To overcome the limitation in spatial and temporal resolution of methane oceanic measurements, sensors are needed that can autonomously detect CH4-concentrations over longer periods of time. The proposed project is aimed at:- Designing molecular receptors for methane recognition (cryptophane-A and -111) and synthesizing new compounds allowing their introduction in polymeric structure (Task 1; LC, France); - Adapting, calibrating and validating the 2 available optical technologies, one of which serves as the reference sensor, for the in-situ detection and measurements of CH4 in the marine environments (Task 2 and 3; GET, LAAS-OSE, IOW) Boulart et al. (2008) showed that a polymeric filmchanges its bulk refractive index when methane docks on to cryptophane-A supra-molecules that are mixed in to the polymeric film. It is the occurrence of methane in solution, which changes either the refractive index measured with high resolution Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR; Chinowsky et al., 2003; Boulart et al, 2012b) or the transmitted power measured with differential fiber-optic refractometer (Boulart et al., 2012a; Aouba et al., 2012).- Using the developed sensors for the study of the CH4 cycle in relevant oceanic environment (the GODESS station in the Baltic Sea, Task 4 and 5; IOW, GET); GODESS registers a number of parameters with high temporal and vertical resolution by conducting up to 200 vertical profiles over 3 months deployment with a profiling platform hosting the sensor suite. - Quantifying methane fluxes to the atmosphere (Task 6); clearly, the current project, which aims at developing in-situ aqueous gas sensors, provides the technological tool to achieve the implementation of ocean observatories for CH4. The aim is to bring the fiber-optic methane sensor on the TRL (Technology Readiness Level) from their current Level 3 (Analytical and laboratory studies to validate analytical predictions) - to the Levels 5 and 6 (Component and/or basic sub-system technology validation in relevant sensing environments) and compare it to the SPR methane sensor, taken as the reference sensor (current TRL 5). This would lead to potential patent applications before further tests and commercialization. This will be achieved by the ensemble competences and contributions from the proposed consortium in this project.
Elaboration of various Guidance Documents (R1-Efficiency, Definitions, Waste Hierarchy, Exemptions and Separate Collection, Mixing Ban) - Elaboration of an EU-Guidance Document for the calculation of the R1-Efficiency factor for municipal solid waste incineration plants in collaboration with the working group on R1-Efficiency consisting of MS representatives, other stakeholders including the industry and NGOs - Organisation and realisation of Awareness Raising Events on the legal implementation of the new Waste Framework Directive (2008/98/EC) and its practical enforcement in 15 Member States - Guidance for implementation and enforcement of the Waste Shipment Regulation (1013/2006/EC) (Article 18, Annex 7, Article 49 and 50), Proposal for a guideline on financial guarantee under the waste shipment regulation, including stakeholder involvement - Revision on guidance document for waste management planning, including stakeholder involvement - Identification of need for minimum treatment standards for waste streams and treatment methods not covered by IPPC, pursuant to Article 27, elaboration of a corresponding proposals for need of action, including stakeholder involvement - Elaboration and Management of an Electronic forum for information exchange as regards the waste shipment regulation.
Especially during the last decades, the natural forests of Ethiopia have been heavily disturbed by human activities. Some forests have been totally cleared and converted into fields for agricultural use, other suffered from different influences, such as heavy grazing and selective logging. The ongoing research in the Shashemane-Munessa-study area (Gu 406/8-1,2) showed clearly that, in spite of interdiction and control, forests continue to be cleared and degraded. However, it is not yet sufficiently known, how and why these processes are still going on. Growing population pressure and economic constraints for the people living in and around the forests contribute to the actual situation but allow no final answers to the complex situation. Concerning a sustainable management of the forests there is to no solid basis for recommendations from the socioeconomic and socio-cultural view. Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of the traditional needs and forms of forest use, including all forest products, is necessary. The objective of this project is, to achieve this basis by carrying out intensive field observations, the consultation of aerial photographs, satellite imagery and above all semi-structured interviews with the population in the study area in order to contribute to the recommendations for a sustainable use of the Munessa Shasemane forests.
The Northern Eurasia Earth Science Partnership Initiative, or NEESPI, is a currently active, yet strategically evolving program of internationally-supported Earth systems science research, which has as its foci issues in northern Eurasia that are relevant to regional and Global scientific and decision-making communities (see NEESPI Mission Statement). This part of the globe is undergoing significant changes - particularly those changes associated with a rapidly warming climate in this region and with important changes in governmental structures since the early 1990s and their associated influences on land use and the environment across this broad expanse. How this carbon-rich, cold region component of the Earth system functions as a regional entity and interacts with and feeds back to the greater Global system is to a large extent unknown. Thus, the capability to predict future changes that may be expected to occur within this region and the consequences of those changes with any acceptable accuracy is currently uncertain. One of the reasons for this lack of regional Earth system understanding is the relative paucity of well-coordinated, multidisciplinary and integrating studies of the critical physical and biological systems. By establishing a large-scale, multidisciplinary program of funded research, NEESPI is aimed at developing an enhanced understanding of the interactions between the ecosystem, atmosphere, and human dynamics in northern Eurasia. Specifically, the NEESPI strives to understand how the land ecosystems and continental water dynamics in northern Eurasia interact with and alter the climatic system, biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere of the Earth. The contemporaneous changes in climate and land use are impacting the biological, chemical, and physical functions of the northern Eurasia, but little data and fewer models are available that can be used to understand the current status of this expansive regional system, much less the influence of the northern Eurasia region on the Global climate. NEESPI seeks to secure the necessary financial and related institutional support from an international cadre of sponsors for developing a viable understanding of the functioning of northern Eurasia and the impacts of extant changes on the regional and Earth systems. Many types of ground and integrative (e.g., satellite; GIS) data will be needed and many models must be applied, adapted or developed for properly understanding the functioning of this cold and diverse regional system. Mechanisms for obtaining the requisite data sets and models and sharing them among the participating scientists are essential and require international and active governmental participation. (abridged text)
During the first project period we developed a general approach to quantify soil pore structure based on X-ray micro-tomography Vogel et al. (2010) which is applicable at various scales to cover soil pores larger that 0.05 mm in a representative way. Based on this method we generated equivalent network models to numerically simulate flow and transport of dissolved chemicals. The existing network model was extended to handle reactive transport and infiltration processes which are especially critical for matter flux in soil. The results were compared to experimental findings. The original research question 'what does a particle see on its way through soil' could be answered quantitatively for various boundary conditions including steady state flux and infiltration. However, we identified various critical aspects of the proposed modeling concept which will be in the focus of the second period. This includes 1) the spatial arrangement of interfaces having different quality which is crucial for chemical interactions and pore scale water dynamics, 2) the realistic multiphase dynamics at the pore scale which need to reflect the dynamic pressure and movement of trapped non-wetting phase and 3) the parametrization of structural complexity which need to be developed beyond the measurement of continuous Minkowski functions to allow the development of quantitative relations between structure and function. These aspects will be explored in a joint experiments in cooperation with partners within the SPP.
(1) Terrestrische Biota der Antarktis sind durch geografische Isolation und inselhafte Verteilung geprägt. Die isolierte Lage der Antarktis und die Beschränkung auf weit voneinander entfernte kleine Habitatflecken haben zu einem hohen Endemiten-Anteil und einer starken Regionalisierung der Fauna und Flora geführt. Genetische Differenzierung, lokale Anpassung und die Evolution kryptischer Arten sind die Folge. Die Biodiversitäts-Konvention (CBD) betrachtet genetische Diversität als einen Eckpfeiler biologischer Vielfalt und stellt sie damit in eine Reihe mit der Diversität von Arten und Ökosystemen. Durch Einschleppung ortsfremder Arten und Homogenisierung bislang getrennter Genpools bedroht der Mensch jedoch zunehmend diese Isolation und genetische Differenzierung vieler antarktischer Biota. (2) Obwohl Flechten als wichtigste Primärproduzenten antarktische terrestrische Lebensräume dominieren, fehlen zurzeit Daten zu ihrer genetischen Struktur und Diversität. Der Umfang inter- und intrakontinentalen Genflusses ist bisher völlig unbekannt. Es ist deswegen derzeit unmöglich, den aktuellen und zukünftigen menschlichen Einfluss auf antarktische Flechtenpopulationen auch nur annähernd abzuschätzen.(3) Wir schlagen vor, mittels molekulargenetischer Daten die populationsgenetische Struktur von sechs weit verbreiteten Flechtenarten mit unterschiedlichen Ausbreitungsstrategien zu untersuchen. Dabei soll die Nullhypothese überprüft werden, dass Flechtenpopulationen genetisch nicht differenziert sind. Zusätzlich wollen wir abschätzen, ob menschliche Aktivitäten zur Einschleppung ortsfremder Arten oder Genotypen und zur Homogenisierung von Genpools beitragen. Hierfür sollen Lokalitäten mit hohem und niedrigem menschlichen Einfluss verglichen werden. Das Projekt schafft damit unverzichtbare Grunddaten für die Entwicklung von Schutzstrategien in der Antarktis.
Aims: Floods in small and medium-sized river catchments have often been a focus of attention in the past. In contrast to large rivers like the Rhine, the Elbe or the Danube, discharge can increase very rapidly in such catchments; we are thus confronted with a high damage potential combined with almost no time for advance warning. Since the heavy precipitation events causing such floods are often spatially very limited, they are difficult to forecast; long-term provision is therefore an important task, which makes it necessary to identify vulnerable regions and to develop prevention measures. For that purpose, one needs to know how the frequency and the intensity of floods will develop in the future, especially in the near future, i.e. the next few decades. Besides providing such prognoses, an important goal of this project was also to quantify their uncertainty. Method: These questions were studied by a team of meteorologists and hydrologists from KIT and GFZ. They simulated the natural chain 'large-scale weather - regional precipitation - catchment discharge' by a model chain 'global climate model (GCM) - regional climate model (RCM) - hydrological model (HM)'. As a novel feature, we performed so-called ensemble simulations in order to estimate the range of possible results, i.e. the uncertainty: we used two GCMs with different realizations, two RCMs and three HMs. The ensemble method, which is quite standard in physics, engineering and recently also in weather forecasting has hitherto rarely been used in regional climate modeling due to the very high computational demands. In our study, the demand was even higher due to the high spatial resolution (7 km by 7 km) we used; presently, regional studies use considerably larger grid boxes of about 100 km2. However, our study shows that a high resolution is necessary for a realistic simulation of the small-scale rainfall patterns and intensities. This combination of high resolution and an ensemble using results from global, regional and hydrological models is unique. Results: By way of example, we considered the low-mountain range rivers Mulde and Ruhr and the more alpine Ammer river in this study, all of which had severe flood events in the past. Our study confirms that heavy precipitation events will occur more frequently in the future. Does this also entail an increased flood risk? Our results indicate that in any case, the risk will not decrease. However, each catchment reacts differently, and different models may produce different precipitation and runoff regimes, emphasizing the need of ensemble studies. A statistically significant increase of floods is expected for the river Ruhr in winter and in summer. For the river Mulde, we observe a slight increase of floods during summer and autumn, and for the river Ammer a slight decrease in summer and a slight increase in winter.
In today's biodiversity crisis, there is an urgent need to monitor terrestrial and aquatic species in their natural habitats, especially those that may be endangered, invasive or elusive. Traditional species observation methods, based on acoustic or observational surveys are inefficient, costly and time consuming. On the other hand, DNA is continuously deposited in the environment from natural processes and this environmental DNA (eDNA) allows us to detect species and reconstruct their communities with a high level of sensitivity. These data can be used to obtain occurrence records and to collect more population information in field. Crucially, these data are necessary to inform management agencies about the current state of our biodiversity, and are especially urgent for species that are currently data deficient. The aims of this study are to firstly identify occurrence records from diverse sources (databases, literature) and generate a database of distributional data for species of crustacean and mollusks that are data deficient in Sweden. Secondly, we aim to detect threatened species in Swedish marine, freshwater and terrestrial habitats using novel genomic methods (DNA metabarcoding, ddPCR). Finally, based on the new data, we will run species distribution and population models, to improve information on geographic range and population status for threatened invertebrates. The results will be integrated into current monitoring programmes (e.g. red-listing) and action plans.
Das Edelgasradioisotop 39Ar ist von großem Interesse für die Datierung in Ozeanographie, Glaziologie und Hydrogeologie, da es das einzige Isotop ist, das den wichtigen Altersbereich zwischen ca. 50 und 1000 Jahren abdeckt. Die fundamental neue Messmethode der Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA), welche die 81Kr Datierung zum ersten Mal möglich gemacht hat, besitzt das Potenzial, die Anwendungen von 39Ar zu revolutionieren, indem sie die benötigte Probengröße um einen Faktor 100 bis 1000 reduziert. In einem Vorgängerprojekt haben wir zum ersten Mal gezeigt, dass die Messung von 39Ar an natürlichen Proben mit ATTA möglich ist, allerdings benötigten wir dazu immer noch Tonnen von Wasser. Vor kurzem haben wir anhand von Proben aus ersten Pilotprojekten mit Ozeanwasser und alpinem Eis gezeigt, dass die 39Ar-ATTA (ArTTA) Messung an Proben von ca. 25 L Wasser oder 10 mL Ar oder weniger möglich ist. Dieser Erfolg eröffnet komplett neue Perspektiven für die Anwendung der 39Ar-Datierung, die sehr wertvolle Information ergeben wird, die ansonsten nicht zugänglich wäre. Der Bedarf für solche Analysen, insbesondere im Gebiet der Spurenstoff-Ozeanographie, ist gut etabliert und dokumentiert durch Unterstützungsschreiben von unseren derzeitigen Partnern für ArTTA Anwendungen. Dieser Antrag wird es uns ermöglichen, die weltweit ersten ArTTA Geräte zu bauen, die auf Routinebetrieb mit kleinen Proben ausgelegt sind. Wir streben den Aufbau einer 39Ar-Datierungsplattform an, welche die Anforderungen für die Datierung in den Feldern der Grundwasserforschung, Ozeanographie und Gletscherforschung erfüllt. Um sinnvolle Anwendungen in der Tracerozeanographie zu ermöglichen, wird eine Kapazität von mindestens 200 Proben pro Jahr benötigt. Das neue Gerät für die Forschung wird damit lange angestrebte Anwendungen erlauben, die sonst nicht möglich wären. Basierend auf bisheriger Forschung haben wir einen klaren Plan für den Aufbau einer kompletten Plattform für den Betrieb von ArTTA: Eine neue Probenaufbereitungslinie basierend auf dem Gettern von reaktiven Gasen erlaubt die Abtrennung von bis zu 10 mL reinem Ar aus kleinen (kleiner als 25 L Wasser oder 10 kg Eis) Umweltproben in wenigen Stunden. Diese Proben werden zum ArTTA Gerät transferiert, welches aus zwei Modulen besteht: Das Optik-Modul erzeugt die benötigten Laserfrequenzen und Laserleistung, das Atom-Modul ist der Teil in dem die Atome mit atomoptischen Werkzeugen detektiert werden, die wir im Prototyp aus dem vorherigen Projekt realisiert haben. So weit als möglich wird die Anlage aus zuverlässigen, hochleistungsfähigen kommerziellen Teilen gebaut. Das System wird in einer hochkontrollierten Containerumgebung installiert, was einen modularen Aufbau gewährleistet, der in Zukunft an unterschiedlichen Orten aufgebaut werden kann.
Traditional Indonesian homegardens harbour often high crop diversity, which appears to be an important basis for a sustainable food-first strategy. Crop pollination by insects is a key ecosystem service but threatened by agricultural intensification and land conversion. Gaps in knowledge of actual benefits from pollination services limit effective management planning. Using an integrative and agronomic framework for the assessment of functional pollination services, we will conduct ecological experiments and surveys in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. We propose to study pollination services and net revenues of the locally important crop species cucumber, carrot, and eggplant in traditional homegardens in a forest distance gradient, which is hypothesized to affect bee community structure and diversity. We will assess pollination services and interactions with environmental variables limiting fruit maturation, based on pollination experiments in a split-plot design of the following factors: drought, nutrient deficiency, weed pressure, and herbivory. The overall goal of this project is the development of 'biodiversity-friendly' land-use management, balancing human and ecological needs for local smallholders.
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