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About 25 million tons of food go wasted or lost in Iran which has socio-economic and environmental consequences for both the country and the households. The main objective of this research is to develop a model to examine the relationship between FCM components and the amount of FW of households in Tehran city, with a focus on urban women. By means of a structural model, this study provides a novel approach to exploring relationships between the food-related behavior of urban households and waste control (n = 1197). Besides, this study is the first attempt to quantify food waste in Iran at the household level. According to the adopted self-reporting procedure, in Tehran, every consumer wastes about 27.6 kg of edible food annually. It is found that households with better food consumption management (FCM (have a lower level of food waste. Moreover, the results have proved that other determinants such as demographic factors, economic power, information use, ability, and motivation have direct and indirect significant effects on FCM as well as on the amount of food waste generation. The findings suggest that the above-mentioned determinants are crucial and should be considered when developing a strategically sustainable food waste prevention plan.

Small but numerically dominant species such as the cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus play a pivotal role in major nutrient cycles. To understand how Prochlorococcus populations affect nutrient flows, we present and analyze two alternative population models. These models − one including over-shading effects and one not − are based on Dynamic Energy Budget (DEB) theory to describe how growth may be affected by the availability of CO2 and/or inorganic nutrients and by changes in light conditions. In these models individuals have reserves for C, N, and P from which fluxes for maintenance and growth are mobilized. Time series data from laboratory studies of growth under three different nutrient concentrations are used to calibrate the models. The model with carbon, nitrogen and phosphate as limiting factors can reasonably describe the growth in the low N and low P media experiments, while the model with over-shading gives a proper description of the growth under all tested experimental conditions. Modeled C:N:P ratios are within range of reported in scientific literature ones and similar to measured ratios. The results suggest that (1) reserves play a critical role for cyanobacteria to thrive under the often oligotrophic conditions in which they live, and (2) over-shading has a considerable effect as co-limiting factor on the growth of cyanobacteria. We argue that an individual DEB-based model in which multiple nutrient limitations are presented can be used to successfully describe cyanobacterium growth patterns in batch cultures.

Changes in weather patterns pose a threat to the serviceability and long-term performance of roads, and porous asphalt (PA) roads are particularly sensitive to the freezing-thawing (FT) phenomenon. The main objective of this research is to assess the impact of climate change, particularly freezing and thawing cycles, on PA. Climate models predict changes in air temperature, not pavement temperature. To predict the climate change impact on pavements performance, this requires first establishing a relationship between air and road temperature and a correlation between pavement performance and FT cycles. This project focuses on the Netherlands, where PA pavement use has become mandatory, and recent severe winters have increased the discussion about the cold weather performance of porous asphalt and the potential challenges of changing winter weather patterns. When considering long-term changes in climate, the cost impacts of freeze-thaw on PA pavement are predicted to vary regionally and in most areas reach a point in the middle of the century when a reactive wait-and-see approach is more advantageous than proactive adaptation. Further research is suggested to refine the relationship between observed damage and freeze-thaw impacts on PA pavement.

Urban environments provide opportunities for greater resource efficiency and the fostering of urban ecosystems. Brownfield areas are a typical example of underused land resources. Brownfield redevelopment projects that include green infrastructure allow for further ecosystems to be accommodated in urban environments. Green infrastructure also deliver important urban ecosystem services (UES) to local residents, which can greatly contribute to improving quality of life in cities. In this case study, we quantify and assess the economic value of five UES for a brownfield redevelopment project in Antwerp, Belgium. The assessment is carried out using the “Nature Value Explorer” modelling tool. The case includes three types of green infrastructure (green corridor,infiltration gullies and green roofs) primarily intended to connect nature reserves on the urban periphery and to avoid surface runoff. The green infrastructure also provides air filtration, climate regulation, carbon sequestration and recreation ecosystem services. The value of recreation far exceeds other values, including the value of avoided runoff. The case study raises crucial questions as to whether existing UES valuation approaches adequately account for the range of UES provided and whether such approaches can be improved to achieve more accurate and reliable value estimates in future analyses.

It is possible to distribute drinking water without a disinfectant residual when the treated water is biologically stable. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of easily and slowly biodegradable compounds on the biostability of the drinking water at three full-scale production plants which use the same surface water, and on the regrowth conditions in the related distribution systems. Easily biodegradable compounds in the drinking water were determined with AOC-P17/Nox during 2012-2015. Slowly biodegradable organic compounds measured as particulate and/or high-molecular organic carbon (PHMOC), were monitored at the inlet and after the different treatment stages of the three treatments during the same period. The results show that PHMOC (300-470 μg C L-1) was approximately 10% of the TOC in the surface water and was removed to 50-100 μg C L-1. The PHMOC in the water consisted of 40-60% of carbohydrates and 10% of proteins. A significant and strong positive correlation was observed for PHMOC concentrations and two recently introduced bioassay methods for slowly biodegradable compounds (AOC-A3 and biomass production potential, BPC14). Moreover, these three parameters in the biological active carbon effluent (BACF) of the three plants showed a positive correlation with regrowth in the drinking water distribution system, which was assessed with Aeromonas, heterotrophic plate counts, coliforms and large invertebrates. In contrast, the AOC-P17/Nox concentrations did not correlate with these regrowth parameters. We therefore conclude that slowly biodegradable compounds in the treated water from these treatment plants seem to have a greater impact on regrowth in the distribution system than easily biodegradable compounds.

AbstractLand Surface Phenology (LSP) is the most direct representation of intra‐annual dynamics of vegetated land surfaces as observed from satellite imagery. LSP plays a key role in characterizing land‐surface fluxes, and is central to accurately parameterizing terrestrial biosphere–atmosphere interactions, as well as climate models. In this article, we present an evaluation of Pan‐European LSP and its changes over the past 30 years, using the longest continuous record of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) available to date in combination with a landscape‐based aggregation scheme. We used indicators of Start‐Of‐Season, End‐Of‐Season and Growing Season Length (SOS, EOS and GSL, respectively) for the period 1982–2011 to test for temporal trends in activity of terrestrial vegetation and their spatial distribution. We aggregated pixels into ecologically representative spatial units using the European Landscape Classification (LANMAP) and assessed the relative contribution of spring and autumn phenology. GSL increased significantly by 18–24 days decade−1 over 18–30% of the land area of Europe, depending on methodology. This trend varied extensively within and between climatic zones and landscape classes. The areas of greatest growing‐season lengthening were the Continental and Boreal zones, with hotspots concentrated in southern Fennoscandia, Western Russia and pockets of continental Europe. For the Atlantic and Steppic zones, we found an average shortening of the growing season with hotspots in Western France, the Po valley, and around the Caspian Sea. In many zones, changes in the NDVI‐derived end‐of‐season contributed more to the GSL trend than changes in spring green‐up, resulting in asymmetric trends. This underlines the importance of investigating senescence and its underlying processes more closely as a driver of LSP and global change.

AbstractNitrous oxide (N2O) is a potent greenhouse gas and causes stratospheric ozone depletion. While the emissions of N2O from soil are widely recognized, recent research has shown that terrestrial plants may also emit N2O from their leaves under controlled laboratory conditions. However, it is unclear whether foliar N2O emissions are universal across varying plant taxa, what the global significance of foliar N2O emissions is, and how the foliage produces N2O in situ. Here we investigated the abilities of 25 common plant taxa, including trees, shrubs and herbs, to emit N2O under in situ conditions. Using 15N isotopic labeling, we demonstrated that the foliage‐emitted N2O was predominantly derived from nitrate. Moreover, by selectively injecting biocide in conjunction with the isolating and back‐inoculating of endophytes, we demonstrated that the foliar N2O emissions were driven by endophytic bacteria. The seasonal N2O emission rates ranged from 3.2 to 9.2 ng N2O–N g−1 dried foliage h−1. Extrapolating these emission rates to global foliar biomass and plant N uptake, we estimated global foliar N2O emission to be 1.21 and 1.01 Tg N2O–N year−1, respectively. These estimates account for 6%–7% of the current global annual N2O emission of 17 Tg N2O–N year−1, indicating that in situ foliar N2O emission is a universal process for terrestrial plants and contributes significantly to the global N2O inventory. This finding highlights the importance of measuring foliar N2O emissions in future studies to enable the accurate assigning of mechanisms and the development of effective mitigation.