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<h3>Project Overview</h3> <p>Jurisdictional boundaries of governmental agencies often do not align with the geographic or social boundaries of the policy issues they are tasked with addressing. This spatial mismatch is especially common in relation to natural resources and the environment. Where it occurs, achievement of policy goals may require coordination across jurisdictions, which can lead to mutual benefits. Yet, governmental agencies may view coordination as costly or as leading to a loss of autonomy. This project examined coordination decisions made by local level governmental agencies in California, as they formed Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) and subsequently coordinated development of their first groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) under California's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The project addresses the question of how agencies make decisions and manage interactions when under a coordination mandate that allots agencies the discretion to decide how to coordinate. More specifically, it investigates:<ol><li>What factors influence decisions regarding the geographic extent of and parties involved in development of new formal agencies for groundwater management,</li><li>How do concerns about the potential risks of coordination affect the choice of coordination mechanisms,</li><li>How does the structure of agency interactions affect their achievement of the objectives of the coordination mandate, and</li><li>How do agencies make sense of a coordination mandate and how does that sense-making process influence the decisions agencies make when deciding how to respond to the mandate?</li></ol></p> <h3>Data Collection Overview</h3> <p>Data were collected between January 2018 and May 2020. The methods for data collection varied by data type.<ul><li>Secondary data on the physical, social, and institutional characteristics of groundwater basins were collected from California Department of Water Resources datasets, the American Community Survey, and the National Land Use Database.</li><li>Data on GSA formation and copies of GSPs and Coordination Agreements were obtained from the California’s SGMA Portal Website (https://sgma.water.ca.gov/portal/)</li><li>Meeting minutes and other documentation were obtained from the respective websites of local-level agencies that formed GSAs.</li><li>Interviews were conducted with representatives from 67 groundwater sustainability agencies. Interviewees spanned 17 of the 19 basins and 38 of the 44 groundwater sustainability plans produced. Interviewees were identified based on formal GSA contact information and selected based on formal notices to produce a GSP. Recruitment sought to interview representatives from least one GSA from each GSP group.</li><li>Participant observation was undertaken of more than 58 public meetings (in person, virtually, or reviewing recordings).</li></ul></p> <h3>Shared Data Organization</h3> <p>The shared data is organized into three folders. A GIS folder contains 16 relevant data files. An interview transcripts folder contains 52 de-identified transcripts from the interviews that were recorded and transcribed. Some interviewees did not agree to recording and transcription of the interviews, thus data from those interviews are not available. A tabular data folder contains 3 spreadsheet workbooks. These include a spreadsheet documenting coordination concerns at the basin-level; a spreadsheet documenting organizational forms and institutions adopted at the basin-level; and a spreadsheet documenting coordination outcomes at the basin-level. Each spreadsheet includes a copy of the codebook used in analyzing the data. This data project also includes 6 documentation files: a GIS metadata workbook, an interview catalog, an interview consent form, a redaction protocol, this data narrative, and an administrative README file.</p> <h3>Data Overview</h3> <p>The research involved a mixed-methods approach that combines information on agencies; the physical, social, and institutional characteristics of groundwater basins and the agencies located within them; formal filings; agreements; and plans developed by agencies; meeting minutes; interview data; and data from participant observation.</p>

Ammonia production through more efficient technologies can be achieved using exergy analysis. Ammonia production is one of the most important but also one of most energy consuming processes in the chemical industry. Based on a panel of solutions previously developed, this study helps to identify potential areas of improvement using an exergy analysis that covers all aspects of conventional ammonia synthesis and separation. The total internal and external exergy losses are calculated as 3,152 and 6,364 kJ/kg, respectively. The process is then divided into five main functional blocks based on their exergy losses. The reforming block contains the largest exergy loss (3,098 kJ/kg) and thus the largest potential for improvement including preheating cold feed through an economizer, developing technology towards isobaric mixing, and pressure drop reduction in the secondary reformer as the main contributors to the irreversibility (1,302 kJ/kg) in this block. The second largest exergy loss resides in the ammonia synthesis block (3,075 kJ/kg) where solutions such as reduced temperature rise across the compressor, proper compressor isolation, reducing undesired components such as argon in the reactor feed, and using lower temperatures for reactor outlet streams, are proposed to decrease the exergy losses. Throttling process in the syngas separator is the key contributing mechanism for the irreversibility (1,635 kJ/kg exergy losses) in the gas upgrading block. The exergy losses in the residual ammonia removal block (833 kJ/kg exergy losses) are mainly due to the stripper and the absorber column where a modified column design might be helpful. The highest exergy loss in the preheating block belongs to the compressors (518 kJ/kg exergy losses) where a lower inlet temperature and better system isolation could help to reduce losses.

AbstractBACKGROUND: Inappropriate utilisation of biosolids may adversely impact agrosystem productivity. Here, we address the response of wheat (Triticum durum) to different doses (0, 40, 100, 200 and 300 t ha−1) of either municipal solid waste (MSW) compost or sewage sludge in a greenhouse pot experiment. Plant growth, heavy metal uptake, and antioxidant activity were considered.RESULTS: Biomass production of treated plants was significantly enhanced at 40 t ha−1 and 100 t ha−1 of MSW compost (+48% and +78% relative to the control, respectively). At the same doses of sewage sludge, the increase was only 18%. Higher doses of both biosolids restricted significantly the plant growth, in concomitance with the significant accumulation of heavy metals (Ni2+, Pb2+, Cu2+ and Zn2+), especially in leaves. Leaf activities of antioxidant enzymes (ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, catalase and superoxide dismutase) were unchanged at 40 t ha−1 MSW compost or sewage sludge, but were significantly stimulated at higher doses (200–300 t ha−1), together with higher leaf concentration of reduced glutathione.CONCLUSION: This preliminary study suggests that a MSW supply at moderate doses (100 t ha−1) could be highly beneficial for wheat productivity. Copyright © 2010 Society of Chemical Industry

Abstract Anaerobic digestion of animal by-products was investigated in batch and semi-continuously fed, reactor experiments at 55 °C and for some experiments also at 37 °C. Separate or mixed by-products from pigs were tested. The methane potential measured by batch assays for meat- and bone flour, fat, blood, hair, meat, ribs, raw waste were: 225, 497, 487, 561, 582, 575, 359, 619 dm 3 kg −1 respectively, corresponding to 50–100% of the calculated theoretical methane potential. Dilution of the by-products had a positive effect on the specific methane yield with the highest dilutions giving the best results. High concentrations of long-chain fatty acids and ammonia in the by-products were found to inhibit the biogas process at concentrations higher than 5 g lipids dm −3 and 7 g N dm −3 respectively. Pretreatment (pasteurization: 70 °C, sterilization: 133 °C, and alkali hydrolysis (NaOH) had no effect on achieved methane yields. Mesophilic digestion was more stable than thermophilic digestion, and higher methane yield was noticed at high waste concentrations. The lower yield at thermophilic temperature and high waste concentration was due to ammonia inhibition. Co-digestion of 5% pork by-products mixed with pig manure at 37 °C showed 40% higher methane production compared to digestion of manure alone.

In this paper, the performances of two iron-based syngas-fueled chemical looping (SCL) systems for hydrogen (H2) and electricity production, with carbon dioxide (CO2) capture, using different reactor configurations were evaluated and compared. The first investigated system was based on a moving bed reactor configuration (SCL-MB) while the second used a fluidized bed reactor configuration (SCL-FB). Two modes of operation of the SCL systems were considered, namely, the H2 production mode, when H2 was the desired product from the system, and the combustion mode, when only electricity was produced. The SCL systems were modeled and simulated using Aspen Plus software. The results showed that the SCL system based on a moving bed reactor configuration is more efficient than the looping system with a fluidized bed reactor configuration. The H2 production efficiency of the SCL-MB system was 11 % points higher than that achieved in the SCL-FB system (55.1 % compared to 44.0 %). When configured to produce only electricity, the net electrical efficiency of the SCL-MB system was 1.4 % points higher than that of the SCL-FB system (39.9 % compared to 38.5 %). Further, the results showed that the two chemical looping systems could achieve >99 % carbon capture efficiency and emit ~2 kg CO2/MWh, which is significantly lower than the emission rate of conventional coal gasification-based plants for H2 and/or electricity generation with CO2 capture.

The world, society and education are constantly evolving, and to respond to these changes, the main governmental institutions have been proposing different global strategies to focus efforts in the same direction. Currently, the United Nations and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have presented a series of indicators that could help to minimise the environmental, economic and social instability we are experiencing. In this sense, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been described as a fundamental factor. Specifically, in previous work, we argued that physical education (PE) could be a good tool to contribute to SDGs. Based on this, no research analysing the voices of Physical Education Teachers (PET) on how this contribution could be made has been identified in previous literature. Therefore, the objectives of this research are: (1) to analyse the voices and opinions of active PETs in terms of the knowledge they have about Sustainable Development (SD); (2) to determine their opinions about the contribution that PE could make to SDGs; and finally, (3) to identify the challenges and limitations of pedagogical action of SD in PE. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis through a semi-structured interview with 41 active PETs was carried out. The main findings will be presented and discussed around four themes: (a) agreement on the concept of sustainability; (b) PE can contribute to the achievement of SDGs; (c) ambiguity in applying SDGs to PE lessons; and (d) teachers’ constraints on how to implement SDGs in PE. It seems to indicate that PETs do not have a multidimensional vision of sustainable development. While they recognise the potential of PE to contribute to SDGs through awareness raising and student learning, they point to its pedagogical and formative constraints as the main barriers to being able to contribute. They pointed to a lack of knowledge on how to do so, guidelines on how to integrate ESD, lack of involvement, shortage of time or resources in school physical education.

Diesel engine exhausts from a common rail 3.0 L F1C diesel engine were analyzed at two different load conditions of the WLTC testing cycle downstream of both the diesel particulate filter (DPF) and selective catalytic reactor (SCR) to verify their effect on the characteristics of carbon particulate matter. An array of chemical, physical and spectroscopic techniques (gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), mobility analyzer, UV-Visible absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy) was applied for characterizing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), heavy aromatic compounds and soot, constituting the particulate matter (PM) sampled from the exhaust. The engine was operated in half load (HL) (188 Nm, representing the more common condition for engine in urban traffic) and full load (FL) (452 Nm, representing the best performance of the engine operation) conditions, at the same engine speed (2000 rpm). Soot formation was enhanced in HL condition, with respect to FL, but, just because of the much lower soot amount, the after-treatment systems in this last condition resulted to be less efficient in the soot abatement. Indeed, the abatement through DPF was about 40% lower in the FL condition with respect to HL condition, and any significant further concentration decrease was found after SCR, in both conditions. By contrast, PAH concentration after DPF abatement was found to be higher in the HL with respect to FL condition. A further PAH concentration decrease of about 30% was found after the SCR in the HL condition whereas in FL the reduction was only about 5-6%. Also the heavy aromatic compounds having molecular weight above the GC-MS detection limit (300 u), were mitigated by SCR. Therefore, SCR did not cause a further soot reduction, whereas it was effective in largely reducing PAH and heavy aromatics emissions, especially in the lower temperature condition featuring the half-load condition, when combustion efficiency is worse. Moreover, SCR system reduced the emission of small particles probably due to an enhanced agglomeration of particles, with beneficial effect on the harmfulness to human health.

Climaps.eu is an online atlas providing data, visualizations and commentaries about climate adaptation debate. It contains 33 issue-maps and 5 issue-stories. Each of the maps focuses on one issue in the adaptation debate and provides.The atlas is addressed to climate experts (negotiators, NGOs and companies concerned by global warming, journalists…) and to citizens willing to engage with the issues of climate adaptation.It employs advanced digital methods to deploy the complexity of the issues related to climate adaptation and information design to make this complexity legible.

Cassava pulp is a major by-product produced in a cassava starch factory, containing 50–60% of starch (dry basis). Therefore, in this study we are considering its potential as a raw material substrate for the production of methane. To ensure sufficient amounts of nutrients for the anaerobic digestion process, the potential of co-digestion of cassava pulp (CP) with pig manure (PM) was further examined. The effect of the co-substrate mixture ratio was carried out in a semi-continuously fed stirred tank reactor (CSTR) operated under mesophilic condition (37 °C) and at a constant OLR of 3.5 kg VS m−3 d−1 and a HRT of 15 days. The results showed that co-digestion resulted in higher methane production and reduction of volatile solids (VS) but lower buffering capacity. Compared to the digestion of PM alone, the specific methane yield increased 41% higher when co-digested with CP in concentrations up to 60% of the incoming VS. This was probably due to an increase in available easily degradable carbohydrates as the CP ratio in feedstock increased. The highest methane yield and VS removal of 306 mL g−1 VSadded and 61%, respectively, were achieved with good process stability (VFA:Alkalinity ratio < 0.1) when CP accounted for 60% of the feedstock VS. A further increase of CP of the feedstock led to a decrease in methane yield and solid reductions. This appeared to be caused by an extremely high C:N ratio of the feedstock resulting in a deficiency of ammonium nitrogen for microbial growth and buffering capacity.