| Abstract: | Abstract German reunification had significant political, economic, social, and environmental impacts. A major environmental impact involved changes to the German technological hazardscape (especially in the East). Hazardscapes are defined here as the spatial distribution and attributes of human engineered facilities such as industrial plants, military bases and power stations that contain or emit substances harmful to humans and the environment. The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why the German technological hazardscape changed after reunification. A cursory analysis might ascribe hazardscape change to the application of strict West German environmental laws and sophisticated environmental protection technologies to the East. This paper contends, however, that it was a political economy rather than an environmental imperative that drove the changes to the hazardscape, and that this continuing conflict may have serious repercussions on the future environmental health of eastern Germany. |
