• Energy Research
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A major challenge in sustainability science is identifying targets that maximize ecosystem benefits to humanity while minimizing the risk of crossing critical system thresholds. One critical threshold is the biomass at which populations become so depleted that their population growth rates become negative—depensation. Here, we evaluate how the value of monitoring information increases as a natural resource spends more time near the critical threshold. This benefit emerges because higher monitoring precision promotes higher yield and a greater capacity to recover from overharvest. We show that precautionary buffers that trigger increased monitoring precision as resource levels decline may offer a way to minimize monitoring costs and maximize profits. In a world of finite resources, improving our understanding of the trade-off between precision in estimates of population status and the costs of mismanagement will benefit stakeholders that shoulder the burden of these economic and social costs.

The shipping industry faces a large challenge as it needs to significantly lower the amounts of Green House Gas emissions. Traditionally, reducing the fuel consumption for ships has been achieved during the design stage and, after building a ship, through optimisation of ship operations. In recent years, ship efficiency improvements using Machine Learning (ML) methods are quickly progressing, facilitated by available data from remote sensing, experiments and high-fidelity simulations. The data have been successfully applied to extract intricate empirical rules that can reduce emissions thereby helping achieve green shipping. This article presents an overview of applying ML techniques to enhance ships’ sustainability. The work covers the ML fundamentals and applications in relevant areas: ship design, operational performance, and voyage planning. Suitable ML approaches are analysed and compared on a scenario basis, with their space for improvements also discussed. Meanwhile, a reminder is given that ML has many inherent uncertainties and hence should be used with caution.

This open access book brings together a collection of cutting-edge insights into how action can and is already being taken against climate change at multiple levels of our societies, amidst growing calls for transformative and inclusive climate action. In an era of increasing recognition regarding climate and ecological breakdown, this book offers hope, inspiration and analyses for multi-level climate action, spanning varied communities, places, spaces, agents and disciplines, demonstrating how the energy and dynamism of local scales are a powerful resource in turning the tide. Interconnected yet conceptually distinct, the book’s three sections span multiple levels of analysis, interrogating diverse perspectives and practices inherent to the vivid tapestry of climate action emerging locally, nationally and internationally. Delivered in collaboration with the UK’s ‘Place-Based Climate Action Network’, chapters are drawn from a wide range of authors with varying backgrounds spread across academia, policy and practice.

The phenomena of climate change transcend all national and regional boundaries. To address this complex challenge, we must determine the areas of the country of interest, in this case, Greece, that have been most adversely affected by climate. Greece is surrounded by water, and a significant part of its GDP is derived from the marine and maritime industries, including tourism. Since the start of the IntelComp project, a Preparatory Living Lab (PLL) has been planned and delivered, feeding into the development of the IntelComp platform and the Living Lab on Climate Change Adaptation. The study's results lead to the conclusion that one of the most important challenges in tackling climate change is the decarbonisation challenge, specifically the shift to renewable energy sources and the investments that must be made. Several EU and national policy frameworks, including the European Green Deal, the Climate Law, the National Long-term Strategy for 2050 (on the Climate and Energy), highlight the decarbonisation as one of the major challenges in the climate change pledge. This will be the primary subject of the IntelComp climate change case study. PLLs also led to the identification of policy questions and useful data sources to aid the IntelComp project's launch. While previous research on co-production has primarily focused on involving citizens through public participation processes in order to gain their support, trust, and insights in structured decision-making processes, our approach opens a new channel for incorporating external knowledge into problem-solving processes. The IntelComp project will aid in policy development by providing pertinent tools co-developed with the final users that will provide insights and analysis in the field of STI (Science, Technology, Innovation) encompassing all of the Energy areas mentioned above.

Researchers have been driven to investigate sustainable alternatives to cement production, such as geopolymers, due to the impact of global warming and climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, they are exploring different methods and waste materials to enhance the mechanical and physical properties of geopolymer and expand its application range. This review paper offers a thorough analysis of the utilization of various waste materials in geopolymer manufacturing and shows the creative contribution of this research to the development of environmentally friendly cement substitutes. The article covers the properties, durability, and practical applications of geopolymer composites made from various waste binders. It includes a microstructure and chemical analysis. The research findings indicate that geopolymers are an effective cementitious binder substitute for cement in various applications. Additionally, the ecological and carbon footprint analysis highlights the sustainability of geopolymers compared to cement.

Management decisions concerning phosphorus (P) fertilization affect the profitability of crop production and potential water quality impairment. Soil testing for P provides a useful diagnostic framework to assess P bioavailability that informs management decisions to optimize P use in nutrient management and mitigate environmental impairment. Management factors such as tillage and P fertilization strategy can influence crop yield and the potential for soil and P losses with surface runoff. Investigation into which forms of soil and P losses that do occur from corn-soybean rotations in Iowa systems can inform which methodologies best quantify forms of P that will pose greater effects on water quality and which management decisions minimize losses while maintaining agronomic productivity. This research field calibrated a recently widely-adopted soil P test that uses weak organic acids with corn and soybean yield to identify critical soil-test P concentrations. The weak organic acids test extracted less soil P and performed more poorly than currently routine tests at relating soil-test P to crop yield. A second study was conducted to quantify the effect of P fertilization strategy and tillage on soil and P losses with runoff in a corn-soybean rotation in Northwest Iowa. Corn yield and soil loss were the highest with tillage, the combination of tillage and broadcast P resulted in the highest runoff TP loss, and the dissolved-reactive fraction of the total P loss was much higher with no-till. The combination of chisel-plow/disking and annual subsurface band placement of P fertilizer led to the lowest losses of dissolved-reactive P and total P, while optimizing crop yields. A third study compared multiple methods for measuring soluble P in runoff, and how management factors in Iowa cropping systems affect their performance. The results suggest that assuming only soluble, orthophosphate-P determined by colorimetric method may underestimate soluble P concentration in runoff and losses from crop fields and will be ...

Impacts of climate change on natural and human systems will become increasingly severe as the magnitude of climate change increases. Climate change adaptation interventions to address current and projected impacts are thus paramount. Yet, evidence on their effectiveness remains limited, highlighting the need for appropriate ecological indicators to measure progress of climate change adaptation for the natural environment. We outline conceptual, analytical, and practical challenges in developing such indicators, before proposing a framework with three process-based and two results-based indicator types to track progress in adapting to climate change. We emphasize the importance of dynamic assessment and modification over time, as new adaptation targets are set and/or as intervention actions are monitored and evaluated. Our framework and proposed indicators are flexible and widely applicable across species, habitats, and monitoring programmes, and could be accommodated within existing national or international frameworks to enable the evaluation of both large-scale policy instruments and local management interventions. We conclude by suggesting further work required to develop these indicators fully, and hope this will stimulate the use of ecological indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions for the adaptation of the natural environment across the globe.