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The aim of this study was to quantify direct and indirect relationships between soil microbial community properties (potential basal respiration, microbial biomass) and abiotic factors (soil, climate) in three major land-cover types. Location: Europe Time period: 2018 Major taxa studied: Microbial community (fungi and bacteria) We collected 881 soil samples from across Europe in the framework of the Land Use/Land Cover Area Frame Survey (LUCAS). We measured potential soil basal respiration at 20ºC and microbial biomass (substrate-induced respiration) using an O2-microcompensation apparatus. Climate and soil data were obtained from previous LUCAS surveys and online databases. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to quantify relationships between variables, and equations extracted from SEMs were used to create predictive maps. Fatty acid methyl esters were measured in a subset of samples to distinguish fungal from bacterial biomass. Soil microbial properties in croplands were more heavily affected by climate variables than those in forests. Potential soil basal respiration and microbial biomass were correlated in forests but decoupled in grasslands and croplands, where microbial biomass depended on soil carbon. Forests had a higher ratio of fungi to bacteria than grasslands or croplands. Soil microbial communities in grasslands and croplands are likely carbon-limited in comparison with those in forests, and forests have a higher dominance of fungi indicating differences in microbial community composition. Notably, the often already-degraded soils of croplands could be more vulnerable to climate change than more natural soils. The provided maps show potentially vulnerable areas that should be explicitly accounted for in coming management plans to protect soil carbon and slow the increasing vulnerability of European soils to climate change. [Methods] Soil samples were collected during the 2018 LUCAS soil sampling campaign. Soil chemical and physical properties were measured at the Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy (Orgiazzi et al., 2018). Soil microbial respiration and biomass, as well as water content and water holding capacity, were measured in the Eisenhauer lab of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research. Fungi/Bacteria was measured by fatty acid analysis by Felipe Bastida at CEBAS CSIC. Climate and geographical data were harvested from various databases, which are listed in Appendix 1 (data sources) of the associated paper. For more details on the soil sampling and physical and chemical properties, see: Orgiazzi, A., Ballabio, C., Panagos, P., Jones, A., & Fernández-Ugalde, O. (2018). LUCAS Soil, the largest expandable soil dataset for Europe: a review. European Journal of Soil Science, 69(1), 140-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejss.12499 For more details on the measurements of soil microbial respiration and biomass, fatty acids, and water holding capacity, see the supplementary methods of the associated paper (Appendix 2). [Usage Notes] Fatty acid analysis was performed for a subset of 267 samples. Water holding capacity and associated measurements of basal respiration was analyzed in a subset of 100 samples. The samples that were not in these subsets have NA values for the columns associated with these measurements. In order to protect the precise locations of the LUCAS sampling sites, latitude and longitude values could not be given. The approximate location of each sampling site is instead described by the NUTS3 region. If you wish to replicate the structural equation modeling described in the paper, for which latitude is required, please get in touch. A description of each column is available in the associated metadata file. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Award: FZT 118-202548816. European Research Council, Award: 694368. European Commission. Directorate-General for the Environment. Direction Générale Opérationnelle Agriculture, Ressources Naturelles et Environnement du Service Public de Wallonie. Eurostat. Peer reviewed

Dynamics of societal material stocks such as buildings and infrastructures and their spatial patterns drive surging resource use and emissions. Building up and maintaining stocks requires large amounts of resources; currently stock-building materials amount to almost 60% of all materials used by humanity. Buildings, infrastructures and machinery shape social practices of production and consumption, thereby creating path dependencies for future resource use. They constitute the physical basis of the spatial organization of most socio-economic activities, for example as mobility networks, urbanization and settlement patterns and various other infrastructures. This dataset features a detailed map of material stocks for the whole of Germany on a 10m grid based on high resolution Earth Observation data (Sentinel-1 + Sentinel-2), crowd-sourced geodata (OSM) and material intensity factors. Temporal extent The map is representative for ca. 2018. Data format Per federal state, the data come in tiles of 30x30km (see shapefile). The projection is EPSG:3035. The images are compressed GeoTiff files (*.tif). There is a mosaic in GDAL Virtual format (*.vrt), which can readily be opened in most Geographic Information Systems. The dataset features area and mass for different street types area and mass for different rail types area and mass for other infrastructure area, volume and mass for different building types Masses are reported as total values, and per material category. Units area in m² height in m volume in m³ mass in t for infrastructure and buildings Further information For further information, please see the publication or contact Helmut Haberl (helmut.haberl@boku.ac.at). A web-visualization of this dataset is available here. Visit our website to learn more about our project MAT_STOCKS - Understanding the Role of Material Stock Patterns for the Transformation to a Sustainable Society. Publication Haberl, H., Wiedenhofer, D., Schug, F., Frantz, D., Virág, D., Plutzar, C., Gruhler, K., Lederer, J., Schiller, G. , Fishman, T., Lanau, M., Gattringer, A., Kemper, T., Liu, G., Tanikawa, H., van der Linden, S., Hostert, P. (accepted): High-resolution maps of material stocks in buildings and infrastructures in Austria and Germany. Environmental Science & Technology Funding This research was primarly funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (MAT_STOCKS, grant agreement No 741950). ML and GL acknowledge funding by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (CityWeight, 6111-00555B), ML thanks the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; project Multi-Scale, Circular Economic Potential of Non-Residential Building Scale, EP/S029273/1), JL acknowledges funding by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), project ESR17-067, TF acknowledges the Israel Science Foundation grant no. 2706/19.

Climate change is worsening the number, frequency and duration of natural hazards across the globe, making disaster risk reduction and resilience building among the most pressing challenges ahead. According to UN-Habitat, informal settlements are where the impacts of climate change are the most acute in urban areas and strengthening resilience in these neighbourhoods represents a very complex yet urgent challenge. Today, urban areas are home to 56 per cent of the world’s population and this figure is projected to increase to 60 per cent by 2030 and 68 per cent by 2050, with 90 per cent of the growth by 2050 expected to occur in less developed economies. In these countries, population growth and displacement (including climate-driven migrations) will lead to rapid and unplanned urbanisation forcing a growing number of people into informal settlements. Currently, one billion people live in informal settlements, mostly in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and this figure is expected to grow to 3 billion in 2050. Horizon 2020 MSCA-RISE, Grant Agreement #873119

In this paper, expectations along the Finnish dairy supply chain for innovation to achieve more sustainable farming systems are identified. Four focus group discussions and three interviews for low input and organic dairy supply chain members were performed. The Q Methodology was used to highlight common ground and divergence in the expectations that organic and low input dairying can deliver. The common view is that innovation in housing aimed at improving animal welfare should be fostered. Animal welfare innovations were highlighted especially by the consumer group. Other supply chain members encouraged in accordance with consumer group animal welfare, but also innovations linking with the efficiency of production and feed quality. Common understanding between actors is that innovations linking to genetic modification are not acceptable. Many respondents also considered unnaturally those innovations that were linking with acceleration of genetic selection, speeding up calf development, and supporting in 100 % indoor dairy systems.

The MAGIC-CROPS database is an easy-to-use tool including 37 promising non-food species suited to marginal land as defined in the JRC’s report (EUR 23412 EN - 2008 and later modifications). Additionally, to biophysical constraints referred in the above-mentioned report, the MAGIC-CROPS database includes also information about the suitability of some species to soil contaminated by heavy metals. The present deliverable is the final version of the MAGIC-CROPS database and all the 37 crops are included. Twenty out of the 37 species included in the database are under-study in WP4 of the MAGIC project, so in the event that important new insights will come out after the publication of the present deliverable, the MAGIC-CROPS database will be updated accordingly by the end of the project (31.12.2021).

The energy performance certificate (EPC) is an information and market tool for climate protection which shall foster the market for energy efficient living space. It allows potential renters and buyers to compare the energy performance of buildings and provides recommendations on how the energy efficiency of the building can be improved. However, there are potentials for improvement in terms of the user-friendliness of the certificate and the consideration of occupant behaviour in the modeling of building energy use. Hence, the end-users of EPCs such as buildings owners, tenants, building occupants and building managers play a crucial role regarding the redesign of EPCs because learning about their needs can contribute to improve the certificate and exploring their everyday energy behaviour allows to make more accurate assumptions in the modelling of building energy. This report is a synthesis of the findings from the four user-related tasks in the ePANACEA project which are the stakeholder analysis, the user-needs analysis, the acceptance testing (first and final acceptance test) and the exploration of occupants’ energy behaviour. Each research step is briefly recapped (objectives, methods and highlights of the results). Furthermore, the report shows how the research steps (except for the final acceptance test) have influenced the development of new EPC summary pages during the project life time (final version in October 2022). The final chapter provides the recommendations on the next generation of EPC (with a focus on the content and presentation of content in the certificate) that stem from the user-related tasks, including the outcomes from the final acceptance test.

{"references": ["BIM4EEB, 2020a. Digital Construction Ontologies. Available online: https://w3id.org/digitalconstruction (Accessed on 20 December 2021).", "BIM4EEB, 2020b. BIM Management System. Available online: https://bim4eeb.oneteam.it (Accessed on 21 December 2021).", "BIM4EEB, 2021. BIM4EEB: BIM based toolkit for Efficient rEnovation in Buildings. Available online: https://www.bim4eeb-project.eu/ (Accessed on 21 December 2021).", "Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), 2020. The European Renovation wave: from words to action.", "Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), 2021. The renovation wave strategy & action plan: designed for success or doomed to fail?", "Daniotti, B., et al., 2021. An Interoperable BIM-Based Toolkit for Efficient Renovation in Buildings. Buildings, 11(7), 271.", "Digital Europe, 2021. A digital investment plan for Europe.", "Elagiry, M., et al., 2020. Digitalization Tools for Energy-Efficient Renovations, Sustainable Places 2020, Online 28\u201330 October 2020. MDPI.", "European Commission, 2020a. Energy efficiency in buildings", "European Commission, 2020b. A renovation wave for Europe - greening our buildings, creating jobs, improving lives.", "European Commission, 2020c. Renovation Wave: doubling the renovation rate to cut emissions, boost recovery and reduce energy poverty.", "T\u00f6rm\u00e4, S., et al., 2020. Towards BIM-Enhanced Renovation Management Tools with Support to Stakeholder Interaction, Sustainable Places 2020, Online 28\u201330 October 2020. MDPI.", "Valra, A., et al., 2020. The BIM Management System: A Common Data Environment Using Linked Data to Support the Efficient Renovation in Buildings, Sustainable Places 2020, Online 28\u201330 October 2020. MDPI."]} The construction sector is among the main ones responsible for energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions. Hence, buildings retrofitting shall be encouraged and supported by targeted actions to achieve a European climate-neutrality by 2050, as pointed out by EU Agenda objectives. In this context, the European Commission is promoting a Renovation Wave Strategy. One step towards the renovation action is the exploitation of digital tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and the Internet of Things (IoT). This paper is related to the potentialities of an ongoing EU funded project –BIM4EEB- and it illustrates the application of two BIM-based tools, namely BIMPlanner and BIM4Occupants, developed within the project. The two tools have respectively the purpose of sharing current information about the progress of construction works among renovation stakeholders and sharing with inhabitants tailored information about indoor conditions, comfort preferences and energy consumption of their houses. Thanks to IoT devices installed in a demonstration building permitted the real-time evaluation and control of several parameters. Therefore, a pilot building, namely the Italian demonstration application of the project, is described for testing the proposed tools. Benefits connected to the BIM framework and IoT devices result in an improvement of data sharing and communication between renovation stakeholders, then in an enhanced building process.

The INTENSSS PA project, funded by Horizon 2020, the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation of the European Union, aims to support the local authorities involved and their stakeholders to develop an innovative integrated sustainable energy planning concept through a participatory, interdisciplinary and multilevel process. By building individual and institutional capacity of the actors involved, using the Regional Living Lab approach, the concept will be applied in order to develop seven sustainable integrated energy plans. In this first article the project activities and the results achieved so far are preliminary described, anticipating a more extensive and detailed publication on the project planned for the December edition of UPLand – Journal of Urban Planning Landscape & Environmental Design. UPLanD - Journal of Urban Planning, Landscape & environmental Design, GREEN 2.0