Shallow groundwater of the huge deltaic systems of Asia like the Red River Delta in Vietnam is often enriched in inorganic arsenic (As), threatening the health of millions of residents. The massive abstraction of groundwater in these areas locally causes an irreversible mixing of arsenic-free groundwater resources with arsenic-rich groundwater. Increased concentrations of competitive anions, especially phosphate (PO43-), decrease the immobilization capacity of the sediments. During transport, the mobility of dissolved As in local aquifers is strongly influenced by adsorption to sedimentary and ubiquitously occurring iron(oxyhydr)oxides. Additionally, arsenic-rich groundwater is often enriched in reduced iron (Fe2+) as well, which is capable to react with iron(oxyhydr)oxides, thereby inducing mineral transformations. Such transformations permanently affect the arsenic adsorption and immobilization capacity of the sediments.Within the scope of this research project, the underlying mechanisms related to As transport and the resulting threat to arsenic-free groundwater resources will be characterized in cooperation with the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag). The research concept aims at assessing the complex interactions within the arsenic-iron-phosphate-system under field conditions at a study site next to the Red River. First, filtration experiments using local groundwater enriched in As and PO43- will be used to determine the As adsorption capacity of different and previously geochemically characterized iron(oxyhydr)oxides. In a second step, sample carrier containing As loaded iron(oxyhydr)oxides will be introduced into surface near aquifer parts of the study site (via existing groundwater monitoring wells). These samples will be exposed to local groundwater characterized by increased As, Fe2+ and PO43- concentrations for the following nine months. Using the in situ exposition of predefined iron(oxyhydr)oxides, it will be possible to distinguish potential mineral transformations and their influences on the As immobilization capacity of the respective iron(oxyhydr)oxides. By combining the results and outcomes of the field experiments, new and important conclusions regarding the mobility of As can be drawn. The data can be used to create a hydrochemical transport model describing reactive As transport within the investigation area. In addition, the results of the in situ exposition experiments will allow to draw conclusions in respective to the long term As immobilization capacity of different iron(oxyhydr)oxides, which is an essential information regarding in situ decontamination techniques.
Agriculture is the major contributor of nitrogen to ecosystems, both by organic and inorganic fertilizers. Percolation of nitrate to groundwater and further transport to surface waters is assumed to be one of the major pathways in the fate of this nitrogen. The quantification of groundwater and associated nitrate flux to streams is still challenging. In particular because we lack understanding of the spatial distribution and temporal variability of groundwater and associated NO3- fluxes. In this preliminary study we will focus on the identification and quantification of groundwater and associated nitrate fluxes by combining high resolution distributed fiber-optic temperature sensing (DTS) with in situ UV photometry (ProPS). DTS is a new technique that is capable to measure temperature over distances of km with a spatial resolution of ca1 m and an accuracy of 0.01 K. It has been applied successfully to identify and quantify sources of groundwater discharge to streams. ProPS is a submersible UV process photometer, which uses high precision spectral analyses to provide single substance concentrations, in our case NO3-, at minute intervals and a detection limit of less than 0.05 mg l-1 (ca.0.01 mg NO3--Nl-1). We will conduct field experiments using artificial point sources of lateral inflow to test DTS and ProPS based quantification approaches and estimate their uncertainty. The selected study area is the Schwingbach catchment in Hessen, Germany, which has a good monitoring infrastructure. Preliminary research on hydrological fluxes and field observations indicate that the catchment favors the intended study.
The sorption of anions in geotechnical multibarrier systems of planned high level waste repositories (HLWR) and of non-ionic and organic pollutants in conventional waste disposals are in the center of recent research. In aquatic systems, persistent radionuclides such as 79Se, 99Tc, 129I exist in a form of anions. There is strongly increasing need to find materials with high sorption capacities for such pollutants. Specific requirements on barrier materials are long-term stability of adsorbent under various conditions such as T > 100 C, varying hydrostatic pressure, and the presence of competing ions. Organo-clays are capable to sorb high amounts of cations, anions and non-polar molecules simultaneously having selectivity for certain ions. This project is proposed to improve the understanding of sorption and desorption processes in organo-clays. Additionally, the modification of material properties under varying chemical and thermal conditions will be determined by performing diffusion and advection experiments. Changes by sorption and diffusion will be analyzed by determining surface charge and contact angles. Molecular simulations on models of organo-clays will be conducted in an accord with experiments with aim to understand and analyze experimental results. The computational part of the project will profit from the collaboration of German partner with the group in Vienna, which has a long standing experience in a modeling of clay minerals.
Objective: The constitution of the common European market is accompanied by continuously increasing cross-border goods and passenger traffic. Road transportation is facing a rapidly increasing congestion whilein the contrary the available capacities in railway transportation as well as inland waterwaytransportation are being underutilised. A redistribution of the carriage of goods is urgently needed, but up to now the most important obstacles consists in the incompatible interfaces between the various carriers and the diversity of loading devices being used in the EU. Main objective of the project is the development of new intermodal loading units including devices (ISO-bulk container and Roll-off container), capable adaptors and mobile fixtures suitable for the trimodal transport of bulk and packaged goods at road, railway and inland waterways. Essential element of the project is the design and integration of innovative adaptors for lifting and shifting operations of the loading units. This will lead to an optimum on intermodal compatibility. The goals are in conformity with the aims of the Specific Programme 'Sustainable Surface Transport', research domain 3.16. 'Development of equipment for fast loading / unloading of intermodal transport units'. By application of the new loading units the logistic chain can be set up without changing the loading unit throughout the whole door-to-door transport process. The transhipping procedures do not require crane technology any more and the costs will be reduced substantially. The uniformity of the specialinternal features as well as the compliance with the ISO-container dimensions will contribute to the harmonisation of loading units. The projects includes the development of containers, adaptors and mobile units, test and demonstration of two prototypes and dissemination and exploitation of the results. The consortium consists of ten partner with six SMEs from five countries (G, HU, CH, A,CR)
NANOINSULATE will develop durable, robust, cost-effective opaque and transparent vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) incorporating new nanotechnology-based core materials (nanofoams, aerogels, aerogel composites) and high-barrier films that are up to four times more energy efficient than current solutions. These new systems will provide product lifetimes in excess of 50 years suitable for a variety of new-build and retrofit building applications. Initial building simulations based on the anticipated final properties of the VIPs indicate reductions in heating demand of up to 74Prozent and CO2 emissions of up to 46Prozent for Madrid, Spain and up to 61Prozent and 55Prozent respectively for Stuttgart, Germany for a building renovation which reduces the U-value of the walls and roof from 2.0 W m-2 K-1 to 0.2 W m-2 K-1. This reduction could be achieved with NANOINSULATE products that are only 25 mm thick, giving a cost-effective renovation without the need of changing all the reveals and ledges. Similarly, significant reductions in U-values of transparent VIPs (3 W m-2 K-1 to 0.5 W m-2 K-1) are shown by substituting double glazed units in existing building stock. Six industrial & four research based partners from seven EU countries will come together to engineer novel solutions capable of being mass produced. Target final manufacturing costs for insulation board (production rates above 5 million m2/year) are less than 7 m-2 for a U-value of 0.2 W m-2 K-1. NANOINSULATE will demonstrate its developments at construction sites across Europe. A Lifecycle Assessment, together with a safety and service-life costing analysis, will be undertaken to prove economic viability. NANOINSULATE demonstrates strong relevance to the objectives and expected impacts of both the specific call text of the Public-Private Partnership Energy-efficient Buildings topic New nanotechnology-based high performance insulation systems for energy efficiency within the 2010 NMP Work Programme and the wider NMP & Energy Thematic Priorities. Prime Contractor: Kingsplan Research and Developments Ltd.; Kingscourt; Irland.
Hydrogen is the ideal synthetic fuel to convert chemical energy into electrical energy or into motive power because it is light weight, highly abundant and its oxidation product is vapor of water. Thus its usage helps to reduce the greenhouse gases and it conserves fossile resources. There is even a clean way to produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water by means of photo voltaics (SvW06, VSM05, PMM05). There are various possibilities to store the hydrogen for later use: Liquid and gaseous hydrogen can be stored in a pressure vessel, hydrogen can be adsorped on large surface areas of solids, and finally crystal lattices of metals or other compounds can be used as the storage system, where hydrogen is dissolved either on interstitial or on regular lattice sites by substitution (SvW06, San99). The latter process and its reversal is called hydriding respectively dehydriding. The subject of this proposal is the modeling and simulation of that process. The main problem of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery is likewise a storage problem, because in a rechargeable battery, both the anode and cathode do not directly take part in the electrochemical process that converts chemical energy into electrical energy, rather they act as host systems for the electron spending element, which is here lithium (Li). During the last month the applicant developed and exploited a mathematical model that is capable to capture the storage problem of an iron phosphate (FePO4) cathode, where the Li atoms are stored on interstitial lattice sites (DGJ07).
Lakes can be considered as sentinels and thus indicators and integrators of environmental pressures such as climate change. To maintain lakes in a healthy ecological state is nowadays a major task for water management authorities, and will be increasingly so under climate change which is believed to negatively affect lake ecosystem functioning. Phytoplankton plays a key role in lake dynamics as it is at the base of the food web, and changes in its community have potential to affect the entire lake ecosystem. In addition, Cyanobacteria, the only freshwater phytoplankton group that is able to produce cyanotoxins, are capable of inflicting considerable harm to lake ecosystems and to human health through contamination of drinking water supply and toxin accumulation in fishes. Phytoplankton is thus a common indicator to assess the ecological status of lakes. Without understanding the complex mechanisms and processes that underlay a lake ecosystem in a changing climate, planning for future lake management and adaptation will be compromised. Numerical deterministic modelling is today the most appropriate approach to address these global and complex mechanistic features of lake ecosystems. Modeling studies play a key role in exploring the processes responsible for changes since they can be used to test the sensitivity of lakes to both observed and projected changes in climate. The aim of this project is to apply an ecological model to Lake Geneva, which has not been undertaken yet. Lake Geneva, a deep sub-Alpine lake, is the largest lake in central Europe and an essential source of drinking water, having not only a high ecological value, but also economic and social values. Due to its considerable environmental importance, it is crucial to assess, through numerical modeling techniques applied, how the Lakes water quality may be impaired; especially in view of the fact the observed rate of warming since 1900 is more than double that of the observed global average. Moreover, the hydrodynamic characteristics of Lake Geneva, the watershed of its most important inflow river Rhône, as well as the regional climate, have already been modeled. In coupling these models together, we will close the essential gaps, through which we will be able to understand the links between climate, watersheds, and lakes and provide a whole, integrated ecosystem perspective. This integrative model will provide an accurate predictive management tool to help take decisions and response strategies in a timely manner. It is generally recognized that future climate change will have an important impact on Lake Geneva, with a likely deterioration of its water quality. This will be manifested by high phosphorus concentrations, by phytoplankton biomass increase, by a change in phytoplankton composition, by an asynchronous phenology and by an emergence of potentially toxic Cyanobacteria.(...)
Understanding the drivers behind the loss of biodiversity currently observed is of major importance in the context of the global change discussion. For studies of biodiversity at broad spatial scales, satellite remote sensing is the premier source of information, as it is uniquely capable of covering large areas of the Earth at high temporal resolution. The underlying assumption is that satellite-derived geophysical surface parameters, such as vegetation greenness, are related to biodiversity. For that purpose, concepts such as the Dynamic Habitat Index (DHI) were recently developed. The DHI combines information on the overall greenness, the base level of vegetation cover, and vegetation seasonality at a certain location. By comparing the annual DHI with a long term mean, areas undergoing disturbances or recovery events can be delineated, which are indicative of changes in species composition and diversity. The concept of the DHI was developed for data obtained from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) post-2000. However, for climate change impact studies a longer time series is desirable. The only sensor system suitable for such applications is the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), which has been in orbit on various platforms since the early 1980ies. The purpose of this project was to develop a methodology to derive long term information on habitat conditions at continental scales based on historical satellite data. In particular, the goal was to adopt the principle of the DHI as developed for the MODIS sensor to an AVHRR archive at 1 km spatial resolution over Canada and to analyze long term variations in the DHI. In a first project phase, an AVHRR data set of vegetation greenness, generated in the framework of the project, was validated against the reference MODIS product. The results demonstrated a very good agreement between both data sets for a wide range of vegetation types and on various spatial and temporal scales. A historical baseline of habitat conditions post-1987 based on the DHI was subsequently generated based on the long term AVHRR data. The analysis of the DHI showed that certain areas, particularly northern parts of the Province of Quebec as well as southwestern Canada, experienced significant changes over the past two decades, which may have had significant impacts on species diversity and abundance in these areas. In the future, the methods developed in the framework of this project may be used to obtain information on long term variations in habitat conditions in areas covered by other historical satellite archives, e.g., for Europe based on an AVHRR archive hosted at the University of Bern.
Limiting the input of toxic trace elements into soils is an important task in achieving sustainability of agricultural land use. Excessive accumulation of trace elements in soils is a major issue world-wide. In the EU agriculture is currently under particular pressure to meet stricter standards of sustainability including zero accumulation of contaminants in soils. Monitoring element accumulation in soils by means of element balancing is a very efficient method to gather the information needed to prevent or at least to limit and control soil pollution at an early stage before critical levels are reached, to prioritize decisions on abatement actions and to guide remedial actions. While methods have been developed and are continuously improved to assess element balances in European agro-ecosystems at the farm scale, there is a lack of similar models that are applicable to agricultural systems at regional scales, capable to deal with the problem of a complex data acquisition from very diverse information sources, account for dynamic feedbacks between system components and adequately address spatial redistribution of elements through processes such as erosion. The objective of this project is to develop a model for the assessment of regional element balances that has these capabilities and can deal with spatial data through combination with a GIS. For this purpose we propose to extend the existing regional mass balance model PROTERRA-S with respective dynamic features and to couple it with a GIS. Accounting for the different agricultural, socio-economic and bio-physical subsystems is a challenge that requires a modular approach with high flexibility. The generalized model will be calibrated and tested in a case study of the Swiss Canton Thurgau, for which comprehensive data bases have been already compiled and are available.
Many aspects of the global radiation budget are now well understood. The largest remaining uncertainty is how atmospheric aerosols modify the characteristics of clouds and how that affects the global radiation budget. This project will advance the current understanding of this indirect effect for the particularly climate-relevant cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds are high altitude clouds, formed when atmospheric water freezes into ice crystals. They reflect infrared radiation as well as sunlight and can therefore warm or cool the surface of the Earth. Atmospheric aerosols are fine solid particles or liquid droplets in the atmosphere, examples being smoke, oceanic haze or simply liquid water. Some components of aerosols affect the temperature at which water droplets freeze and are thus capable of changing the radiative properties of cirrus clouds by influencing the number and size of the clouds' ice particles. Aerosol components which reduce the freezing temperature of water impede homogeneous nucleation, that is, the process of freezing of a droplet which is not in contact with a solid particle. Other types of aerosol, such as mineral dust, raise the freezing temperature of water by providing solid surface on which ice formation can begin (heterogeneous nucleation). Cirrus clouds are an important factor for the Earth's climate. Therefore, it is crucial that their representation in climate models can account for effects induced by anthropogenic changes in the number, size and composition of aerosols in the atmosphere. The aim of this project is to develop a representation of the formation and growth of ice particles for use in climate models. Firstly, we will develop mathematical descriptions of ice nucleation and growth rates, which account for the most important aerosol types, such as mineral dust or ammonium sulfate. An existing model will allow us to determine the effect of each of the examined substances on the properties of a cirrus cloud. The chemical and aerosol input for these experiments will be taken from a state of the art aerosol - chemistry transport model, the OsloCTM2. After developing a simplified cirrus cloud model, which will be incorporated into a global model in the last stage of the project, we can determine how and to what extent the aerosol composition influences the distribution and the radiative properties of cirrus clouds on a global scale. This project will develop the first physico-chemically based representation of cirrus cloud formation for chemistry climate models (CCMs), allowing the calculation of climate effects of changes in cirrus coverage due to anthropogenic modification of atmospheric aerosols.
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