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Abstract Floods are challenging the resilience of societies all over the world. In many countries there are discussions on diversifying the strategies for flood risk management, which implies some sort of policy change. To understand the possibilities of such change, a thorough understanding of the forces of stability and change of underlying governance arrangements is required. It follows from the path dependency literature that countries which rely strongly on flood infrastructures, as part of flood defense strategies, would be more path dependent. Consequently there is a higher chance to find more incremental change in these countries than in countries that have a more diversified set of strategies. However, comparative and detailed empirical studies that may help scrutinize this assumption are lacking. To address this knowledge gap, this paper investigates how six European countries (Belgium, England, France, The Netherlands, Poland and Sweden) essentially differ with regard to their governance of flood risks. To analyze stability and change, we focus on how countries are responding to certain societal and ecological driving forces (ecological turn; climate change discourses; European policies; and the increasing prevalence of economic rationalizations) that potentially affect the institutional arrangements for flood risk governance. Taking both the variety of flood risk governance in countries and their responses to driving forces into account, we can clarify the conditions of stability or change of flood risk governance arrangements more generally. The analysis shows that the national-level impact of driving forces is strongly influenced by the flood risk governance arrangements in the six countries. Path dependencies are indeed visible in countries with high investments in flood infrastructure accompanied by strongly institutionalized governance arrangements (Poland, the Netherlands) but not only there. Also more diversified countries that are less dependent on flood infrastructure and flood defense only (England) show path dependencies and mostly incremental change. More substantial changes are visible in countries that show moderate diversification of strategies (Belgium, France) or countries that ‘have no strong path yet’ in comprehensive flood risk governance (Sweden). This suggests that policy change can be expected when there is both the internal need and will to change and a barrage of (external) driving forces pushing for change.

Passive buildings compared to the standard ones require significantly less energy for heating, so the correct models of every “energy using” building's components are very important. This paper analyzes how various models of the internal heat and moisture gains, as well as natural airflows between building zones, influence the accuracy of the calculation of the energy performance, indoor temperatures and absolute humidity in a single-family passive building. A simulation environment used a detailed twelve-zone TRNSYS model of a house with HVAC system. The model included natural airflows between zones, and internal heat and moisture gains, defined as precisely as possible. The gains were allocated on the basis of special protocols of use filled by the occupants during the two-week measurement. The measurement data were also used for validation of the model. The verified model constituted a basis for calculation of energy performance and simulation of air temperature and absolute humidity change in a building with significantly limited airflow between zones, and heat and moisture gains defined according to standards. The standardized values of heat and moisture gains were defined on the basis of the standard ISO 13790 and national regulations in Poland. The simulations have shown that precise methodology of calculation of heat gains and airflows between building zones is very important for proper computation of energy performance and simulation of indoor temperatures and absolute humidity in passive buildings. Results of carried out analysis have shown that the difference in energy need for heating calculated using precise and simplified methods of internal heat gains determination was 30.1%.

Ca-Mn-based perovskites doped in their A- and B-site were synthesized and comparatively tested versus the Co3O4/CoO and (Mn,Fe)2O3/(Mn,Fe)3O4 redox pairs with respect to thermochemical storage and oxygen pumping capability, as a function of the kind and extent of dopant. The perovskites' induced heat effects measured via differential scanning calorimetry are substantially lower: the highest reaction enthalpy recorded by the CaMnO3–δ composition was only 14.84 kJ/kg compared to 461.1 kJ/kg for Co3O4/CoO and 161.0 kJ/kg for (Mn,Fe)2O3/(Mn,Fe)3O4. Doping of Ca with increasing content of Sr decreased these heat effects; more than 20 at % Sr eventually eliminated them. Perovskites with Sr instead of Ca in the A-site exhibited also negligible heat effects, irrespective of the kind of B site cation. On the contrary, perovskite compositions characterized by high oxygen release/uptake can operate as thermochemical oxygen pumps enhancing the performance of water/carbon dioxide splitting materials. Oxygen pumping via Ca0.9Sr0.1MnO3–δ and SrFeO3–δ doubled and tripled, respectively, the total oxygen absorbed by ceria during its re-oxidation versus that absorbed without their presence. Such effective pumping compositions exhibited practically no shrinkage during one heat-up/cool-down cycle. However, they demonstrated an increase of the coefficient of linear expansion due to the superposition of “chemical expansion” to thermal-only one, the effect of which on the long-term dimensional stability has to be further quantified through extended cyclic operation.

The assessment of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and air pollutants emitted to and removed from the atmosphere ranks high on international political and scientific agendas. Growing international concern and cooperation regarding the climate change problem have increased the need to consider the uncertainty in inventories of GHG emissions. The approaches to address uncertainty discussed in this special issue reflect attempts to improve national inventories, not only for their own sake but also from a wider, system analytic perspective. They seek to strengthen the usefulness of national emission inventories under a compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting framework. The papers in this special issue demonstrate the benefits of including inventory uncertainty in policy analyses. The issues raised by the authors and featured in their papers, along with the role that uncertainty analysis plays in many of their arguments, highlight the challenges and the importance of dealing with uncertainty. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clearly stresses the value of conducting uncertainty analyses and offers guidance on executing them, the arguments made here in favor of performing these studies go well beyond any suggestions made by the IPCC to date. Improving and conducting uncertainty analyses are needed to develop a clear understanding and informed policy. Uncertainty matters and is key to many issues related to inventorying and reducing emissions. Considering uncertainty helps to avoid situations that can create a false sense of certainty or lead to invalid views of subsystems. Dealing proactively with uncertainty allows for the generation of useful knowledge that the international community should have to hand while strengthening the 2015 Paris Agreement, which had been agreed at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). However, considering uncertainty does not come free. Proper treatment of uncertainty is demanding because it forces us to take the step from “simple to complex” and to grasp a holistic system view. Only, thereafter, can we consider potential simplifications. That is, comprehensive treatment of uncertainty does not necessarily offer quick or easy solutions for policymakers. This special issue brings together 13 papers that resulted from the 2015 (4th) International Workshop on Uncertainty in Atmospheric Emissions, in Cracow, Poland. While they deal with many different aspects of the uncertainty in emission estimates, they are guided by the same principal question: “What GHGs shall be verified at what spatio-temporal scale to support conducive legislation at local and national scales, while ensuring effective governance at the global scale?” This question is at the heart of mitigation and adaptation. It requires an understanding of the entire system of GHG sources and sinks, their spatial characteristics and the temporal scales at which they react and interact, the uncertainty (accuracy and/or precision) with which fluxes can be measured, and last but not least, the consequences that follow from all of the aforementioned aspects, for policy actors to frame compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting agreements. This bigger system context serves as a reference for the papers in the special issue, irrespective of their spatio-temporal focus, and is used as a guide for the reader.

Nowadays about 60% of world production and consumption of plastics are polyolefines. They are used as packaging, in building engineering, automotive industry or electronic engineering. High calorific value and proper Chemical composition of polyolefines (based on carbon and hydrogen) make them ideal for use in a wide range of applications. The polyolefines can be used as a substitute for coke in blast-furnace processes. This paper outlines thermal decomposition of PE-LD, PE-HD, PP which are used in agriculture and packaging from household. Thermogravimetry (TG) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) were used as analytical methods.

In this paper, the author intends to show the interaction between the living standards of the population and the financial situation of Polish local government units at the commune level. The first (theoretical) part of the paper provides a synthetic description of topics related to defining the economic terms and to the local government’s ability to impact the standards of living of the local population. In view of the multifaceted nature of terms covered by this analysis, the second part uses a canonical analysis (which means multiple linear regressions are generalized for two sets of variables) in order to identify the relationships between them. The analysis resulted in identifying a number of indicators, including canonical correlations, total redundancy and variances extracted, as well as six statistically significant canonical variates, which enabled the identification of multidimensional relationships between the categories considered. The greatest and the most statistically significant canonical correlation coefficient was over 0.93; for the last statistically significant canonical variate, it was over 0.57. The analysis provides grounds for concluding that when the values of variables representing the financial capacity of Polish rural communes are known, they can be used to explain over 32% of the variance in the set of variables relating to the population’s standards of living. The statistical data originated from the author’s own surveys carried out with presidents and vice-presidents of commune councils.

Nowadays in India the renewable energy sources are continuum growing to accommodate the current demands of energy. Therefore, for an effective use of this energy, a careful and critical analysis is required. As per literature review, India was reported having a massive potential as superpower source in terms of wind energy In the present research, an effort has been carried out to explore various decision making approaches such as TOPSIS, VIKOR, and Fuzzy analysis, to subsequently rank various Indian states with respect to their wind energy potential. In this perspective, potentiality indices have been found on the justification of five significant factors that influence the effective use of wind energy and then a classification has been proposed. It was found that the wind power density is the most significant parameter while the technical expertise has been found as the least significant among identified parameters. The results presented here indicates that among all alternative states of India, Tamilnadu and Maharashtra have the maximum potential to tap the wind energy potential. This study will act as a guide for various government agencies to re-evaluate and re-formulate their energy policies as well as will help various investors (under the ‘Make in India’ campaign) orientated to do business here, to take a well informed decision. The present study also provides a way to make strong policies, in the area of high wind energy potential, in order to maximize the use of renewable source of energy which allows to tackle the societal need and poverty.

The idea of building pocket parks in cities is one of the more rational proposals for utilizing cameral spaces to create new quality in terms of green areas while accounting for the potential to blend them into the compact functiospatial structure of the contemporary city. Numerous examples of pocket park projects from around the world point to there being considerable interest in this form of greenery. The goal of this paper is to present the findings of a study of a selected number of pocket parks in Krakow, Poland, in terms of their accessibility, local determinants, and the nearby functiospatial structure, as well as whether they can be included into a wider network of service and green spaces of supralocal significance. The research method included novel field research of selected pocket parks and their surroundings. The form and function of the parks were analyzed and the type of their surrounding urban structure was determined, along with the parks’ accessibility. The study investigated nine parks located in the northeastern part of Krakow in a dense development structure dominated by multi-family housing. Analyses of the parks themselves and the research on the relations and linkages between parks and their surrounding urban structure generally pointed to the accuracy of the concept of the pocket park, its universality, and its compliance with the concept of the sustainable development of urban space. The presence and manner of development of pocket parks can be said to enhance the quality of spaces in confined fragments of an urban structure and to have predominantly local significance.