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Earth’s biodiversity and human societies face pollution, overconsumption of natural resources, urbanization, demographic shifts, social and economic inequalities, and habitat loss, many of which are exacerbated by climate change. Here, we review links among climate, biodiversity, and society and develop a roadmap toward sustainability. These include limiting warming to 1.5°C and effectively conserving and restoring functional ecosystems on 30 to 50% of land, freshwater, and ocean “scapes.” We envision a mosaic of interconnected protected and shared spaces, including intensively used spaces, to strengthen self-sustaining biodiversity, the capacity of people and nature to adapt to and mitigate climate change, and nature’s contributions to people. Fostering interlinked human, ecosystem, and planetary health for a livable future urgently requires bold implementation of transformative policy interventions through interconnected institutions, governance, and social systems from local to global levels.

Abstract This work investigates the performance of CECO, a third-generation wave energy converter of the oscillating bodies group. The power matrices of the device – which represent the wave power absorbed for different sea states – are obtained for five PTO inclinations. Then, the wave climate along the west coast of the Iberian Peninsula is characterized by means of the wave energy resource matrices. With the power matrices and the wave energy resource matrices, the performance of the device along the area of study is determined for each PTO inclination. To achieve this, the performance of CECO is assessed by means of a panel model based on the boundary element method, while the wave conditions in the area of study are assessed with a wave propagation spectral model. The results allow fulfilling an important knowledge gap concerning the impact of the PTO inclination on the performance of CECO, which was found to be very significant. In addition, the insight obtained will contribute to optimize future versions of CECO and other wave energy converters of the oscillating body type.

Abstract This work aims to get a better insight into the behaviour of CECO, an oscillating-body wave energy converter that presents a singular feature: the motion of its oscillating part is restricted to translations along an inclined axis. In order to study in the time domain the response of CECO for a wide range of wave conditions, a hybrid numerical approach based on the Boundary Element Method (BEM) and the Morison’s equation was used. The effects of the power take-off system were included in the numerical model and calibrated with the results from previous wave basin experiments. The results show that CECO is able to capture up to 40% of the incident wave energy when the direction of translation is 45°. However, if the direction of translation is vertical, the amount of captured wave energy decreases almost three times. This investigation demonstrates the advantage of limiting the oscillation of the CECO floating part to an inclined direction and reaffirms the concept as a promising technology for wave energy conversion.

Abstract CECO is a recently proposed Wave Energy Converter (WEC), which harnesses both the kinetic and potential energy of waves. Currently, CECO is at the third level of technology readiness (TRL3). In this context, maximising the wave energy absorption under a wide range of wave conditions is crucial for the future development of the device. Therefore, this work aims to explore in detail the main parameters (operating water depth and wave conditions) that influence CECO's performance in terms of Captured Energy ( C E ) and Captured Energy Efficiency ( C E E f f ). For this purpose, a panel-based model, which was calibrated from previous physical model tests was used to construct the CECO matrices of absorbed wave power at different operating water depths. The wave conditions of the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula (2005–2014), which were modelled using SWAN, were used as case study. Overall, CECO offers promising results for C E and C E E f f , reaching values up to 600 M W h and 45%, respectively. In addition, it was found that CECO's power absorption reaches its maximum for values of peak wave periods ( T p ) ranging from 10 to 13 s and the fact that the operating water depth does not impact significantly the performance of the device.

The environmental status of the Black Sea is obviously closely related to its catchment. Being a closed sea, this large water body drains an area of more than 2 million km2, encompassing 23 countries inhabited by more than 180 million people. The main environ- mental issues faced by the Black Sea catchment are the same as elsewhere in Europe. These problems are exacerbated by global changes with drastic changes predicted in temperature and precipitation by the end of the century, as well as land use and demographic changes. These environmental problems are taking place in a complex geopolitical situation. In this particular context, data sharing is essential to inform managers and policy-makers about the state of the environment, which will ultimately influence the state of the Black Sea itself. The enviroGRIDS project was set up in order to promote international data sharing initia- tives such as the Global Earth Observation System of Systems and the European INSPIRE directive. The enviroGRIDS project was successful in reaching the following objectives: (a) performing a gap analysis on existing Earth observations systems in the region; (b) devel- oping regional capacities at institutional, infrastructure and human resource levels; (c) creating regional scenarios to set the scene for plausible climatic, demographic and land use futures; (d) building the first hydrological model for the entire Black Sea catchment; (e) developing the Black Sea Catchment Observation System based on interoperability stan- dards and Grid computing technologies; (f) showcasing data sharing in several case studies, addressing important environmental issues while building a network of people with improved capacity on data sharing principles. These relative successes should not, however, hide the difficulties in making the necessary Earth observation data available to scientists, decision makers and the public, as the mind-sets at all levels are changing slowly. Controlling the access to data is still perceived by many as a necessity to guarantee the power of the state on society and as a way to preserve its security. The need to develop national spatial data infrastructures (SDI) is very important to convince all ministries and data owner that publically funded data should be made publically available. The progress in the implementation of SDI seems more limited by political agendas than by technology. It is clear, however, that implementation of the INSPIRE directive in Europe is a prerequisite for the success of many other environmental policies (e.g. Water Framework Directive; Marine Strategy Framework Directive; Biodiversity strategy 2020).

Dietary ion content is known to alter the acid-base balance in freshwater fish. The current study investigated the metabolic impact of acid-base disturbances produced by differences in dietary electrolyte balance (DEB) in the meagre (Argyrosomus regius), an euryhaline species. Changes in fish performance, gastric chyme characteristics, pH and ion concentrations in the bloodstream, digestive enzyme activities and metabolic rates were analyzed in meagre fed ad libitum two experimental diets (DEB 200 or DEB 700mEq/kg) differing in the Na2CO3 content for 69days. Fish fed the DEB 200 diet had 60-66% better growth performance than the DEB 700 group. Meagre consuming the DEB 200 diet were 90-96% more efficient than fish fed the DEB 700 diet at allocating energy from feed into somatic growth. The pH values in blood were significantly lower in the DEB 700 group 2h after feeding when compared to DEB 200, indicating that acid-base balance in meagre was affected by electrolyte balance in diet. Osmolality, and Na+ and K+ concentrations in plasma did not vary with the dietary treatment. Gastric chyme in the DEB 700 group had higher pH values, dry matter, protein and energy contents, but lower lipid content than in the DEB 200 group. Twenty-four hours after feeding, amylase activity was higher in the gastrointestinal tract of DEB 700 group when compared to the DEB 200 group. DEB 700 group had lower routine metabolic (RMR) and standard metabolic (SMR) rates, indicating a decrease in maintenance energy expenditure 48h after feeding the alkaline diet. The current study demonstrates that feeding meagre with an alkaline diet not only causes acid-base imbalance, but also negatively affects digestion and possibly nutrient assimilation, resulting in decreased growth performance.

Microalgae have a large biotechnological potential for producing valuable substances for feed, food, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries . Furthermore, other applications can be attributed to the photosynthetic process performed by these microorganisms such as CO2 mitigation, wastewater treatment, and biofuels production. Whatever the process, it must be designed considering the specific characteristics of these microorganisms. Thus microalgae (according to applied phycology) are photosynthetic microorganism able to perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Both cyanobacteria with a prokaryotic cell structure and microalgae with a eukaryotic cell structure are usually included in this category. These microorganisms are photoautotrophs, although they may also grow under mixotrophic or heterotrophic conditions. For the production of microalgae under phototrophic conditions, it is necessary to use photobioreactors that must be adequately designed, built, and operated to satisfy the requirements of the selected microalgae. Multiple designs and configurations of photobioreactors have been proposed, but no optimal design still exists. For whatever application, the photobioreactor to be used must be adequately selected according to the requirements of process. Thus the establishment of the requirements of the biological system to be used is required to adequately design the optimal photobioreactor, which constitutes the starting point when designing a microalga-based process. Two major categories of photobioreactors are considered: open and closed. As open cultivation systems (having direct contact with the environment), artificial ponds, tanks, raceways (shallow racetracks mixed by paddle wheels), and thin-layer (i.e., inclined-surface systems) platforms are often used. As closed cultivation systems (having no direct contact between the culture and the atmosphere), bubble columns, tubular loops, and flat-panels are typically used. At present, open systems are feasible for the production of thousands of tons of biomass significantly cheaper than that from closed systems.

CECO is a novel Wave Energy Converter (WEC) concept, which has shown promising results in previous studies. The present work focuses on assessing the performance of CECO for a 11-year horizon in relation to the characteristics of the wave climate (intra and inter-annual seasonal variations) by means of two performance indicators defined ad hoc: Captured Energy (CE) and Captured Energy Efficiency (CEEff). For this purpose, the CECO matrix of absorbed wave power was constructed for an operating water depth of 30 m using the panel-based model ANSYS®-AQWA™. The Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, which presents a highly seasonal and energetic wave climate, was used as case study. Overall, it was found that CECO is able to capture large amounts of wave energy, especially for milder wave conditions, with values of CEEff exceeding 40%. However, for harsher wave conditions the results of CEEff decrease considerably ranging from 10% to 20%, which may result from the current design of CECO. In this context, the results obtained offer some valuable insight into the future evolution of CECO with the purpose of addressing the limitations of the current design and to optimise its performance according to the wave conditions for specific locations.