ABSTRACT. Although the invention and widespread use of artificial light is clearly one of the most important human technological advances, the transformation of nightscapes is increasingly recognized as having adverse effects. Night lighting may have serious physiological consequences for humans, ecological and evolutionary implications for animal and plant populations, and may reshape entire ecosystems. However, knowledge on the adverse effects of light pollution is vague. In response to climate change and energy shortages, many countries, regions, and communities are developing new lighting programs and concepts with a strong focus on energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. Given the dramatic increase in artificial light at night (0 -20% per year, depending on geographic region), we see an urgent need for light pollution policies that go beyond energy efficiency to include human well-being, the structure and functioning of ecosystems, and inter-related socioeconomic consequences. Such a policy shift will require a sound transdisciplinary understanding of the significance of the night, and its loss, for humans and the natural systems upon which we depend. Knowledge is also urgently needed on suitable lighting technologies and concepts which are ecologically, socially, and economically sustainable. Unless managing darkness becomes an integral part of future conservation and lighting policies, modern society may run into a global self-experiment with unpredictable outcomes.

This paper examines the prospects for the interactive governance of water and land use following an initiative to institutionalise integrated river basin management. Taking an institutionalist perspective it first presents river basin management as a tool for overcoming problems of spatial fit and institutional interplay over water and land use. A case study of the implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive in Germany then explores opportunities and requirements for governance in future water management. On the basis of these findings the paper tests the validity of the thesis that the success of EU policy reform depends on the degree of 'fit' with existing institutional structures and practices. r

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This paper makes the case for studying intermediary organisations as a window on the shifting governance of water and energy services in Europe today. It explores the notion of intermediaries and intermediation in a wide range of literatures and demonstrates how the governance concept can provide focus to the term, indicating how intermediaries can influence the pursuit of collective goals under shifting governance structures and processes. Against this conceptual backdrop the paper sets out the key governance challenges emerging from the ongoing transformation of socio-technical systems (addressing water and energy services) in terms of changing relations between the state and the utility, between service provider and user, between infrastructure and urban systems and between infrastructure and the environment. It subsequently provides empirical illustration of the emergence of

ABSTRACT. Within the broad discourse on the concept of fit and its relevance for the governance of social-ecological systems, problems of spatial fit have attracted particular attention. Mismatches abound between the geographical extent of an environmental resource and the territorial scope of the institutions affecting its use. Managing water resources around river basins is, perhaps, the most prominent illustration of attempts to reconcile the boundaries of an environmental resource with those of its respective institutions. Achieving perfect spatial fit has, however, proved an elusive task in practice. Beyond the difficulties of defining the physical boundaries of water and reordering institutional arrangements to reflect these, improving spatial fit for water can create new spatial misfits with other policy sectors upon which sustainable water management is dependent. The paper explores the way spatial fit is conceptualized, institutionalized, and practised, using the EU Water Framework Directive and its implementation in one sub-basin of the Rhine as an exemplar. The paper develops from the analysis a more differentiated and context-sensitive understanding of the concept of spatial fit of practical value to policy makers.

As one of the most ambitious national energy transition initiatives worldwide, the German Energiewende is attracting a huge amount of attention globally in both policy and research circles. The paper explores the implementation of Germany's energy transition through the lens of organisation and ownership in urban and regional contexts. Following a summary of the principal institutional challenges of the Energiewende at local and regional levels the paper develops a novel way of conceptualising the institutional to urban and regional energy transitions in terms of agency and power, ideas and discourse, and commons and ownership. This analytical heuristic is applied to a two-tier empirical study of the Berlin-Brandenburg region. The first tier involves a survey of the organisational landscape of energy infrastructures and services in cities, towns and villages in Brandenburg. The second tier comprises a case study of current, competing initiatives for (re-)gaining ownership of the power grid and utility in Berlin. The paper draws conclusions on the diverse and dynamic organisational responses to the Energiewende at the local level, what these tell us about urban and regional energy governance and how they are inspired by -or in opposition to -new forms of collective ownership resonant of recent debates on reclaiming the commons. It concludes with observations on how relational approaches to institutional research and the notion of the commons can guide and inspire future research on socio-technical transitions in general, and urban energy transitions in particular. IntroductionAs one of the most ambitious national energy transition initiatives worldwide, the German Energiewende is attracting a huge amount of attention globally in both policy and research circles. Opinions from in-and outside Germany range from admiration to admonition, with benevolent observers hailing the Energiewende as a model for emulation elsewhere and critics dismissing it as a policy driven more by desire than rational logic (see Gawel et al. 2013). There is clearly an urgent need to provide grounded insight into how Germany's own energy transition, framed by the nuclear exit strategy, is playing out in practice. Given that the shift from nuclear to renewable energy sources in Germany is hugely

This article explores the unfamiliar, but increasingly prevalent problem of overcapacity in urban infrastructure systems in regions subject to dramatic socio-economic restructuring. Taking the case of water supply and wastewater disposal systems in Eastern Germany as an example, it examines firstly how infrastructure overcapacities have emerged since reunification in 1990 as a result both of sharply declining water consumption in the wake of 'shrinking' processes and of infrastructure expansion. Secondly, the article analyses what impact chronic overcapacity is having on the governance of water infrastructure systems. This empirical analysis is framed conceptually in terms of the current debate on the changing relationship between infrastructures and the localities they serve. It assesses specifically how far and in what ways the phenomenon of overcapacity in technical networks resonates with the 'splintering urbanism'thesis developed by Stephen Graham and SimonMarvin. It argues that the serious technical and economic problems posed by overcapacity are intensifying spatial disparities in service quality and price, and -more fundamentally -are challenging the supply-driven 'modern infrastructural ideal' of universal and equitable water services.

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