and non-geographers (landscape ecologists, environmental sociologists, environmental economists, etc.). 

The program of the conference will consist of a block of paper and poster presentations, bilateral discussions, an excursion and social activities. Conference results will be published in the Collection of the Extended Abstracts. The full text of selected papers will be recommended for publication in special thematic issue of the peer-reviewed journal Moravian Geographical Reports published by the Institute.  All correspondence related to the conference should be forwarded to the address below.
 

Conference Committee

Dr. Bohumil Frantal (Institute of Geonics ASCR, conference secretary)

Prof. Bryn Greer-Wootten (York University, Canada)

Dr. Dan van der Horst (University of Birmingham, UK)

Prof. RNDr. Radim Blaheta, CSc. (Director of the Institute of Geonics)

RNDr. Karel Kirchner, CSc. (Head of the Department)

Mgr. Stanislav Martinat (Institute of Geonics ASCR, project manager)

Contact address 

CONGEO 2011, Institute of Geonics ASCR

Department of Environmental Geography, Drobneho 28, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic

Conference committee e-mail: congeo@centrum.cz       

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