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This study highlights how Chinese economic development detrimentally impacted water quality in recent decades and how this has been improved by enormous investment in environmental remediation funded by the Chinese government. To our knowledge, this study is the first to describe the variability of surface water quality in inland waters in China, the affecting drivers behind the changes, and how the government-financed conservation actions have impacted water quality. Water quality was found to be poorest in the North and the Northeast China Plain where there is greater coverage of developed land (cities + cropland), a higher gross domestic product (GDP), and higher population density. There are significant positive relationships between the concentration of the annual mean chemical oxygen demand (COD) and the percentage of developed land use (cities + cropland), GDP, and population density in the individual watersheds (p < 0.001). During the past decade, following Chinese government-financed investments in environmental restoration and reforestation, the water quality of Chinese inland waters has improved markedly, which is particularly evident from the significant and exponentially decreasing GDP-normalized COD and ammonium (NH4+-N) concentrations. It is evident that the increasing GDP in China over the past decade did not occur at the continued expense of its inland water ecosystems. This offers hope for the future, also for other industrializing countries, that with appropriate environmental investments a high GDP can be reached and maintained, while simultaneously preserving inland aquatic ecosystems, particularly through management of sewage discharge.

The South is likely to suffer more from climate change than the North due to its already vulnerable situation and lack of the necessary resources to adapt to change. But do the interests of men and of women differ as regards climate change and does this have a South-North dimension? This paper attempts to establish whether gender issues need to be addressed in the climate change debate. Towards this goal, a number of different issues within the climate change debate, in particular the instruments proposed, are analysed. These include responsibility for emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), studies on vulnerability to the effects of climate change, mitigation of emissions, capacity building for participation in flexible mechanisms and adaptation to climate change. We conclude that while there are many gender angles related to the climate change convention and the instruments therein, some are more strategic than others. There is little to be gained by looking at the responsibility for emissions on a gendered basis. But in mitigation activities, Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), capacity building, technology transfer, vulnerability studies and projects for adaptation, the poor, the majority of who are women, should be targeted and active participants in decision-making.

A sudden and sharp rise in the C-14 content of the atmosphere, which occurred between ca. 850 and 760 calendar yr BC (ca. 2750-2450 BP on the radiocarbon time-scale), was contemporaneous with an abrupt climate change. In northwest Europe (as indicated by palaeoecological and geological evidence) climate changed from relatively warm and continental to oceanic. As a consequence, the ground-water table rose considerably in certain low-lying areas in The Netherlands. Archaeological and palaeoecological evidence for the abandonment of such areas in the northern Netherlands is interpreted as the effect of a rise of the water table and the extension of fens and bogs. Contraction of population and finally migration from these low-lying areas, which had become marginal for occupation, and the earliest colonisation by farming communities of the newly emerged salt marshes in the northern Netherlands around 2550 BP, is interpreted as the consequence of loss of cultivated land. Thermic contraction of ocean water and/or decreased velocity and pressure on the coast by the Gulf Stream may have caused a fall in relative sea-level rise and the emergence of these salt marshes. Evidence for a synchronous climatic change elsewhere in Europe and on other continents around 2650 BP is presented. Temporary aridity in tropical regions and a reduced transport of warmth to the temperate climate regions by atmospheric and/or oceanic circulation systems could explain the observed changes. As yet there is no clear explanation for this climate change and the contemporaneous increase of C-14 in the atmosphere. The strategy of C-14 wiggle-match dating can play an important role in the precise dating of organic deposits, and can be used to establish possible relationships between changing C-14 production in the atmosphere, climate change, and the impact of such changes on hydrology, vegetation, and human communities.

The design and assessment of net-zero buildings commonly focus exclusively on the operational phase, ignoring the embodied environmental impacts over the building life cycle. An analysis is presented on the consequences of integrating embodied impacts into the assessment of the environmental advantageousness of net-zero concepts. Fundamental issues needing consideration in the design process - based on the evaluation of primary energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions - are examined by comparing three net-zero building design and assessment cases: (1) no embodied impacts included, net balance limited to the operation stage only; (2) embodied impacts included but evaluated separately from the operation stage; and (3) embodied impacts included with the operation stage in a life cycle approach. A review of recent developments in research, standardization activities and design practice and the presentation of a case study of a residential building in Norway highlight the critical importance of performance indicator definitions and system boundaries. A practical checklist is presented to guide the process of incorporating embodied impacts across the building life cycle phases in net-zero design. Its implications are considered on overall environmental impact assessment of buildings. Research and development challenges, as well as recommendations for designers and other stakeholders, are identified.

AbstractClimate change effects along with anthropogenic activities present the main factors that threaten the existence of heritage sites across the north Nile Delta of Egypt close to the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. Observing the changes in the landscape close to the archaeological sites is an important issue for decision‐makers in terms of reducing the negative impact of natural events and human activities. The coastal heritage sites are becoming strongly threatened by the rising sea level phenomena that will happen due to global warming. Focusing on the distribution of the archaeological sites, this study aims to detect the areas at risk of shoreline erosion or accretion in the northern shoreline of the Nile Delta. In this study, the changes in the northern shoreline of the Nile Delta were observed and calculated during the last hundred years based on the integration between the old topographic maps from surveys in 1900, 1925 and 1945, optical satellite images captured by Landsat in 1972, 1986 and 2000; Sentinel2 2021; and the Radar SRTM data. The results of this study showed that the changes were enormous with a great shoreline erosion process over the last 121 years recorded along the shoreline in the periods between 1900–1925, 1925–1945, 1945–1972, 1972–1986, 1986–2000 and 2000–2021. The areas eroded were about 5.3, 4.7, 5.6, 8.9, 2.5 and 5.4 km2, respectively. Such negative movements caused the loss of two heritage sites, and the expected changes will lead to the loss of additional heritage sites in the next 500 years. Furthermore, a model was suggested for protecting the coastal heritage sites threatened by the risk of submergence. This study can help the decision‐makers to detect the coastal archaeological sites at risk and create innovative solutions for protecting these irreplaceable heritage sites.

It is well known that the efficiency of PV modules decreases with increasing module temperatures. Many studies have paid attention to the development and validation of heuristic models to calculate the PV module temperature in higher latitudes, however only a few focus on the thermal behaviour of PV modules in tropical regions of the world, where constantly high temperatures prevail. Also, little is known about the effect of including wind speed in these thermal models. This study evaluates three of such models - one that excludes wind, and two others including the wind influence - using hourly data for two tropical locations. Results show that the average hourly wind speeds in Singapore and Jayapura (Indonesia) are low and therefore the influence of the wind on the PV module temperature is minor. The three evaluated models produce about the same results with RMSE between 1.5-3.8 °C during daytime, which corresponds to a deviation in power output in the range of 0.3-1.6 %, depending on the PV module technology.

The development of heat transfer fluids (HTF) and heat storage materials (HSM) is crucial to design concentrating solar plant (CSP). Binary alkaline nitrate mixtures are currently used as sensible thermal energy storage materials. However, multi-component nitrate/nitrite systems were proposed as possible better candidates. In particular, ternaries mixtures containing sodium, potassium, and calcium are extremely promising as thermal fluids, given their reduced toxicity and greater cost-effectiveness. Nevertheless, very few data are present in the scientific literature regarding the correspondent phase diagram, and only the properties of specific compositions are reported. For this reason, a regular solution model was developed and employed in this work, and validated by comparing the simulation results with experimentally obtained phase change values. In particular, given that the common calorimetric techniques are impracticable for detecting the transition temperatures of calcium containing nitrate mixtur...