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Ostrava in the Moravian-Silesian region (Czech Republic) is a European air pollution hot spot for airborne particulate matter (PM), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and ultrafine particles (UFPs). Air pollution source apportionment is essential for implementation of successful abatement strategies. UFPs or nanoparticles of diameter <100 nm exhibit the highest deposition efficiency in human lungs. To permit apportionment of PM sources at the hot-spot including nanoparticles, Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) was applied to highly time resolved particle number size distributions (NSD, 14 nm-10 μm) and PM0.09-1.15 chemical composition. Diurnal patterns, meteorological variables, gaseous pollutants, organic markers, and associations between the NSD factors and chemical composition factors were used to identify the pollution sources. The PMF on the NSD reveals two factors in the ultrafine size range: industrial UFPs (28%, number mode diameter - NMD 45 nm), industrial/fresh road traffic nanoparticles (26%, NMD 26 nm); three factors in the accumulation size range: urban background (24%, NMD 93 nm), coal burning (14%, volume mode diameter - VMD 0.5 μm), regional pollution (3%, VMD 0.8 μm) and one factor in the coarse size range: industrial coarse particles/road dust (2%, VMD 5 μm). The PMF analysis of PM0.09-1.15 revealed four factors: SIA/CC/BB (52%), road dust (18%), sinter/steel (16%), iron production (16%). The factors in the ultrafine size range resolved with NSD have a positive correlation with sinter/steel production and iron production factors resolved with chemical composition. Coal combustion factor resolved with NSD has moderate correlation with SIA/CC/BB factor. The organic markers homohopanes correlate with coal combustion and the levoglucosan correlates with urban background. The PMF applications to NSD and chemical composition datasets are complementary. PAHs in PM1 were found to be associated with coal combustion factor.

The chapter is based on analysis of the data from the different parts of Europe on the issue of energy poverty in order to undertake explorative work on comparative energy poverty research. The questionnaire surveys, which were conducted in five studied cities (Brno, Kassel, Leipzig, Lüneburg and Poznan) included 49 open, partly-open and closed questions on the locations and characteristics of dwellings, reasons for choosing the dwelling and personal opinions on its conditions, housing and energy costs, energy use, and the personal situation of the interviewee and other households members.

This chapter describes good practices developed by a higher education institution from Portugal in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In addition to discussing the role of higher education in society, it also focuses on an intervention project on the local school community aimed at raising awareness and disseminating good attitudes related to Sustainable Development (SD). The intervention project results from a partnership between a higher education institution, a teachers training centre and schools. In this context, several hands-on experiments were developed by higher education teachers, researchers and students, and implemented in a teachers’ professional development programme. Based on questionnaires (N = 63) and participant observation, an empirical study was conducted. Besides increasing their knowledge about SDG, teachers recognized the role of schools in raising awareness to promote SD practices, and valued the role of higher education in supporting them in these initiatives. It is concluded on the importance of developing collaborative partnerships with schools and other stakeholders to raise awareness, disseminate and increase SD practices in the community. The experience developed in the field may interest researchers, policymakers, and anyone interested in promoting Sustainable Development initiatives. FCT/DGES-18691.2 info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

Characterizing Black Carbon (BC) at regional background areas is important for better understanding its impact on climate forcing and health effects. The variability and sources of Equivalent Black Carbon (EBC) in PM10 (atmospheric particles with aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 μm) have been investigated during a 5-year measurement period at the National Atmospheric Observatory Košetice (NAOK), Czech Republic. Ground based measurements were performed from September 2012 to December 2017 with a 7-wavelength aethalometer (AE31, Magee Scientific). The contributions of fossil fuel (EBCff) and biomass burning (EBCbb) were estimated using the aethalometer model. Seasonal, diurnal and weekly variations of EBC were observed that can be related to the sources fluctuations and transport characteristic of pollutants predominantly associated with regional air masses recirculating over the Czech Republic and neighboring countries. The absorption Ångström exponent (α-value) estimated in summer (1.1 ± 0.2) was consistent with reported value for traffic, while the mean highest value (1.5 ± 0.2) was observed in winter due to increased EBCbb accounting for about 50% of the total EBC. This result is in agreement with the strong correlation between EBCbb and biomass burning tracers (levoglucosan and mannosan) in winter. During this season, the concentrations of EBCbb and Delta-C (proxy for biomass burning) reached a maximum in the evening when increasing emissions of wood burning in domestic heating devices (woodstoves/heating system) is expected, especially during the weekend. The diurnal profile of EBCff displays a typical morning peak during the morning traffic rush hour and shows a decreasing concentration during weekends due to lower the traffic emission.

The Carpathian mountain region is one of the most significant natural refuges on the European continent. It is home to Europe’s most extensive tracts of montane forest, the largest remaining virgin forest and natural mountain beech-fir forest ecosystems. Adding to the biodiversity are semi-natural habitats such as hay meadows, which are the result of centuries of traditional land management. Like other mountain regions areas, the Carpathian mountain region provides important ecosystem goods and services such as water provision, food products, forest products and tourism. But these ecosystem services are feared to be under threat from climate change.This chapter reports on climate trends, impacts and adaptation options. Analysis of climate trends show an increase in annual mean temperature of 1.1–2.0 °C over the last 50 years (1961–2010), further increasing by 3.5–4.0 °C towards the end of the century. Precipitation changes are dispersed with an increase of 300–400 mm in the north and decrease of 100–150 mm in the south regions. Summer precipitation is projected to reduce by 20 %, whereas winter precipitation is projected to increase in most areas by 5–20 % by the year 2100. Both future scenarios and observations show high spatial variability and uncertainty. The same holds for the impacts on the investigated sectors water resources, forests, wetlands, grasslands, agriculture and tourism.The review of climate trends and adaptation options, inspired a strategic agenda on adaptation to be implemented under the regional Carpathian Convention. Planning for climate change adaptation benefits from transnational cooperation because many impacts relate to seasonal and geographical shifts across borders. This is true for the natural system (e.g. shifts in species distribution and snow cover) as well as for socio-economic activities like agriculture, forestry and tourism (e.g. shifting opportunities for growing crops and changes in the tourist season). Examples of adaptation exist, yet need to be communicated for wider adoption. Essential components of adaptation will be capacity building and information sharing, climate-proofing of infrastructure and investments, promotion of eco-system based adaptation measures and making biodiversity management more dynamic.

Climate change is the epitome of a global issue. Cities and their inhabitants face locally specific, yet still globally shared and interconnected problems from heat waves, storms, coastal or fluvia...

Urban environments that are stressful for plant function and growth will become increasingly widespread in future. In this opinion article, we define the concept of 'urban plant physiology', which focuses on plant responses and long term adaptations to urban conditions and on the capacity of urban vegetation to mitigate environmental hazards in urbanized settings such as air and soil pollution. Use of appropriate control treatments would allow for studies in urban environments to be comparable to expensive manipulative experiments. In this opinion article, we propose to couple two approaches, based either on environmental gradients or manipulated gradients, to develop the concept of urban plant physiology for assessing how single or multiple environmental factors affect the key environmental services provided by urban forests.

The chemical composition of emissions from old-type (an overfire boiler, a boiler with down-draft combustion) and modern-type (an automatic and a gasification boiler) boilers was compared. The boilers were operated with different fuels (brown and hard coal, wet and dry wood, wood pellets and brown coal briquettes) with reduced output (40-60%). The emissions were characterized by the contents of gaseous components (NOx, SO2, CO, CO2, OGC); and particulate organic compounds (alkanes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, saccharides), including organic markers (monosaccharide anhydrides, diterpenoids, methoxyphenols, hopanes), which are used for source apportionment of particulate matter in ambient air. In general, emissions of the products of incomplete combustion (CO, particles, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) were higher from the combustion of solid fuels in old-type boilers than from that in modern-type boilers. The modern-type (especially automatic) boilers were the most environmentally friendly. The highest concentrations of particulate matter (81.6-89.4 g kg-1) and particulate organic compounds (sum of PAHs: 225-275 mg kg-1) including organic markers were found in emissions from old-type (overfire) boilers, especially with the combustion of brown and hard coal. Characteristic ratios of selected organic compounds/markers applied for source identification were calculated. Computed characteristic ratios for monosaccharide anhydrides (biomass combustion) agreed with values in the literature. Homohopane indexes, frequently used for identification of coal combustion, and other characteristic ratios for PAHs, were different from the literature data. In our opinion, characteristic ratios for PAHs are not suitable for use in source apportionment.