Das Projekt "Biogenic soil structures: feedbacks between bioactivity and spatial heterogeneity of water storage and fluxes from plot to hillslope scale" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institut für Geoökologie, Abteilung Umweltsystemanalyse durchgeführt. Soil structure determines a large part of the spatial heterogeneity in water storage and fluxes from the plot to the hillslope scale. In recent decades important progress in hydrological research has been achieved by including soil structure in hydrological models. One of the main problems herein remains the difficulty of measuring soil structure and quantifying its influence on hydrological processes. As soil structure is very often of biogenic origin (macropores), the main objective of this project is to use the influence of bioactivity and resulting soil structures to describe and support modelling of hydrological processes at different scales. Therefore, local scale bioactivity will be linked to local infiltration patterns under varying catchment conditions. At hillslope scale, the spatial distribution of bioactivity patterns will be linked to connectivity of subsurface structures to explain subsurface stormflow generation. Then we will apply species distribution modelling of key organisms in order to extrapolate the gained knowledge to the catchment scale. As on one hand, bioactivity influences the hydrological processes, but on the other hand the species distribution also depends on soil moisture contents, including the feedbacks between bioactivity and soil hydrology is pivotal for getting reliable predictions of catchment scale hydrological behavior under land use change and climate change.
Das Projekt "Sub project: Determination of the depth of rhyolitic magma chambers in the Snake River Plain province, USA - An experimental calibration" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Mineralogie durchgeführt. The investigation of high-silica rhyolitic rocks collected in the recent ICDP drilling from the Snake River Plain (SRP) volcanic province (western United States) as well as rocks from the adjacent rhyolitic complexes offers a unique opportunity to track the evolution of magma storage conditions in time and space in the 'Yellowstone hotspot' intracontinental volcanic province. The application of various geothermometers which can be used to determine pre-eruptive temperatures show a general trend indicating a general decrease of temperature over the last 16 Ma. However, the depth (or pressure) of the magma chambers is difficult to constrain and remains mainly unknown because the mineral assemblage in the rhyolitic systems is not suitable for geobarometry. As an alternative to mineral compositions, the silica content of rhyolitic melts can be used to constrain pressure, provided that the silicate melts have cotectic compositions (melts coexisting with quartz and feldspar), which is the case for most SRP rhyolites. From studies in synthetic systems, it is well known that the silica content of cotectic melts decreases with increasing pressure and that it may be used as barometer in pressure ranges of ca 1000 - 50 MPa. However, the evolution of silica content with pressure is not calibrated for natural systems containing up to 2 wtProzent Cao and 4 wtProzent FeO. In this study, we plan to determine the role of pressure on the silica content of cotectic melts compositions relevant for SRP compositions. The experimental data are crucial to interpret the natural glass compositions (matrix glass and glass inclusions) analyzed in the ICDP core samples and will be used to extract quantitative information on the depth of magma storage prior to eruption. The dataset obtained from various eruptive events (samples from ICDP drillings and other SRP rhyolites) will be used to check if there is an evolution of the depth of magma storage over the lifetime of the 'Yellowstone hotspot' in the last 16 Ma and if there is a correlation between the pre-eruptive pressure, the volume of erupted material, the temperature (or differentiation level) and the water activity of magmas. This study will be conducted in close cooperation with other U.S. groups who are in charge of the analysis of ICDP rhyolitic samples. It is emphasized that the experimental database obtained in this project can also be applied to other case studies (high silica rhyolites, A-type granites).
Das Projekt "Supporting the role of the Common agricultural policy in LAndscape valorisation: Improving the knowledge base of the contribution of landscape Management to the rural economy (CLAIM)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universita di Bologna, Alma Mater Studiorum durchgeführt. The provision of public goods (including landscape services) in rural areas is recognized as one of the key topics for the future of agriculture and rural policy. Agriculture plays a major role in landscape management through its complex interlinkages with landscape features. In turn, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) remains an important driver of landscape management due to its importance as a determinant of farming activities in the EU. The main objective of the CLAIM project is to provide the knowledge base to support an effective CAP policy design in the direction of improved landscape management, particularly providing insights into the ability of landscape to contribute to the production of added value for society in rural areas. CLAIM is focused in particular on understanding and enhancing the contribution of landscapes management to socio-economic development and agricultural competitiveness in rural areas. This will be based on a pragmatic consideration of landscape services and their analysis through a mixed-method approach, taking into account the wider EU policy strategies (in particular related to innovation and the bioeconomy). The main expected result of the CLAIM project is an evidence-based policy support framework on the different and possible contributions of agriculture and the CAP to landscape management. The framework will be mainly developed and validated through a set of 9 case studies, a strong involvement of stakeholders at different territorial levels and a wide coverage of the perspectives of EU and candidate countries. The framework will finally take the practical form of a web-based manual to be implemented in accordance to stakeholders needs and indications.
Das Projekt "Green Cook - Transnational strategy for global sustainable food management" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Stuttgart, Institut für Siedlungswasserbau, Wassergüte- und Abfallwirtschaft, Lehrstuhl für Abfallwirtschaft und Abluft durchgeführt. GreenCook is aimed at reducing food wastage and to make the North-West Europe a model of sustainable food management, by in-depth work on the consumer / food relationship thanks to a multisectoral partnership. Food wastage is a challenging problem, directly linked with the question of waste, consumption and climate change. A quarter of the food produced in the world each year ends up in the dustbin, without having been consumed. Food wastage, a reflection of our overconsumption society, also reinforces social inequalities and is ethically unacceptable. The negative impacts of this wastage are real: for households (useless expenditure), for local authorities (overproduction of waste to be treated, increased costs), for the environment (pointless use of resources and pollution), and for the economy (falling prices). There is a pressing need, for consumers to respect food and food producers again, to enjoy the pleasure of healthy and tasty eating again, to rediscover culinary know-how, and to optimise food presentation, storage and conservation. Lately, tools and methods are under experimentation to help consumers to improve their food management while controlling their purchasing power. They aim at changing behaviour or altering the offer (at the supermarket, in the restaurant or in the canteen). It is alas hard for them to be generalised, because of the complexity of the levers that have to be activated. GreenCooks ambition is to create this lever effect, by generating a dynamic that motivates all of the food players and by throwing pathbreaking bridges with the fields of health, welfare and economic development. Its diversified partnership intends to show the added value of united, transversal action, and to influence EU policies, in order to get a new European sustainable food model to emerge. Prime Contractor: Espace Environnement asbl; Charleroi; Belgien.
Das Projekt "Engine representative internal cooling knowledge and applications (ERICKA)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG durchgeführt. The goal of ERICKA is to directly contribute to reductions in aircraft engine fuel consumption with a targeted contribution of 1Prozent reduction in SFC relative to engines currently in service. The fuel efficiency of a jet engine used for aircraft propulsion is dependent on the performance of many key engine components. One of the most important is the turbine whose efficiency has a large influence on the engine fuel consumption and hence its CO2 emissions. The turbine must operate with high efficiency in the most hostile environment in the engine. The design of turbine cooling systems remains one of the most challenging processes in engine development. Modern high-pressure turbine cooling systems invariably combine internal convection cooling with external film cooling in complex flow systems whose individual features interact in complex ways. The heat transfer and cooling processes active are at the limit of current understanding and engine designers rely heavily on empirical tools and engineering judgement to produce new designs. ERICKA will provide a means of improving turbine blade cooling technology that will reduce turbine blade cooling mass-flow relative to that required using existing technology. A reduction in cooling mass-flow leads directly to improved component and engine efficiency. The improved technology for turbine cooling developed by ERICKA will also enable low NOx combustion chambers to be included in future engines. ERICKA will undertake research to furnish better understanding of the complex flows used to internally cool rotating turbine blades. This will be achieved by: 1) Acquisition of high quality experimental data using static and rotating test facilities 2) Development of cooling design capability by enhancement of computer codes that will exploit these experimental data ERICKA groups 18 partners representing the European aero engine industry, five SMEs and a set of leading academic institutions. Prime Contractor: Rolls-Royce PLC; London; United Kingdom.
Das Projekt "Evolutionary Conflicts and their Impact on Speciation (follow-up)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Integrative Biologie durchgeführt. In addition to recognizing natural selection as a universal mechanism in evolution, Darwin also saw the importance of sexual selection, yet the two have been traditionally treated largely in isolation. Here I propose to apply experimental evolution (exposing experimental populations to controlled specific selective pressures over many generations in the laboratory) to the ideally suited model system Tribolium castaneum to explore how these evolutionary forces interact and impact on the key processes underlying biodiversity. Understanding how these fundamental forces, singly and in conjunction, influence species divergence remains a major challenge in evolutionary biology. Participation of sexual selection in driving speciation is supported by substantial theoretical evidence. Theory further suggests that evolutionary conflicts (such as between the sexes or between host and parasite) might also accelerate extinction. Additional complexity is introduced by including the environmental context, linking back to natural selection. Direct experimental tests of the above concepts are essentially lacking. I will explicitly target this gap by exploiting powerful experimental evolution, incorporating the interplay between sexual selection intensity, host-parasite conflict, and adaptation to increasing temperature. Projects will assess how selection under evolutionary conflict and environmental change affects both adaptation and extinction rates, aiming to elucidate underlying mechanisms. Additionally, building on clear phenotypic divergence in key traits across experimental evolution lines, I will significantly expand on previous work by assessing patterns of divergence in gene expression, concentrating on target genes associated with reproduction, immunity and heat shock. This research will be of particular interest to scientists working in the fields of evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology, but also to ecologists, reproductive biologists, and conservation biologists. As Tribolium beetles are widespread agricultural pests, results will also be relevant to more applied researchers.
Das Projekt "Implications of the biogenic character on aquatic food chain accumulation of elemental selenium" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Fachhochschule beider Basel - Nordwestschweiz durchgeführt. Selenium is a double edged chemical element, since it is both essential yet highly toxic. Besides its high acute toxicity, selenium is characterized to be strongly bioconcentrated from dissolved selenium species (selenite, selenate, selenoaminoacids) in aquatic primary producers and further biomagnified during food chain transfer. In consequence, water borne selenium concentrations of as little as 2 myg / L have been documented to cause severely adverse effects on top predators such as water birds and fish. Although the ecotoxic impact was first noticed in the early 1980s, to date no definitive solution has been found to remediate selenium contaminated drainage and waste waters. Due to the water insolubility of elemental selenium, the dogma that 'elemental selenium is not bioavailable and not toxic' dominates current scientific literature and forms the basis for various remediation approaches using microorganisms to convert selenium oxyanions to elemental selenium. However, a number of considerations and recent studies suggest that the dogma might only be true for 'bulk' elemental selenium, yet not for microbially formed, so called biogenic selenium. Biogenic differs from bulk elemental selenium considerably regarding its physico-chemical properties. Biogenic elemental selenium consists of nanometer sized spheres, which do not crystallize to larger particles of trigonal elemental selenium, the thermodynamically stable allotrope. The latter is due to stabilization by proteins associated with the particles. As a consequence, biogenic elemental selenium does not settle yet remains in waters as a colloidal suspension, thus being subject to uptake by biota. Although the general bioavailability of biogenic elemental selenium has been proven, it has not been studied in detail, in particular not in aquatic environments. We aim at quantifying acute and chronic toxicity in the model organism Daphnia magna, elucidating the underlying mechanism of toxicity. Furthermore, we will quantify biogenic elemental selenium uptake, depuration and biotransformation to proteinous forms (the species most relevant for trophic transfer). Thus we will be able to deliver an improved model of selenium food chain transfer in aquatic environments, the basis for appropriate selenium risk assessment. During the course of the proposed research, such questions as the following will be answered: - Is biogenic elemental selenium bioavailable and / or toxic to Daphnia magna? Which are the mechanisms underlying toxicity? - To which extent is biogenic selenium biotransformed to proteinous (highly bioaccumulative) species? Does biogenic elemental selenium represent a significant entrance port for selenium at base of aquatic food chain?
Das Projekt "Strengthening research capacity and knowledge transfer in Integrated Pest Management at different institutional levels to improve sustainable agriculture in Albania" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von CABI Biosciene, Switzerland durchgeführt. Background: As Albanian agriculture began returning to the private sector in the late 1990s, it was evident that the infrastructure was weak, resulting in low production standards and inefficient use of resources. Despite efforts in the last two decades to restructure and strengthen the agriculture sector, it still remains underdeveloped, characterised by inadequate research, development, transfer of knowledge and modernisation. Farmers still rely on outdated, inefficient pesticide application equipment and often use highly toxic pesticides that are banned in the rest of Europe. Within the agricultural schools and universities, there is a weak capacity for agricultural research and knowledge transfer stemming from several infrastructure-related shortcomings, such as lack of resources and contact with the global scientific community. This constrains the international competitiveness of researchers as well as the training of students in modern pest management approaches. The limited capacity for technology transfer hinders the generation of science-based solutions for local agricultural problems and an ineffective advisory service means that farmers remain disconnected from agricultural research and technology development. Aim: This project aims to build the capacity of relevant institutions in research and knowledge transfer in integrated pest management (IPM); a sustainable pest management approach that reduces overreliance on chemical pesticides and alleviates the negative impacts of agriculture on human health and the environment. The project also aims to strengthen the infrastructure required to improve the quality of agricultural production and enable self-reliance in developing and implementing sustainable IPM solutions. Significance: Through the integration of effective theoretical and practical IPM training into higher education, this project will better prepare students for future employment in an agricultural profession and increase the overall IPM knowledge base within the agricultural sector. The provision of relevant resources and training will enhance capacity for conducting IPM-related research as well as foster integration into the international scientific community. Finally, strengthening the link between research and farmers will provide an effective channel through which to disseminate practical IPM solutions to farmers. In taking an institutional partnership approach, this project will consolidate the linkages between all key IPM stakeholders and create the infrastructure required to promote awareness, communication and institutionalisation of IPM along the whole chain of agricultural research, education, policy and practice.
Das Projekt "Individual Grant; Ensemble modelling of hydrological and nitrogen fluxes in mesoscale catchments" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Gießen, Institut für Landschaftsökologie und Ressourcenmanagement, Professur für Landschafts-, Wasser- und Stoffhaushalt durchgeführt. Uncertainty estimation in hydro-biogeochemical modeling is an ongoing area of research that focuses primarily on the investigation of stochastic model uncertainty. The evaluation of structural model uncertainty remains unusual, however there are various techniques available to quantify structural uncertainty. Ensemble modeling is one such technique that is commonly used in climatology and meteorology; disciplines where the structural uncertainty of predictive models has long been established. Its application in hydrological modeling is, however, much less common. Here we propose to evaluate structural uncertainty through *P ensemble modeling, using a set of four models to predict hydrological and nitrogen fluxes: SWAT, LASCAM, HBV-N and CMF-N. The models were selected to represent the range of complexity found in catchment scale modeling, from conceptual models to physically-based approaches, and from lumped to fully distributed descriptions. The GLUE concept is applied to quantify parameter uncertainty. This approach leads to the formulation of single-model ensembles. These single-model ensembles are then combined to produce different sets of probabilistic and deterministic multi-model ensembles. These multi-model ensembles are used to quantify the contribution of structural errors to overall predictive uncertainty. The development of conditional multi-model ensembles represents a large component of the work plan. In this case, the selection of the multi-model ensemble members is based on the capability of different model structures and parameterizations to capture certain conditions of the investigated catchments such as high-low flow, freeze-thaw cycles, or rewetting after extended droughts. The ensemble model is applied to German, Swedish and Australian catchments, and covers a broad range of different climatic boundary conditions, land uses and levels of anthropogenic disturbances.
Das Projekt "Tropospheric composition in the Arctic: Impact of long range transport of pollution" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Institut für Atmosphäre und Klima durchgeführt. This proposal deals with the atmospheric composition in the Arctic. Climate change is currently proceeding fastest in the Arctic than anywhere else on the planet. One key hypothesis for this fast warming is that short-lived species (including ozone and aerosols) influence the Arctic climate in several ways either directly through radiative forcing and indirectly through clouds and snow/ice albedo. In particular, the role of light absorbing aerosols (such as black carbon) remains largely unknown. There are ample evidences that the Arctic troposphere is characterized by elevated concentrations of particles of different origins both in late winter and spring (the so-called Arctic Haze) but also in summer. The Arctic and summer haze are composed of a mix of particles of different origins and most largely result from long range transport of anthropogenic pollution from mid-latitudes and from wildfires in boreal regions. However, the pathways for the transport of pollution into the Arctic, the relative contributions of various geopolitical regions, as well as the role of biomass burning in boreal forest are not known in a quantitative manner. In this project, we propose to explore two specific questions, including (i) the pathways for long range transport of aerosol and ozone-related pollution from the northern mid-latitudes to the Arctic and (ii) the impact of the boreal wildfires on the Arctic atmospheric composition. We will address these questions using conjointly the fully coupled model of aerosol-chemistry-climate ECHAM5-HAMMOZ as well as a suite of products from various platforms (including satellite such as CALIOP, MISR, MODIS, ground-based stations in the Arctic and pan-Arctic region, and research aircrafts such as those deployed in the framework of the POLARCAT experiment). We are planning to 1) conduct a comprehensive analysis of a boreal wildfire event collected in POLARCAT and to test our model's representation of the processes related to transport of boreal biomass burning pollution; 2) develop a timeseries (annual cycle) of the CALIOP vertically-resolved attenuated backscatter at relevant locations of the northern mid-latitudes to test our model's ability to reproduce the long range transport of pollution towards the Arctic; 3) explore the factor that govern interannual variability in the Arctic composition with a focus over the period from 2006 to 2008. The proposed work will provide an improved quantitative understanding of the processes governing the Arctic composition and ultimately of the processes that govern climate change there but also globally.
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