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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.

Hot water heat stores with stratification are a common technology used in solar energy systems and reuse of waste heat. Adding a PCM module at the top of the water tank would give the system higher storage density, and compensate heat loss in the top layer. The work presented here includes experimental results and numerical simulation of the system using an explicit finite-difference method. Experiments and simulations were carried out using different cylindrical PCM modules. With only 1/16 of the volume of the store being PCM, 3/16 of water at the top of the store was held warm for 50% to 200% longer and the average energy density was increased by 20% to 45%. Furthermore, these 3/16 of water were reheated by the heat from the module after being cooled down in only 20 min.

Using 40-year experiment data from a mono-modal rainfall area of northern Togo, we analyzed soil fertility dynamics when 2 and 3-year fallows were alternated with 3-year rotation of groundnut, cotton and sorghum. The control treatment consisted to continuous cultivate the soil in a rotation of groundnut/cotton/sorghum without fallow periods. For each rotation, two fertilisation rates were applied: no fertilisation and mineral fertiliser application during the cropping and/or the fallow periods. Yields of unfertilised crops, which averaged 1 t ha-1 during the first years of cultivation, were often nil in the long-term. In the long-term, yields of fertilised cotton and sorghum decreased by 32 and 50 %, respectively compared to the average of 2.4 and 1.6 t ha-1 obtained during the first decade of cultivation. The long-term decline in crop productivity was mitigated when fallow periods were alternated with cropping periods, and consequently there was partial compensation in terms of production for the unproductive fallowed plots. Long-term yields of fertilised cotton and sorghum in the periodically fallowed plots were 40 and 50 % higher than those in continuously cropped plots, respectively; they were 90 and 60 % higher than those in continuously cropped plots without fertilisation. Like for crop productivity, soil C, N and exchangeable Ca and Mg decreased less in periodically fallowed plots than in continuously cropped plots. The limited soil C decline when fallows were alternated with crops appears to be the consequence of no-tillage period rather than the effect of the highest C inputs to the soil.

Using recycled rubber crumbs as drainage layer in extensive green roofs have high potential to reduce the heating and cooling loads in buildings over traditional materials used as drainage layer, such as pozzolana gravel. However, the environmental impact due to the life cycle should be analyzed to assess its environmental benefit. This paper evaluates the environmental performance of green roofs in which the drainage layer is made of rubber crumbs, a recycled material the use of which is still experimental for this purpose. In this paper Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to compare the environmental impact of four constructive systems, two extensive green roofs without insulation layer and with different drainage materials, e a recycled material, rubber crumbs, and a conventional one, pozzolana gravel -, in front of two conventional flat roofs, with and without thermal insulation (polyurethane), built in an experimental set-up consisting of four monitored house-like cubicles, located in Mediterranean continental climate (Lleida, Spain). The LCA considered the production, construction, operational, and disposal phases of the roofs, according to UNE-EN 15643-2. The operational phase was carried out using data measured in the experimental set-up, considering heating and cooling energy consumptions in the winter and summer period, respectively.

Abstract This review summarizes and organizes the literature on life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) studies carried out for environmental evaluation of buildings and building related industry and sector (including construction products, construction systems, buildings, and civil engineering constructions). The review shows that most LCA and LCEA are carried out in what is shown as “exemplary buildings”, that is, buildings that have been designed and constructed as low energy buildings, but there are very few studies on “traditional buildings”, that is, buildings such as those mostly found in our cities. Similarly, most studies are carried out in urban areas, while rural areas are not well represented in the literature. Finally, studies are not equally distributed around the world.

Low temperature sensitive products transport and storage is an issue worldwide due to changes of the lifestyle population increase. Thermal energy storage (TES) is nowadays one of the most feasible solutions in facing the challenge of achieving energy savings. Many researchers have investigated energy efficiency of different cold units by applying TES systems using phase change materials (PCM). This paper provides an overview of the existing Spanish and European potential energy savings and CO2 mitigation by incorporating TES systems to cold storage and transportation systems. Data on energy savings were compiled from different case studies. Results depend on the scenarios studied and the extent of TES systems implementation; in the case of Europe for instance, yearly CO2 emissions may be cut down between 5% and 22% in reference to 2008 CO2 emissions from cold production considering that the proposed implementation of PCM TES in the case studies found in the literature is done.

Research addressing non-food biomass production from the perspective of land-use change and environmental impacts has expanded considerably since 2008. An exhaustive literature review followed by the identification within the resulting corpus of all references seelcing to quantify the consumption of nonrenewable resources yielded 29 articles, which were then examined in detail. Our goal was to describe, as precisely as possible, the methods and results of published research addressing land use change as it relates to the consumption of nonrenewable resources. We found that these articles were in fact more focused on the assessment of other environmental impacts, primarily greenhouse gas impacts, with fossil-fuel use appearing as a collateral result. All the articles employed a life cycle analysis approach; all considered the question of fossil-fuel consumption; and all concluded that a reduction in fossil fuel use was achieved through the substitution of biomass energy. According to the findings of this sub-corpus, biofuels produced from lignocellulosic biomass appear to be most effective in terms of reducing environmental impacts, but few direct comparisons with first-generation biofuels have been made. In general, differences in methodologies and in the assumptions adopted for different studies, particularly with respect to land-use change parameters, make comparisons among the selected studies difficult.

The energy crop sweet sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L. Moench) is raising considerable interest as a source of either fermentable free sugars or lignocellulosic feedstock with the potential to produce fuel, food, feed and a variety of other products. Sweet sorghum is a C4 plant with many potential advantages, including high water, nitrogen and radiation use efficiency, broad agro-ecological adaptation as well as a rich genetic diversity for useful traits. For developing countries sweet sorghum provides opportunities for the simultaneous production of food and bioenergy (e.g. bio-ethanol), thereby contributing to improved food security as well as increased access to affordable and renewable energy sources. In temperate regions (e.g. in Europe) sweet sorghum is seen as promising crop for the production of raw material for 2nd generation bio-ethanol. The project SWEETFUEL (Sweet Sorghum: An alternative energy crop) is supported by the European Commission in the 7th Framework Programme to exploit the advantages of sweet sorghum as potential energy crop for bio-ethanol production. Thereby, the main objective of SWEETFUEL is to optimize yields in temperate and semi-arid regions by genetic enhancement and the improvement of cultural and harvest practices. Proceedings of the 18th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 3-7 May 2010, Lyon, France, pp. 200-206