In the Bavarian Forest National Park a brief, but intense storm event on 1 August 1983 created large windfall areas. The windfall ecosystems within the protection zone of the park were left develop without interference; outside this zone windfall areas were cleared of dead wood but not afforested. A set of permanent plots (transect design with 10 to 10 m plots) was established in 1988 in spruce forests of wet and cool valley bottoms in order to document vegetation development. Resampling shall take place every five years; up to now it was done in 1993 and 1998. On cleared areas an initial raspberry (Rubus idaeus) shrub community was followed by pioneer birch (Betula pubescens, B. pendula) woodland, a sequence well known from managed forest stands. In contrast to this, these two stages were restricted to root plates of fallen trees in uncleared windfalls; here shade-tolerant tree species of the terminal forest stages established rather quickly from saplings that had already been present in the preceeding forest stand. Soil surface disturbances are identified to be causal to the management pathway of forest development, wereas the untouched pathway is caused by relatively low disturbance levels. The simulation model FORSKA-M is used to analyse different options of further stand development with a simulation time period of one hundred years.
Der schnelle Fortschritt der elektronischen Geräte erhöht die Nachfrage nach verbesserten Li-Ionen Batterien. Kommerziell erhältliche Li-Zellen nutzen meist Lithiumkobaltoxid für die positive Elektrode. Doch gerade dieses Material ist ein Hindernis für eine weitere Optimierung, insbesondere für eine Kostensenkung. Vor allem für größere Anwendungen wie Hybrid- oder Elektrofahrzeuge müssen alternative Materialen erforscht werden, die billiger, sicherer und umweltverträglicher sind. Daher wird im ISEA derzeit ein neues Forschungsprojekt ins Leben gerufen und die dafür benötigte Infrastruktur geschaffen. Die Forschung wird sich auf die Untersuchung geeigneter Übergangsmetalloxide und Polyanionen konzentrieren, die besonders gut zur Einlagerung von Li-Ionen geeignet sind. Es werden neue Herstellungsverfahren unter Verwendung wässriger Precurser-Substanzen untersucht, die Verbindungen mit überlegenen Eigenschaften erzeugen und außerdem leicht an eine Massenproduktion angepasst werden können. Ziel der Arbeiten ist, preisgünstiges Elektrodenmaterial zu entwickeln, das eine spezifische Energie von über 200 Wh/kg und eine Leistungsdichte von 400 W/kg aufweist. Außerdem werden Arbeiten im Bereich der physikalisch-chemischen Charakterisierung der neuen Materialien stattfinden sowie elektrochemische Analysen der gesamten Zellen- und Batteriesysteme durchgeführt. Das elektrodynamische Verhalten der neuen Zellen wird u. a. mit Hilfe der elektrochemischen Impedanzspektroskopie analysiert, um präzise und zuverlässige Algorithmen für ein späteres Batteriemonitoring im realen Betrieb zu finden.
Entwicklungs-, Pflege- und Erschließungsmaßnahmen gem. § 13 LNatSchG NRW
Context: With increasing global change pressures, and due to existing limitations, and un-sustainability factors and risks of conventional urban water management (UWM), cities experience difficulties in efficiently managing the ever scarcer water resources, their uses/services, and their after-use disposal, without creating environmental, social and/or economic damage. In order to meet these challenges, SWITCH calls for a paradigm shift in UWM. There is a need to convert adhoc actions (problem/incident driven) into a coherent and consolidated approach (sustainability driven). This calls for an IP Approach. Research conceptSWITCH therefore proposes an action research project which has as a main objective: The development, application and demonstration of a range of tested scientific, technological and socio-economic solutions and approaches that contribute to the achievement of sustainable and effective UWM schemes in 'The City of the future'.The project will be implemented by different combinations of consortium partners, along the lines of seven complementary and interactive themes. The research approach is innovative for the combination of: action research: address problems through innovation based upon involvement of users.learning alliances: to link up stakeholders to interact productively and to create win-win solutions along the water chain; multiple-way learning: European cities learn from each other and from developing countries, and vice versa.multiple-level or integrated approach: to consider the urban water system and its components (city level) in relation to its impacts on, and dependency of, the natural environment in the river basin (river basin level), and in relation to Global Change pressures (global level).Instruments and scopeAn IP with 30 partners, their resources, and a total budget of 25,191,396 EURO including budget for demonstration activities in 9 Cities in Europe and developing countries. Prime Contractor: UNESCO - Institute for Water Education, Delf, Netherlands.
Sustainable development is a fundamental goal of the European Union and loss of biodiversity is emphasised as one of the main threats to it. However, biodiversity and ecosystems of European Seas are under human impact, such as pollution, eutrophication, and overfishing. Therefore it is necessary to monitor changes in biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The aim of the project is the development of DNA chips for the identification of marine organisms in European Seas as a cost effective, reliable and efficient technology in biodiversity and ecosystem science. Many marine organisms, such as eggs and larvae of fishes, plankton, and benthic invertebrates, are difficult to identify by morphological characters. The classical methods are extremely time consuming and require a high degree of taxonomie expertise. Consequently, the basic step of identifying such organisms is a major bottleneck in biodiversity and ecosystem science. Therefore, the project seeks to demonstrate that DNA chips can be a new powerful and innovative tool for the identification of marine organisms. Three DNA chips for the identification of fishes, phytoplankton, and invertebrates of European Seas will be developed. These chips will facilitate research on dispersal of ichthyoplankton, monitoring of phytoplankton, and identification of bioindicators as well as prey in gut contents analysis. To achieve this goal a combined biological and technical approach has been initiated: The biological material will be sampled by marine biologists. The next step is the sequencing of suitable molecular markers for probe design. The technical part consists mainly in constructing gene probe libraries and determining their specificity. This will be done by biotech research centres in connection with SMEs engaged in bioinformatics and DNA chip technology. Therefore the project has the potential to bring Europe's marine biotechnology to the forefront of this field.
The adoption of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive 91/271/EEC imposes the sewage sludge to be subsequently treated so it is expected by 2005 to increase twofold in comparison whit 1992. However, classical incineration to treat this vast amount of sludge must be no longer accepted from an environmental point of view. In addition, the Sewage Sludge Directive 86/278/EEC regulates the uses and properties of stabilised sludge for being either recycled or disposed. Both directives drive specific actions in two complementary ways. Firstly, a deep knowledge of current sludge treatment, such as mesophilic, thermophilic or autothermophilic processes, must be promoted to solve that problem in the UE ambit, taking in account the particular considerations of each treatment facility. In second place, the development of new processes must be supported to open new alternatives that could valorise that waste.The proposal aims at developing strategies for the disposal and reuse of waste sludge. The scope envisages to develop several processes for reducing both amount and toxicity of sludge, with simultaneous transformation into green energy vectors such as methane or hydrogen. In outline, mesophilic and mainly thermophilic and autothermophilic conditions will be deeply explored as classical alternatives for sludge stabilisation, assuring sanitary conditions of the treated sludge. Also, valuable materials will be obtained from sludge, such as activated carbons, which will be used in conventional adsorption processes and in innovative advanced oxidation processes.The main outcomes expected at the end of the projects are guidelines for technology selection in agreement with the geographic, economic and technical characteristics of the sewage plants, demonstration of the feasibility of new applications for the sewage sludge, manufacturing of activated carbon from sludge sewage as innovative recycling of sludge waste, and a deep understanding of the methods involved. Prime Contractor: Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.