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In ecological risk assessment, exposure is generally modelled assuming static conditions, herewith neglecting the potential role of emission, environmental and biomass dynamics in affecting bioavailable concentrations. In order to investigate the influence of such dynamics on predicted bioavailable concentrations, the spatially-resolved dynamic model "ChimERA fate" was developed, incorporating macrophyte and particulate/dissolved organic carbon (POC/DOC) dynamics into a water-sediment system. An evaluation against three case studies revealed a satisfying model performance. Illustrative simulations then highlighted the potential spatio-temporal variability of bioavailable concentrations after a pulsed emission of four chemicals in a system composed of a pond connected to its inflow and outflow streams. Changes in macrophyte biomass and POC/DOC levels caused exposure variations which were up to a factor of 4.5 in time and even more significant (several orders of magnitude) in space, especially for highly hydrophobic chemicals. ChimERA fate thus revealed to be a useful tool to investigate such variations and to identify those environmental and ecological conditions in which risk is expected to be highest.

Abstract The question whether coexistence of marine renewable energy (MRE) projects and marine protected areas (MPAs) is a common spatial policy in Europe and how a number of factors can affect it, has been addressed by empirical research undertaken in eleven European marine areas. Policy drivers and objectives that are assumed to affect coexistence, such as the fulfillment of conservation objectives and the prioritization of other competing marine uses, were scored by experts and predictions were crosschecked with state practice. While in most areas MRE-MPA coexistence is not prohibited by law, practice indicates resistance towards it. Furthermore expert judgment demonstrated that a number of additional factors, such as the lack of suitable space for MRE projects and the uncertainty about the extent of damage by MRE to the MPA, might influence the intentions of the two major parties involved (i.e. the MRE developer and the MPA authority) to pursue or avoid coexistence. Based on these findings, the interactions of these two players are further interpreted, their policy implications are discussed, while the need towards efficient, fair and acceptable MRE-MPA coexistence is highlighted.

AbstractBluetongue (BT) is a commonly cited example of a disease with a distribution believed to have recently expanded in response to global warming. The BT virus is transmitted to ruminants by biting midges of the genus Culicoides, and it has been hypothesized that the emergence of BT in Mediterranean Europe during the last two decades is a consequence of the recent colonization of the region by Culicoides imicola and linked to climate change. To better understand the mechanism responsible for the northward spread of BT, we tested the hypothesis of a recent colonization of Italy by C. imicola, by obtaining samples from more than 60 localities across Italy, Corsica, Southern France, and Northern Africa (the hypothesized source point for the recent invasion of C. imicola), and by genotyping them with 10 newly identified microsatellite loci. The patterns of genetic variation within and among the sampled populations were characterized and used in a rigorous approximate Bayesian computation framework to compare three competing historical hypotheses related to the arrival and establishment of C. imicola in Italy. The hypothesis of an ancient presence of the insect vector was strongly favoured by this analysis, with an associated P ≥ 99%, suggesting that causes other than the northward range expansion of C. imicola may have supported the emergence of BT in southern Europe. Overall, this study illustrates the potential of molecular genetic markers for exploring the assumed link between climate change and the spread of diseases.

Worldwide, the energy consumption of refrigeration systems increased by 50% in the last 20 years. Currently, active refrigeration systems are often used to maintain cold chains in industry. However, there are remarkable drawbacks in the operation of active systems such as susceptibility to blackouts in the power supply and vibrations during their operation. Therefore, to overcome the aforementioned problems, passive cold chain transport using latent thermal energy storage systems arose as a potential solution. However, these systems require long charging times due to the low thermal conductivity of most phase change materials. In that sense, this paper presents a novel design of a cold storage battery with metal foam enhanced phase change material. The peak efflux of energy and solidification time of the battery is correlated as a function of the inlet temperature and mass flow rate of the heat transfer fluid with a root mean square deviation of 11.4%. The solidification time prediction allows determining the geometry which results in the maximum efflux of energy density for a given energy density. Moreover, the cold battery is placed in an insulated container to analyse its performance during transport. Results show that the tested refrigeration battery can act as a standalone refrigeration system during 15 h. However, improvements in the design of the insulated container are suggested to increase the performance of the system along the discharging cycle.

As a fast-growing food production industry, aquaculture is dealing with the need for intensification due to the global increasing demand for fish products. However, this also implies the use of more sustainable practices to reduce negative environmental impacts currently associated with this industry, including the use of wild resources, destruction of natural ecosystems, eutrophication of effluent receiving bodies, impacts due to inadequate medication practices, among others. Using multi-species systems, such as integrated multi-trophic aquaculture, allows to produce economically important species while reducing some of these aquaculture concerns, through biomitigation of aquaculture wastes and reduction of diseases outbreaks, for example. Applying mathematical models to these systems is crucial to control and understand the interactions between species, maximizing productivity, with important environmental and economic benefits. Here, the application of some equations and models available in the literature, regarding basic parameters, is discussed – population dynamics, growth, waste production, and filtering rate – when considering the description and optimization of a theoretical integrated multi-trophic aquaculture operation composed by three trophic levels.

Climate change will affect the presence and concentration of mycotoxin in various foods. Recently, a concern arised on the presence of Alternaria mycotoxins in tomatoes and derived tomato products. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of climate change on their growth and mycotoxin production on tomatoes in function of changing temperatures. Therefore, a climate change model "HadGEM2-ES" was applied and downscaling of coarse gridded data was done towards a tomato field surface. After transforming the daily temperature data towards hourly data, the growth model of the Alternaria mould was applied. This leads to an assessment of growth rate and actual growth for three time frames being current (1981-2000), near (2031-2050) and far future (2081-2100). The influence of the harvesting period in a growing season, RCP scenarios and time frames was evaluated and two regions, Spain and Portugal were compared with each other. For Spain there were no significant differences for RCP 2.6 and 4.5. For the more extreme RCP scenarios (6.0 and 8.5) the diameter of the mould was significantly lower for the far future compared with the current time frame. This can be explained by the higher temperatures (18.2-38.2. °C) which become too high for fungal growth. For Poland, there was a significant difference in the different time frames, the diameter of the mould was for the far future. >. near future. >. current time frame. This is due to the predicted higher temperatures in the far future (14.2-28.4. °C) which becomes closer to the optimal temperature for the growth of Alternaria spp. compared with the colder temperatures in the present. According to the results, the situation in Poland in the far future (2081-2100) will became similar as the situation in Spain in the present time frame (1981-2000).

This paper explores a new integrative approach to climate change education at Masters level. Drawing on the authors| involvement in a European Union Erasmus project, it is argued that the diversity of knowledge(s) on climate change are a source of active/social learning. The wide variety of disciplinary, sectoral and lived experiential (both individual and collective) knowledge(s) are all considered legitimate in this exercise, the aim of which is to construct new interdisciplinary knowledge from their boundary interfaces. We further argue for a corresponding pedagogy based on developing transboundary competences – the ability to engage in social learning and action through communicative engagement across knowledge boundaries. We acknowledge that the challenges for enacting transboundary competence are considerable when it requires mobility across epistemological, even ontological, boundaries. The challenges are further compounded when the communicative engagement across space and time requires virtual mobility which is ICT-enabled. Nevertheless, meeting them is a normative goal, not only for this expanded, integrative approach to climate change education, but also for a global resolution of climate change itself.

This review gathers information about the current legal requirements related to the emission of ammonia and greenhouse gases from animal housing in 21 out of the 28 EU countries and in 5 non-EU countries. Overall the review shows that most of the included countries have established substantial procedures to limit ammonia emission and practically no procedures to limit greenhouse gas emission. The review can also be seen as an introduction to the substantial initiatives and decisions taken by the EU in relation to ammonia emission from animal housing, and as a notification on the absence of corresponding initiatives and decisions in relation to greenhouse gases. An EU directive on industrial emissions from 2010 and an implementation decision from 2017 are the main general instruments to reduce ammonia emission from animal housing in the EU. These treaties put limits to ammonia emissions from installations with more than 2000 places for fattening pigs, with more than 750 places for sows and with more than 40,000 places for poultry. As an example, the upper general limit for fattening pigs is 2.6 kg ammonia per animal place per year. This review indicates that the important animal producing countries in the EU have implemented the EU requirements, and, that only a few countries with a large pig population, in relation to their geographical size, have implemented requirements that are stricter than what is required by the EU.

Microbial catalysis of carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction to multi-carbon compounds at the cathode is a highly attractive application of microbial electrosynthesis (MES). The microbes reduce CO2 by either taking the electrons or reducing the equivalents produced at the cathode. While using gaseous CO2 as the carbon source, the biological reduction process depends on the dissolution and mass transfer of CO2 in the electrolyte. In order to deal with this issue, a gas diffusion electrode (GDE) was investigated by feeding CO2 through the GDE into the MES reactor for its reduction at the biocathode. A combination of the catalyst layer (porous activated carbon and Teflon binder) and the hydrophobic gas diffusion layer (GDL) creates a three-phase interface at the electrode. So, CO2 and reducing equivalents will be available to the biocatalyst on the cathode surface. An enriched inoculum consisting of acetogenic bacteria, prepared from an anaerobic sludge, was used as a biocatalyst. The cathode potential was maintained at -1.1 V vs Ag/AgCl to facilitate direct and/or hydrogen-mediated CO2 reduction. Bioelectrochemical CO2 reduction mainly produced acetate but also extended the products to ethanol and butyrate. Average acetate production rates of 32 and 61 mg/L/day, respectively, with 20 and 80 % CO2 gas mixture feed were achieved with 10 cm2 of GDE. The maximum acetate production rate remained 238 mg/L/day for 20 % CO2 gas mixture. In conclusion, a gas diffusion biocathode supported bioelectrochemical CO2 reduction with enhanced mass transfer rate at continuous supply of gaseous CO2. Graphical abstract ᅟ.

In Europe the demand of biomass for the whole bioeconomy is increasing year by year. In some cases, this biomass come from non-European countries. The EU is already a net importer of biomass for bioenergy and imports could be even more relevant in the near future. Therefore, it is important to guarantee that this biomass supply from outside the EU is being done in a sustainable way and that negative environmental and socio-economic impacts are minimised. The project BioTrade2020plus has the aim of providing guidelines for the development of a European Bioenergy Trade Strategy for 2020 and beyond. It has analyzed in depth the role of lignocellulosic biomass (woody resources, agricultural residues and cellulosic crops) imports from six selected sourcing regions: North America (Southeast United States), South America (Brazil, Colombia), East Europe (Ukraine), Southeast Asia (Indonesia) and East Africa (Kenya). It has considered availability and sustainability constrains as well as existing strategies in these sourcing regions. All this info is being integrated in an interactive tool available on the BioTrade2020plus webpage. Proceedings of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 6-9 June 2016, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 1356-1363