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The concept and a new method for the shielded development of bottom gas hydrates have been proposed, the technological phases and constructive elements of their implementation have been substantiated. The research provides for the realization of the idea suggesting the simultaneous dissociation of the vast areas of a gas hydrate deposit, management of the targeted process of the penetration of methane recovered from gas hydrates into water space and its accumulation under the extensive gas-collecting shield wherefrom it is removed by bottom pipe transportation facilities. To do hydraulic fracturing, a well is drilled into the plane of the junction of the surface of a gas hydrate deposit and the rocks of a roof, the open system of fissures in the rocks of a roof is made through which produced gas is released to a gas-collecting blanket in a water.

Meteorological forcing at the air-water interface is the main determinant of the heat balance of most lakes (Edinger et al., 1968; Sweers, 1976). Year-to-year changes in the weather therefore have a major effect on the thermal characteristics of lakes. However, lakes that differ with respect to their morphometry respond differently to these changes (Gorham, 1964), with deeper lakes integrating the effects of meteorological forcing over longer periods of time. Other important factors that can influence the thermal characteristics of lakes include hydraulic residence time, optical properties and landscape setting (e.g. Salonen et al., 1984; Fee et al., 1996; Livingstone et al., 1999). These factors modify the thermal responses of the lake to meteorological forcing (cf. Magnuson et al., 2004; Blenckner, 2005) and regulate the patterns of spatial coherence (Chapter 17) observed in the different regions (Livingstone, 1993; George et al., 2000; Livingstone and Dokulil, 2001; Jarvinen et al., 2002; Blenckner et al., 2004)

Building facades are under permanent environmental influences, such as sun and acid rain, which age and can ultimately destroy them. Living wall systems can protect facades and offer similar benefits to those gained from installing a green roof. A view back in history shows that vegetated facades are not new technology but can offer multiple benefits as a component of current urban design. In the 19th century, in many European and some North American cities, woody climbers were frequently used as a cover for simple facades. In Central Europe in the 1980s a growing interest in environmental issues resulted in the vision to bring nature into cities. In many German cities incentive programmes were developed, including some that supported tenant initiatives for planting and maintaining climbers in their backyards and facades. Since the 1980s, research has been conducted on issues such as the insulating effects of plants on facades, the ability of plants to mitigate dust, plants’ evaporative cooling effects, and habitat creation for urban wildlife, including birds, spiders and beetles. The aim of this paper is to review research activities on the green wall and facade technology with a focus on Germany. The potential of green facades to improve urban microclimate and buildings’ ecological footprint is high, but they have not developed a widespread presence outside of Germany because they are not as well known as green roofs and there is a lack of implementation guidelines and incentive programs in other countries.

In many parts of the world, climate change has already caused a decline in groundwater recharge, whereas groundwater demand for drinking water production and irrigation continues to increase. In such regions, groundwater tables are steadily declining with major consequences for groundwater-surface water interactions. Predominantly gaining streams that rely on discharge of groundwater from the adjacent aquifer turn into predominantly losing streams whose water seeps into the underground. This reversal of groundwater-surface water interactions is associated with an increase of low river flows, drying of stream beds, and a switch of lotic ecosystems from perennial to intermittent, with consequences for fluvial and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Moreover, water infiltrating from rivers and streams can carry a complex mix of contaminants. Accordingly, the diversity and concentrations of compounds detected in groundwater has been increasing over the past decades. During low flow, stream and river discharge may consist mainly of treated wastewater. In losing stream systems, this contaminated water seeps into the adjoining aquifers. This threatens both ecosystems as well as drinking and irrigation water quality. Climate change is therefore severely altering landscape water balances, with groundwater-surface water-interactions having reached a tipping point in many cases. Current model projections harbor huge uncertainties and scientific evidence for these tipping points remains very limited. In particular, quantitative data on groundwater-surface water-interactions are scarce both on the local and the catchment scale. The result is poor public or political awareness, and appropriate management measures await implementation.

An anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR), seeded with a biomass inoculum that previously had not been exposed to the macrolide antimicrobial tylosin (mixture of Tylosin A, B, C, and D), was operated for 3 months with swine waste without Tylosin A and for 9 months with swine waste containing Tylosin A at an average concentration of 1.6 mg/L. When swine waste with tylosin was fed to the ASBR, methane production and volatile solids removal did not appear to be inhibited and a methane yield of 0.47 L methane per gram volatile solids fed to the ASBR was observed. Throughout the operating period, Tylosin A levels in ASBR biomass and effluent were below the detection limit of 0.01 mg/L. However, during the first 3 months of operation, the levels of macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB)-resistant bacteria in the ASBR biomass increased substantially as determined by hybridizations with oligonucleotide probes designed to target MLSB-resistant bacteria. Since no Tylosin A was present in the swine waste during the initial 3 months, the presence of MLSB-resistant bacteria in the swine waste was likely the reason for the increase in resistance. Subsequently, the levels of MLSB-resistant bacteria in ASBR biomass stabilized with an average of 44.9% for the 9 months of operation with swine waste containing Tylosin A. The level of MLSB-resistant bacteria in the swine waste fed to the ASBR during this period averaged 18.0%. The results indicate that anaerobic treatment of a waste stream containing tylosin was effective (based on reactor performance) and that the level of resistant bacteria in the ASBR was substantially higher than in the waste stream fed to this system.

Carbonaceous aerosols (CAs) scatter and absorb incident solar radiation in the atmosphere, thereby influencing the regional climate and hydrological cycle, particularly in the Third Pole (TP). Here, we present the characteristics of CAs at 19 observation stations from the Atmospheric Pollution and Cryospheric Change network to obtain a deep understanding of pollutant status in the TP. The organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations decreased noticeably inwards from outside to inland of the TP, consistent with their emission load and also affected by transport process and meteorological condition. Urban areas, such as Kathmandu, Karachi, and Mardan, exhibited extremely high OC and EC concentrations, with low and high values occurring in the monsoon and non-monsoon seasons, respectively. However, remote regions inland the TP (e.g., Nam Co and Ngari) demonstrated much lower OC and EC concentrations. Different seasonal variations were observed between the southern and northern parts of the TP, suggesting differences in the patterns of pollutant sources and in distance from the sources between the two regions. In addition to the influence of long-range transported pollutants from the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP), the TP was affected by local emissions (e.g., biomass burning). The OC/EC ratio also suggested that biomass burning was prevalent in the center TP, whereas the marginal sites (e.g., Jomsom, Dhunche, and Laohugou) were affected by fossil fuel combustion from the up-wind regions. The mass absorption cross-section of EC (MACEC) at 632 nm ranged from 6.56 to 14.7 m2 g-1, with an increasing trend from outside to inland of the TP. Urban areas had low MACEC values because such regions were mainly affected by local fresh emissions. In addition, large amount of brown carbon can decrease the MACEC values in cities of South Asia. Remote sites had high MACEC values because of the coating enhancement of aerosols. Influenced by emission, transport process, and weather condition, the CA concentrations and MACEC presented decreasing and increasing trends, respectively, from outside to inland of the TP.

During recent years, increasing incidences of summer droughts - likely driven by climate change - reduced the dilution potential of low-order streams for secondary treated wastewater also in temperate Europe. Despite the potential risks to ecosystem integrity, there is a paucity of knowledge regarding the effects of different wastewater dilution potentials on ecosystem functions. The present study investigated the implications of secondary treated wastewater released into a third-order stream (Queich, southwest Germany) during a season with low dilution potential (summer; ~90% wastewater) as compared to a season with high dilution potential (winter; ~35% wastewater) in terms of leaf litter decomposition and macroinvertebrate communities. Adverse effects in macroinvertebrate mediated leaf mass loss (~65%), gammarids' feeding rate (~80%), leaf associated fungal biomass (>40%) and shifts in macroinvertebrate community structure were apparent up to 100 and 300 m (partially 500 m) downstream of the wastewater treatment plant effluent during winter and summer, respectively. In addition, a Gammarus fossarum laboratory feeding trial demonstrated the potential of powdered activated carbon to reduce the ecotoxicity of released wastewater. These results urge the development and evaluation of adequate management strategies, e.g. the application of advanced wastewater treatment technologies, to protect the integrity of freshwater ecosystems, which is required by the European Water Framework Directive - also considering decreasing dilution potential of streams as projected by climate change scenarios.

AbstractIntraspecific variation in genotypically determined traits can influence ecosystem processes. Therefore, the impact of climate change on ecosystems may depend, in part, on the distribution of plant genotypes. Here we experimentally assess effects of climate warming and excess nitrogen supply on litter decomposition using 12 genotypes of a cosmopolitan foundation species collected across a 2100 km latitudinal gradient and grown in a common garden. Genotypically determined litter‐chemistry traits varied substantially within and among geographic regions, which strongly affected decomposition and the magnitude of warming effects, as warming accelerated litter mass loss of high‐nutrient, but not low‐nutrient, genotypes. Although increased nitrogen supply alone had no effect on decomposition, it strongly accelerated litter mass loss of all genotypes when combined with warming. Rates of microbial respiration associated with the leaf litter showed nearly identical responses as litter mass loss. These results highlight the importance of interactive effects of environmental factors and suggest that loss or gain of genetic variation associated with key phenotypic traits can buffer, or exacerbate, the impact of global change on ecosystem process rates in the future.

AbstractHeat tolerance is a trait of paramount ecological importance and may determine a species' ability to cope with ongoing climate change. Although critical thermal limits have consequently received substantial attention in recent years, their potential variation throughout ontogeny remained largely neglected. We investigate whether such neglect may bias conclusions regarding a species' sensitivity to climate change. Using a tropical butterfly, we found that developmental stages clearly differed in heat tolerance. It was highest in pupae followed by larvae, adults and finally eggs and hatchlings. Strikingly, most of the variation found in thermal tolerance was explained by differences in body mass, which may thus impose a severe constraint on adaptive variation in stress tolerance. Furthermore, temperature acclimation was beneficial by increasing heat knock‐down time and therefore immediate survival under heat stress, but it affected reproduction negatively. Extreme temperatures strongly reduced survival and subsequent reproductive success even in our highly plastic model organism, exemplifying the potentially dramatic impact of extreme weather events on biodiversity. We argue that predictions regarding a species' fate under changing environmental conditions should consider variation in thermal tolerance throughout ontogeny, variation in body mass and acclimation responses as important predictors of stress tolerance.