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Tree cores were sampled using increment borers. At each site three trees were chosen for coring, with two or three cores taken per tree. Cores were sanded and ring widths measured based on high-resolution images of the sanded cores. Cores were cross-dated and summary statistics used to compare cross-dating accuracy. The dataset contains the resulting dated ring width series. This dataset includes tree ring width data, derived from tree cores, that were sampled from sites across the Rhön Biosphere Reserve (Germany). At each chosen site three trees were cored, with two or three cores taken per cored tree. Data was collected in August 2021.

Bioplastics are alternatives of conventional petroleum-based plastics. Bioplastics are polymers processed from renewable sources and are biodegradable. This study aims at conducting an environmental impact assessment of the bioprocessing of agricultural wastes into bioplastics compared to petro-plastics using an LCA approach. Bioplastics were produced from potato peels in laboratory. In a biochemical reaction under heating, starch was extracted from peels and glycerin, vinegar and water were added with a range of different ratios, which resulted in producing different samples of bio-based plastics. Nevertheless, the environmental impact of the bioplastics production process was evaluated and compared to petro-plastics. A life cycle analysis of bioplastics produced in laboratory and petro-plastics was conducted. The results are presented in the form of global warming potential, and other environmental impacts including acidification potential, eutrophication potential, freshwater ecotoxicity potential, human toxicity potential, and ozone layer depletion of producing bioplastics are compared to petro-plastics. The results show that the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, through the different experiments to produce bioplastics, range between 0.354 and 0.623 kg CO2 eq. per kg bioplastic compared to 2.37 kg CO2 eq. per kg polypropylene as a petro-plastic. The results also showed that there are no significant potential effects for the bioplastics produced from potato peels on different environmental impacts in comparison with poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid and polypropylene. Thus, the bioplastics produced from agricultural wastes can be manufactured in industrial scale to reduce the dependence on petroleum-based plastics. This in turn will mitigate GHG emissions and reduce the negative environmental impacts on climate change.

Although several studies suggest that tree species in mixed stands resist drought events better than in pure stands, little is known about the impact on growth and the tree water deficit (TWD) in different tree heights at heavy drought. With dendrometer data at the upper and lower stem and coarse roots, we calculated the TWD and growth (ZGmax) (referring to the stem/root basal area) to show (1) the relationship of TWD in different tree heights (50% tree height (H50), breast height (BH), and roots) and the corresponding leaf water potential and (2) how mixture and drought influence the partitioning of growth and tree water. The analyses were made in a mature temperate forest of Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) and European beech (Fagus sylvatica (L.)). Half of the plots were placed under conditions of extreme drought through automatic closing roof systems within the stand. We found a tight relationship of leaf water potentials and TWD at all tree compartments. Through this proven correlation at all tree heights we were also able to study the differences of TWD in all tree compartments next to the growth allocation. Whereas at the beginning of the growing period, trees prioritized growth of the upper stem, during the course of the year the growth of lower stem became a greater priority. Growth allocation of mixed spruces showed a tendency of a higher growth of the roots compared to the BH. However, spruces in interspecific neighborhoods exhibited a lesser TWD in the roots as spruces in intraspecific neighborhood. Beeches in intraspecific neighborhoods showed a higher TWD in BH compared to H50 as beeches in interspecific neighborhoods. Mixture seems to enhance the water supply of spruce trees, which should increase the stability of this species in a time of climatic warming.

Biological infestations in forests, e.g. the insect outbreaks, have been shown as favoured by future climate change trends. In Europe, the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus L.) is one of the main agents causing substantial economic disturbances in forests. Therefore, studies on spatio-temporal characterization of the area affected by bark beetle are of major importance for rapid post-attack management. We aimed at spatially detecting damage classes by combining multidate remote sensing data and a non-parametric classification. As study site served a part of the Bavarian Forest National Park (Germany). For the analysis, we used 10 geometrically rectified scenes of Landsat and SPOT sensors in the period between 2001 and 2011. The main objective was to explore the potential of medium-resolution data for classifying the attacked areas. A further aim was to explore if the temporally adjacent infested areas are able to be separated. The random forest (RF) model was applied using the reference data drawn from high-resolution aerial imagery. The results indicate that the sufficiently large patches of visually identifiable damage classes can be accurately separated from non-attacked areas. In contrast to those, the other mortality classes (current year, current year 1 and current year 2 infested classes) were mostly classified with higher commission or omission errors as well as higher classification biases. The available medium-resolution satellite images, combined with properly acquired reference data, are concluded to be adequate tools to map area-based infestations at advanced stages. However, the quality of reference data, the size of infested patches and the spectral resolution of remotely sensed data are the decisive factors in case of smaller areas. Further attempts using auxiliary height information and spatially enhanced data may refine such an approach.

Abstract With the rise of awareness of health and well-being in cities, urban environmental analysis should expand from energy performance to new environmental quality-based considerations. The limited potential to annually evaluate outdoor thermal comfort, predominant among these considerations, has restricted the exploration of the interrelations between urban morphology and annual energy performance. This study aims to bridge this gap by capitalizing on the new capabilities of Eddy3D – a Grasshopper plugin which enables effective calculations of hourly microclimatic wind factors via OpenFOAM which in turn are used to generate annual outdoor thermal comfort plots. Using this method, a parametric study was conducted for different typology and density scenarios in three different hot climatic contexts in Israel. The automated analytical workflow evaluated a total of 60 design iterations for their energy balance, outdoor thermal comfort autonomy (OTCA) and self-shading levels using the shade index. The high correlation found here between the annual shade index and the OTCA, across all climatic contexts, shows the potential of the shade index to serve as an effective indicator, in these contexts, for comparative or optimization outdoor comfort studies. Further results are both the superiority of the courtyard typology in both energy and outdoor comfort studies, and the contrasting impact of higher density on the annual energy balance (lower performance) and outdoor thermal comfort (higher performance) in hot climates. The annual plots of both the energy balance and OTCA reveal various seasonal and monthly trends in the three different climatic zones which can lead to localized and seasonal urban design strategies.

Introduction: During the COVID-19 lockdown significant improvements in urban air quality were detected due to the absence of motorized vehicles. It is crucial to perpetuate such improvements to maintain and improve public health simultaneously. Therefore, this exploratory study approached bicycle infrastructure in the case of Munich (Germany) to find out which specific bicycle lanes meet the demands of its users, how such infrastructure looks like, and which characteristics are potentially important. Methods: To identify patterns of bicycle infrastructure in Munich exploratory data is collected over the timespan of three consecutive weeks in August by a bicycle rider at different times of the day. We measure position, time, velocity, pulse, level of sound, temperature and humidity. In the next step, we qualitatively identified different segments and applied a cluster analysis to quantitatively describe those segments regarding the measured factors. The data allows us to identify which bicycle lanes have a particular set of measurements, indicating a favorable construction for bike riders. Results: In the exploratory dataset, five relevant segment clusters are identified: viscous, slow, inconsistent, accelerating, and best-performance. The segments that are identified as best-performance enable bicycle riders to travel efficiently and safely at amenable distances in urban areas. They are characterized by their width, little to no interaction with motorized traffic as well as pedestrians, and effective traffic light control. Discussion: We propose two levels of discussion: (1) revolves around what kind of bicycles lanes from the case study can help to increase bicycle usage in urban areas, while simultaneously improving public health and mitigating climate change challenges and (2) discussing the possibilities, limitations and necessary improvements of this kind of exploratory methodology.

This study developed and compared eco-driving strategies for different traffic-management measures. Results show that eco-driving in a dedicated lane can substantially reduce energy consumption, which can be improved further by providing the vehicle with information regarding the phase timing of upcoming traffic lights. For vehicles operating in mixed traffic, the energy savings strongly depend on the interaction with other traffic participants. Results show that an eco-driving strategy that limits the maximum inter-vehicle distance leaves less opportunity for eco-driving, and barely benefits from traffic light information. An eco-driving strategy without a maximum-inter-vehicle distance results in higher energy savings and does benefit from traffic light information, but leads to large inter-vehicle distances, which may induce congestion. Generating detailed results on the impact of ecodriving in traffic requires implementing the algorithms in agent based traffic simulations.

Los nuevos sistemas inteligentes para ayudar a la transición energética y mejorar la sostenibilidad y la vida de las personas se pueden implementar a diferentes escalas, desde una casa hasta una región entera. Los campus universitarios son un tamaño intermedio interesante (lo suficientemente grande como para importar y lo suficientemente pequeño como para ser manejable) para la investigación, el desarrollo, las pruebas y la capacitación sobre la integración de la inteligencia en todos los niveles, lo que llevó a la aparición del concepto de "campus inteligente" en los últimos años. Este artículo de revisión propone un amplio análisis de la literatura científica sobre campus inteligentes de la última década (2010-2020). Las 182 publicaciones seleccionadas se distribuyen en siete categorías de inteligencia: edificio inteligente, entorno inteligente, movilidad inteligente, vida inteligente, personas inteligentes, gobierno inteligente y datos inteligentes. Las principales preguntas y desafíos abiertos con respecto a los campus inteligentes se presentan al final de la revisión y abordan la sostenibilidad y la transición energética, la aceptabilidad y la ética, los modelos de aprendizaje, las políticas de datos abiertos y la interoperabilidad. El presente trabajo se realizó en el marco de la Red de Energía de la Cumbre de Líderes Regionales (RLS-Energy) como parte de sus esfuerzos de investigación multilateral sobre regiones inteligentes. De nouveaux systèmes intelligents pour aider à la transition énergétique et améliorer la durabilité et la vie des gens peuvent être déployés à différentes échelles, allant d'une maison à une région entière. Les campus universitaires sont une taille intermédiaire intéressante (assez grande pour compter et assez petite pour être maniable) pour la recherche, le développement, les tests et la formation sur l'intégration de l'intelligence à tous les niveaux, ce qui a conduit à l'émergence du concept de « campus intelligent » au cours des dernières années. Cet article de synthèse propose une analyse approfondie de la littérature scientifique sur les campus intelligents de la dernière décennie (2010-2020). Les 182 publications sélectionnées sont réparties en sept catégories d'intelligence : smart building, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, smart people, smart governance et smart data. Les principales questions et défis ouverts concernant les campus intelligents sont présentés à la fin de l'examen et traitent de la durabilité et de la transition énergétique, de l'acceptabilité et de l'éthique, des modèles d'apprentissage, des politiques de données ouvertes et de l'interopérabilité. Le présent travail a été réalisé dans le cadre du Réseau de l'énergie du Sommet des dirigeants régionaux (RLS-Energy) dans le cadre de ses efforts multilatéraux de recherche sur les régions intelligentes. Novel intelligent systems to assist the energy transition and improve sustainability and people's life can be deployed at different scales, ranging from a house to an entire region. University campuses are an interesting intermediate size (big enough to matter and small enough to be tractable) for research, development, test and training on the integration of smartness at all levels, which led to the emergence of the concept of "smart campus" over the last few years. This review article proposes an extensive analysis of the scientific literature on smart campuses from the last decade (2010-2020). The 182 selected publications are distributed into seven categories of smartness: smart building, smart environment, smart mobility, smart living, smart people, smart governance and smart data. The main open questions and challenges regarding smart campuses are presented at the end of the review and deal with sustainability and energy transition, acceptability and ethics, learning models, open data policies and interoperability. The present work was carried out within the framework of the Energy Network of the Regional Leaders Summit (RLS-Energy) as part of its multilateral research efforts on smart regions. يمكن نشر أنظمة ذكية جديدة للمساعدة في انتقال الطاقة وتحسين الاستدامة وحياة الناس على مستويات مختلفة، تتراوح من منزل إلى منطقة بأكملها. تعتبر الجامعات ذات حجم متوسط مثير للاهتمام (كبيرة بما يكفي لتكون مهمة وصغيرة بما يكفي لتكون قابلة للتتبع) للبحث والتطوير والاختبار والتدريب على تكامل الذكاء على جميع المستويات، مما أدى إلى ظهور مفهوم "الحرم الجامعي الذكي" على مدى السنوات القليلة الماضية. تقترح مقالة المراجعة هذه تحليلاً شاملاً للأدبيات العلمية حول الجامعات الذكية من العقد الماضي (2010-2020). يتم توزيع المنشورات الـ 182 المختارة على سبع فئات من الذكاء: البناء الذكي، والبيئة الذكية، والتنقل الذكي، والمعيشة الذكية، والأشخاص الأذكياء، والحوكمة الذكية، والبيانات الذكية. يتم تقديم الأسئلة والتحديات الرئيسية المفتوحة المتعلقة بالحرم الجامعي الذكي في نهاية المراجعة والتعامل مع الاستدامة وانتقال الطاقة والقبول والأخلاقيات ونماذج التعلم وسياسات البيانات المفتوحة وقابلية التشغيل البيني. تم تنفيذ العمل الحالي في إطار شبكة الطاقة التابعة لقمة القادة الإقليميين (RLS - Energy) كجزء من جهودها البحثية متعددة الأطراف حول المناطق الذكية.