Evidence is compelling for a positive correlation between urbanisation and increment of allergic sensitisation and diseases. The reason for this association is not clear to date. Some data point to a pro-allergic effect of anthropogenic factors on susceptible individuals. Data analysing the impact of environmental - natural and anthropogenic - factors on the allergenicity of allergen carriers such as pollen grains are scarce, and if applicable only taken from in vitro experimental designs. This study will analyse one of the most common allergy inducers in northern Europe - the birch pollen. Under natural exposure conditions, birch pollen will be analysed with respect to their allergenicity. Within an interdisciplinary research team this study will evaluate the effect of natural (e.g. soil, climate, genetic background) and anthropogenic (e.g. traffic pollutants) factors on birch pollen in a holistic approach including analysis of allergen bioavailability, release of pollen associated lipid mediators from birch pollen grains, in vitro immunostimulatory activity and in vivo allergenic potential. These data collected in the time course of three years will significantly add to our understanding how urbanisation and climate change influence the allergenicity of birch pollen and will help us in the future to set up primary prevention studies.
Pilze sind eine der am diversesten, jedoch am wenigsten untersuchten mikrobiellen Gruppen in marinen Gewässern. Eine Untergruppe der Pilze, kurz als Chytridien bekannt, umfasst häufig auftretende Parasiten auf Phytoplankton, welche eine starke Belastung für das Phytoplanktonwachstum, die Entwicklung von Algenblüten und deren Populationsdynamiken darstellen. Parasitäre Chytridien befallen alle Hauptgruppen von Phytoplankton und treten bevorzugt in Küstenregionen mit hoher Phytoplanktonbiomasse und Produktivität auf. Die Auswirkungen von parasitären Pilzen auf Stoffkreisläufe und die Funktion von Ökosystemen sind jedoch kaum bekannt bzw. quantifiziert. Die Emmy Noether-Nachwuchsgruppe wird die funktionelle und quantitative Rolle parasitärer Pilze für die Phytoplanktonproduktivität und den Stoffkreislauf in Brack- und Meerwasser untersuchen. Unsere Ziele sind (1) Betrachtung der Wechselwirkungen zwischen Phytoplankton und Chytridien auf Einzelzell-Ebene, (2) Untersuchungen der integrativen Rolle von Chytridien in aquatischen Nahrungsnetzen und (3) Aufklärung der Auswirkungen von parasitären Pilzen auf Remineralisierungs- und Sedimentationsprozesse. Unser umfassender Ansatz beinhaltet experimentelle Studien mit Phytoplanktonâ€ÌPilz Co-Kulturen sowie mit natürlichen Planktongemeinschaften, mittels Analysen auf Zell- und Mikoskalen-Ebene bis hin zu mesoskaligen Stoffflüssen entlang der Wassersäule. Im Wesentlichen werden wir den Transfer von Kohlenstoff und Stickstoff vom Phytoplankton durch das pelagische Nahrungsnetz innerhalb der photischen Zone bis hin zum Absinken als Detritus in die Tiefe verfolgen. Das Projektergebnis soll ein ganzheitliches Verständnis der Rolle von Chytridien an der Basis aquatischer Nahrungsnetze und Produktivität fördern, einschließlich der zugrunde liegenden Mechanismen und Größenordnungen. Angesichts der potenziellen Signifikanz parasitärer Pilze für die Abschwächung von Produktivität, Sinkstoffflüssen aber auch von toxischen Algenblüten in Küstengebieten, sollen die gewonnenen Daten mit lokalen und globalen Stoffkreisläufen verknüpft und in zukünftige Entscheidungen zum Küstenmanagement implementiert werden.
In order to understand the interlinked problems in the Nexus (Latin = connection, linkage, interrelation) of water, energy and food security, close cooperation between scientists and practitioners from different fields is necessary. The present and future challenge of a reliable supply with water, energy and food is an example, where isolated considerations do not lead to viable solutions. Sustainable action and meaningful research in these highly interconnected fields require a holistic and comprehensive perspective and a new approach. In this sense, a collaborative research structure with a holistic view on the Nexus of Water, Energy and Food security was established in 2013 at the Cologne University of Applied Sciences. The project bundles some of the research efforts of 11 professors from different faculties and institutes. The researchers jointly work on initiating new cooperation projects with partners from industry, academia and civil society. Together they aim at exploring new technologies and applying new approaches to solve major issues of efficiency and sustainability in resource use.
The final goal of the EUROWET project is to integrate the substantial multidisciplinary European research in wetlands to help attain the sustainable management of the water cycle. This will be achieved by the translation of state-of-the art science developed at both national and European levels, into practical guidance for end-users. This will be achieved by a comprehensive review, expert assessment and a focussed dissemination strategy. There is considerable scientific knowledge and technical experience gained in diverse aspects of wetland science and management including hydrology, biogeochemistry, ecology restoration, socio-economic and policy analysis. However the results of research and management experience are still too fragmentary and not sufficiently orientated to problem-solving or simply inadequately framed to be effectively transferred to, or used by, stakeholders and policy-makers. Simultaneously the general outcome of the scientific research has been increased awareness of the significance of wetlands in delivering goods and services important for human welfare including quality of life, biodiversity conservation and maintenance or enhancement of environment quality. Despite this wetlands continue to be degraded and lost throughout Europe without adequate consideration of the wider benefits to be achieved from this management. The new Water Framework Directive (WFD) promotes a unique opportunity to redress this problem by means of the holistic, integrated approach to water management. There is currently in preparation horizontal guidance on Wetlands as part of the Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) process. There is however work still to be done on providing more specific scientific and technical guidance on the effective implementation of the Directive with respect to wetlands. This is particularly the case in relation to Integrated River Management, the CIS cluster within which wetlands are being considered in the WFD.
Vor dem Hintergrund des starken Wachstums afrikanischer Großstädte und damit zusammenhängender Versorgungs- und Umweltprobleme gewinnt die sich dort besonders stark entwickelnde urbane und peri-urbane Landwirtschaft zunehmend an wissenschaftlichem Interesse. Im Gegensatz zu den auf äußerst nährstoffarmen, erosionsgefährdeten Böden des Hinterlandes vorherrschenden subsistenzorientierten Landnutzungssystemen ist die UPL durch hohe Inputintensitäten gekennzeichnet. Allerdings gibt es derzeit kaum grundlagenorientierte Untersuchungen zu Produktivität, Stoffumsätzen und umweltrelevanten Externalitäten der UPL, die tierische und pflanzenbauliche Produktionssysteme vereint. In diesen Forschungsprojekt sollen am Beispiel der nigrischen Hauptstadt Niamey Stoffflüsse in der UPL in exemplarisch ausgewählten Haushalten gemessen und in ihren wesentlichen Kenngrößen modelliert werden. Diese Untersuchungen werden anschließend zur Prüfung von Vorschlägen zur Steigerung der Ressourceneffizienz herangezogen. Zu diesem Zweck werden in einem ersten Schritt in 20 nach dem Grad ihrer Integration von Tierhaltung und Ackerbau ausgewählten Beispielbetrieben die horizontalen Einträge und Verluste von Stickstoff (N), Phosphor (p) und Kalium (k) an den Schnittstellen Boden-Pflanze-Tier im Jahresverlauf erfasst. Auf einigen dieser Betriebe sollen zu repräsentativen Zeitpunkten atmosphärische Emissionen (Denitrifikations- und Ammoniakverluste) mit einem photoakustischen Spurenglasanalysator ermittelt und sickerungsbedingte Nährstoffverluste (N, P, und K) durch den Einbau von Si-Carbid-Saugplatten gemessen werden. In einem zweiten Schritt wird der Einfluss gezielter Verbesserungsmaßnahmen im Stoffmanagement (Einsatz einer Einstreu von Stroh und Rohphosphat in der stationären Haltung von Tieren, kontrollierte Kompostierung des Tierdungs) auf die atmosphärischen N-Verluste und Dungqualität geprüft. Im dritten Schritt soll der Einfluss verschiedener Intensitäts- und Integrationsstufen der UPL auf die erfassten Stoffflüsse im Kontinuum Boden-Pflanze-Tier-Umwelt mittels eines bio-physikalischen Models abgebildet werden.
Objective: Noise pollution is a major environmental problem within the EU. The social costs of traffic noise have been estimated to 0.4Prozent of total GDP. Road traffic is the dominant source, and also rail traffic noise is significant. At the same time, road and rail traffic are expected to steadily increase, and the source strength is not expected to significantly decrease within the near future. To reduce the outdoor traffic noise to a sufficiently low level for a good acoustic environment is a major challenge of high need. Here, we will focus on noise propagation abatement for the outdoor environment. Following the EU Directive on environmental noise, a series of major action have been taken in noise abatement, but the sustainability has rarely been paid attention. The main idea of our project is to optimize the use of green areas, green surfaces and other natural elements in combination with artificial elements in urban and rural environments for reducing the noise impact of road and rail traffic. The project offers a variety of powerful abatement strategies that will make a cost effective improvement by its combination of approaches concerning: ground and road surface treatments; trees, forests and tall vegetation; greening of buildings and other surfaces; and innovative barriers. The noise impact will be assessed in terms of sound levels (including spectra and time patterns) as well as perceived environment (including annoyance, well-being and other health related aspects). The main objectives of the project are: to show by full scale evaluation that the proposed abatement methods work; to deliver noise prediction methods applicable to the proposed abatements, which can also can be used in noise mapping software; to deliver assessment methods for the perceived noise environment; to deliver a good practice guide for the end-users; and to show the cost benefit, including the positive effect on urban air quality and CO2 neutrality, of the resulting noise abatement methods. Prime Contractor: Chalmers Tekniska Hoegskola AB; Goeteborg; Sverige (Schweden).
LEnSE is a research project that responds to the growing need in Europe for assessing a building's sustainability performance. The project draws on the existing knowledge available in Europe on building assessment methodologies. LEnSE aims to develop a truly holistic methodology that addresses the overall, integrating concept of sustainability. The main objective of LEnSE is to develop a methodology for the assessment of the sustainability performance of existing, new and renovated buildings, which is broadly accepted by the European stakeholders involved in sustainable construction. This methodology will allow for future labelling of buildings, in analogy with the Energy Performance Directive. The work should result in increased awareness of the European stakeholders and will allow adequate policy implementation on sustainable construction. The project consists of three main themes. The first theme is the identification and scope of the issues which need to be included in a sustainability assessment. This has to be wide enough to be acceptable and limited enough to be practicable. A broad consensus on these issues will be reached through strategic consultation of the relevant stakeholders. The second theme is the actual development of the assessment methodology. The content of the assessment will be developed for a limited, but representative range of key issues. Guidelines on how to address local variations will be provided. This work will be validated by the development of a prototype tool and tested on case study buildings. The key stakeholders on the European and national level will be highly involved in the development of the methodology, to guarantee a wide acceptance and implementation of the project results. These consultations will include national meetings with stakeholders and trans-national expert workshops. Thematic -stepping stone- publications, will serve as strategic reference and discussion documents for the stakeholder consultation rounds. Prime Contractor: Centre Scientifique et Technique de la Construction; Bruxelles; Belgium.
In pedology, soilscapes are characterised by a typical spatial and taxonomic relation between the soils, as well as by the relation between the soils and other landform and landscape characteristics. These landscape characteristics as driving forces for soil formation show local, regional and supra-regional components. It is therefore important to gather and incorporate information about the soil forming factors not only from a specific sampling point, but also from its larger spatial surroundings for reasonable descriptions of the complex soil-landscape relations. Therefore, multi- or hyper-scale approaches are required, which however, are rarely reported in literature. Moreover, most studies are lacking any interpretations and concepts for the description of soil formation, although these are most crucial for describing and understanding the complex environmental processes and interactions of landscapes and soils.The aim of this project is to develop a new hyper-scale mapping approach as well as a new theoretical concept for its pedologic interpretation. Under the overarching goal of a new spatially contextualized soil formation theory the objective of the project is to achieve more holistic descriptions of soil and environmental formation but also the optimization of spatial prediction models for estimating soil properties functions and threats. This is urgently needed in order to meet the increasing global demand for accurate and high-resolution soil information to estimate and handle the impacts of global climate change, population growth, food security, and bio energy.The framework, which will be developed, applied, tested and validated for several landscapes around the world in this project, focuses on determining the influence of local, regional and supra-regional landscape surface shape on soil formation in terms of hyper-scale digital terrain analysis and tries to reveal the interactions of relief with other environmental covariates on different spatial scales. The objectives are (i) to develop a new hyper-scale terrain analysis method, (ii) to apply, develop and/or adapt specific data analysis and data mining approaches to derive the information required for pedological interpretations and as an integrative part (iii) to develop a new theoretical framework for soil formation analysis. This will provide a) information on the specific influence of local to supra-regional parts of environmental covariates on soil formation, b) approaches to visualize the geomorphic systems interacting with other covariates and jointly influence soil formation, c) approaches to derive information on the interactions between different geomorphic features and scales, as well as d) information on the complex interactions between geomorphic and other environmental covariates at different scales to derive better knowledge about the spatial distribution as well as the genesis of one of our most important environmental resources - soil.
The aim of the LORRY project is to reduce trucks carbon footprint by developing an innovative low rolling Resistance tyre concept combined with a comprehensive tool box for fleet fuel saving management. This proposed concept will go beyond current state of art and stakeholder or market expectations regarding tyre rolling resistance, mileage, driving safety, driving performance and material and manufacturing sustainability. Steer and trailer tyres developed in the framework of the project will demonstrate a minimum 20Prozent gain in truck tyre rolling resistance. Truck tyre wear and wet safety performance levels will be improved additionally. To reach this objective, a multidisciplinary consortium (7 public / 4 private partners) has been created covering the fields of tyre technology, rubber and filler technology, nanotechnologies, composite physics, sensory, transport and road infrastructure. A complete set of complementary scientific evaluation methods will enable the understanding of interactions between new tread pattern design and new material composites as well as the tyre performance dependency on tyre-vehicle Operation and road conditions. LORRY consists in a holistic approach for an intelligent surface transport system. New tyre and truck fleet operating concepts resulting from the programmed will go beyond European Green Car Initiative roadmap expectations for 2015 and smoothly bridge and feed next coming tailored trucks and sustainable trucks initiatives, forecasted respectively for 2020 and 2025.
A sustainable and efficient freight transport in Europe plays a vital role in having a successful and competitive economy. Freight transport is expected to grow by some 50 % (in tonne-kilometres) by 2020. However rail has, in many areas, been displaced from a dominant position as road transport services have grown and developed in capability and levels of sophistication that have not been matched by rail service providers. SUSTRAIL aims to contribute to the rail freight system to allow it to regain position and market and the proposed solution is based on a combined improvement in both freight vehicle and track components in a holistic approach aimed at achieving a higher reliability and increased performance of the rail freight system as a whole and profitability for all the stakeholders. The SUSTRAIL integrated approach is based on innovations in rolling stock and freight vehicles (with a targeted increased in speed and axle-load) combined with innovations in the track components (for higher reliability and reduced maintenance), whose benefits to freight and passenger users (since mixed routes are considered) are quantified through the development of an appropriate business case with estimation of cost savings on a life cycle basis. In fact, a holistic approach to vehicle and track sustainability has to be taken, since improvements in track design and materials alone are not enough as demands on the rail system increase. Contributions from the different topic areas (vehicles, track, operations) will be demonstrated on real routes, offering geographic dispersion as well as differences in type, speed, and frequency of traffic. A strong multidisciplinary consortium committed to concrete actions aligned toward a common outcome has been grouped for the achievement of the challenging objectives of the project with a balanced combination of Infrastructure managers, freight operators and Industry, including Large and Small enterprises, with support from Academia.
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