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Abstract A process based life cycle assessment of dimension stone production in the UK has been carried out according to PAS 2050. From a survey of eight production operations, on a cradle-to-site basis for UK destinations the carbon footprint of sandstone is 77 kgCO2e/tonne, that of granite is 107 kgCO2e/tonne and that of slate is 251 kgCO2e/tonne. These values are considerably higher for stone imported from abroad due to the impact of transport. Reducing the reliance on imported stone will contribute to emissions reduction targets as well as furthering the goals of sustainable development.

Summary1. Migrant bird populations are declining and have been linked to anthropogenic climate change. The phenology mismatch hypothesis predicts that migrant birds, which experience a greater rate of warming in their breeding grounds compared to their wintering grounds, are more likely to be in decline, because their migration will occur later and they may then miss the early stages of the breeding season. Population trends will also be negatively correlated with distance, because the chances of phenology mismatch increase with number of staging sites.2. Population trends from the Palaearctic (1990–2000) and Nearctic (1980–2006) were collated for 193 spatially separate migrant bird populations, along with temperature trends for the wintering and breeding areas. An index of phenology mismatch was calculated as the difference between wintering and breeding temperature trends.3. In the Nearctic, phenology mismatch was correlated with population declines as predicted, but in the Palaearctic, distance was more important. This suggests that differential global climate change may be responsible for contributing to some migrant species’ declines, but its effects may be more important in the Nearctic.4. Differences in geography and so average migration distance, migrant species composition and history of anthropogenic change in the two areas may account for the differences in the strength of the importance of phenology mismatch on migrant declines in the Nearctic and Palaearctic.

Abstract The rapidly growing construction industry has accelerated water and energy scarcity in China, threatening its sustainable development. This study integrates multi-regional input-output (MRIO) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) to investigate the water-energy nexus in the construction industry at the provincial level through the entire industrial supply chain. Results show that the construction industry accounts for 8.97% and 27.20% of virtual water and embodied energy in China, respectively. The western area experiences the most energy- and water-intensive construction processes given its backward economy and outdated technological development. The northern area faces great challenges with regard to energy intensity improvements, whereas the central regions suffer from large pressure relating to inefficient water use. The manufacture of non-metallic mineral products, smelting, and the pressing of metals are the largest suppliers of virtual water and embodied energy. The efficiency assessment results demonstrate that Jiangsu and Zhejiang are two DEA-effective regions. China has achieved a relatively high level of scale efficiency but suffers from backward technology.

The UK government’s Clean Growth Strategy unambiguously described the decarbonisation of heat as the UK’s greatest policy and technical challenge in meeting our carbon targets. Maximising the potential for energy efficiency in the existing domestic stock is critical to the low-carbon heat transition. Good information exists on the technical potential for energy efficiency measures in the UK stock, however, a lack of knowledge about current stock conditions and in-use factors places considerable uncertainty on how much of this technical potential is achievable in practice. \ud This study uses data from the fifth carbon budget (CB5) policy projections and updates the in-use factors using measured data from the National Energy Efficiency Database (NEED). This results in a 26% shortfall by 2035 in the anticipated energy savings through cavity, solid wall, and loft insulation compared to what is assumed in the CB5 projections. This will have costly implications for meeting future carbon budgets. Risks and policy implications are discussed. The practical potential for energy efficiency measures beyond cavity, solid wall, and loft insulation is explored.

Spatial planning has to deal with trade-offs between various stakeholders’ wishes and needs as part of planning and management of landscapes, natural resources and/or biodiversity. To make ecosystem services (ES) trade-off research more relevant for spatial planning, we propose an analytical framework,which puts stakeholders, their land-use/management choices, their impact on ES and responses at the centre. Based on 24 cases from around the world, we used this framing to analyse the appearance and diversity of real-world ES trade-offs. They cover a wide range of trade-offs related to ecosystem use, including: land-use change, management regimes, technical versus nature-based solutions, natural resource use, and management of species. The ES trade-offs studied featured a complexity that was far greater than what is often described in the ES literature. Influential users and context setters are at the core of the trade-off decision-making, but most of the impact is felt by non-influential users. Provisioning and cultural ES were the most targeted in the studied trade-offs, but regulating ES were the most impacted. Stakeholders’ characteristics, such as influence, impact faced, and concerns can partially explain their position and response in relation to trade-offs. Based on the research findings, we formulate recommendations for spatial planning.

AbstractThe wind profile in the urban boundary layer is described as following a logarithmic curve above the mean building height and an exponential curve below it. By considering the urban landscape to be an array of cubes, a method is described for calculating the surface roughness length and displacement height of this profile. Firstly, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model employing a k‐ϵ turbulence model is used to simulate the flow around a cube. The results of this simulation are compared with wind tunnel measurements in order to validate the code. Then, the CFD model is used to simulate the wind flow around a simple pitched‐roof building, using a semi‐logarithmic inflow profile. An array of similar pitched‐roof houses is modelled using CFD to determine the flow characteristics within an urban area. Mean wind speeds at potential turbine mounting points are studied, and optimum mounting points are identified for different prevailing wind directions. A methodology is proposed for estimating the energy yield of a building‐mounted turbine from simple information such as wind atlas wind speed and building density. The energy yield of a small turbine on a hypothetical house in west London is estimated. The energy yield is shown to be very low, particularly if the turbine is mounted below rooftop height. It should be stressed that the complexity of modelling such urban environments using such a computational model has limitations and results can only be considered approximate, but nonetheless, gives an indication of expected yields within the built environment. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

AbstractVegetation growth is affected by past growth rates and climate variability. However, the impacts of vegetation growth carryover (VGC; biotic) and lagged climatic effects (LCE; abiotic) on tree stem radial growth may be decoupled from photosynthetic capacity, as higher photosynthesis does not always translate into greater growth. To assess the interaction of tree‐species level VGC and LCE with ecosystem‐scale photosynthetic processes, we utilized tree‐ring width (TRW) data for three tree species: Castanopsis eyrei (CE), Castanea henryi (CH, Chinese chinquapin), and Liquidambar formosana (LF, Chinese sweet gum), along with satellite‐based data on canopy greenness (EVI, enhanced vegetation index), leaf area index (LAI), and gross primary productivity (GPP). We used vector autoregressive models, impulse response functions, and forecast error variance decomposition to analyze the duration, intensity, and drivers of VGC and of LCE response to precipitation, temperature, and sunshine duration. The results showed that at the tree‐species level, VGC in TRW was strongest in the first year, with an average 77% reduction in response intensity by the fourth year. VGC and LCE exhibited species‐specific patterns; compared to CE and CH (diffuse‐porous species), LF (ring‐porous species) exhibited stronger VGC but weaker LCE. For photosynthetic capacity at the ecosystem scale (EVI, LAI, and GPP), VGC and LCE occurred within 96 days. Our study demonstrates that VGC effects play a dominant role in vegetation function and productivity, and that vegetation responses to previous growth states are decoupled from climatic variability. Additionally, we discovered the possibility for tree‐ring growth to be decoupled from canopy condition. Investigating VGC and LCE of multiple indicators of vegetation growth at multiple scales has the potential to improve the accuracy of terrestrial global change models.