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The management of flood risk is a critical component of public safety and quality of life. The FLOODsite Integrated Project will produce improved understanding of specific flood processes and mechanisms and methodologies for flood risk analysis and management ranging from the high level management of risk at a river-basin, estuary and coastal process cell scale down to the detailed assessment in specific areas. It includes specific actions on the hazard of coastal extremes, coastal morphodynamics and flash flood forecasting, as well as understanding of social vulnerability and flood impacts, which are critical to improving the mitigation of flood risk from all causes. The project seeks to identify technologies and strategies for sustainable flood mitigation and defence, recognising the complex interaction between natural bio-physical systems and socio-economic systems, to support spatial and policy planning in the context of global change and societal advance. Several pilot studies are included in FLOODsite. These will identify lessons from recent floods (e.g. Elbe, 2002), and test the proposed operational use of methods on integrated risk management and sustainable flood defence (the Thames and Scheldt Estuaries and the Ebro coastal delta) or new technology for flash flood forecasting (in France and Italy). FLOODsite will also develop common language, guidance and tools for dissemination of the project results and professional training packages. FLOODsite will build upon the previous and current European and national research and practice in river and coastal flood processes and flood risk mitigation methods to promote consistency of approach. Several of the FLOODsite project partners are identified as contributors to proposals for the virtual centre on floods and droughts identified in Para 1.1.6.3.II of the work programme; this virtual centre will complement the activities of the FLOODsite project.
Objective: In a deregulated EU rail market monitoring of the vehicle and infrastructure interface is mandatory for enhanced availability of operation reducing costs. Especially when a rolling stock is crossing boundaries between independent infrastructure grids, cond ition monitoring becomes crucial. A monitoring tool on OCLs overhead contact lines - for infrastructure managers is needed for an separate measurement of contact force and surface condition of the vehicle current strip. The rolling stock operator needs a complementary device to measure not only the vertical contact force, but moreover the friction force, in order to analyse the vehicle and OCL interface condition. In SMITS a monitoring system for contact force on the interface current collector lt;- gt; c ontact wire has been developed. A sensor technology has been started to explore showing the potential for an extended range of rail monitoring tools. An innovative coherent sensor technology approach shall be investigated and two independent monitoring too ls for vehicle and infrastructure be developed. These shall be validated at new rail tracks specified for TSI interoperable cross boundary transportation: the Ltschberg Basis Tunnel, CH and the HSL Zuid high speed line, NL, both ready for operation in 2007 . Demonstration tests in operation will be performed along the Korridor X infrastructure passing through different countries rail networks. The outcome of the project will enable managers to specify driving conditions for the usage of their infrastructure to avoid excessive wear improving availability. Complementary rolling stock operators can monitor OCL condition giving them an informative argument in case of damage. Condition-dependent user fees as well as threat of penalty will force vehicle and infrast ructure managers to maintain the vehicle and infrastructure interface on a superior level of availability. The operational costs will be reduced and availability of transportation capacity enhanced.
The ATTICA consortium offers to provide the European community with a coherent series of assessments of the impact of transport emissions on climate change and ozone depletion. Three assessments will cover the emissions of single transport sectors, viz. of aviation, shipping, and road and rail traffic. Another assessment deals with metrics that allow to describe, quantify, and compare in a fair way the effects of the transport emissions in the atmosphere. Finally, a synthesis of the foregoing assessments will be written that will provide the overview of the impacts of the emissions of all transport sectors on climate change and the ozone layer. For the first time, different modes of transport will be consistently assessed. The consistent assessment allows the interested citizen to estimate in principle their own contribution to environmental problems and to compare it to that of others. Apart from policy and decision makers, the synthesis assessment will help journalists, teachers, and others, to digest the results and to present them in public media, in schools and universities, ensuring wide spread of the results. The assessments and the synthesis report will inform the EU in developing its policy and will strengthen its position in international climate conventions and other international agreements. It will help finding emission reduction and mitigation strategies, and give advice for industry on design of future engines and vehicles, thereby strengthening the European position.
Objective: Observational records show that the global climate is changing and ongoing changes are also visible in Central Eastern Europe. About 64Prozent of all catastrophic events in Europe since 1980 can directly be attributed to weather and climate extremes. Climate change projections show even an increasing likelihood of extremes. Certainly negative impacts of climate change will involve significant economic looses in several regions of Europe, while others may bring health or welfare problems somewhere else. Within CLAVIER three representative Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) will be studied in detail: Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. Researches from 6 countries and different disciplines will identify linkages between climate change and its impact on weather patterns with consequences on air pollution, extremes events, and on water resources. Furthermore, an evaluation of the economic impact on agriculture, tourism, energy supply and the public sector will be conducted. This is of increasing importance for CEEC, which are currently facing a rapid economic development, but also for the European Union as e.g. Romania's and Bulgaria's high vulnerability from extreme events such as floods will impact not only the respective economic goals for joining the EU but also the EU solidarity fund. CLAVIER will focus on ongoing and future climate changes in Central and Eastern European Countries using measurements and existing regional scenarios to determine possible developments of the climate and to address related uncertainty. In addition, climate projections with very high detail will be carried out for CEEC to fulfil the need for a large amount of detail in time and space, which is inherent in local and regional impact assessment.
The objective of EFORWOOD is to develop a quantitative decision support tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment of the European Forestry-Wood Chain (FWC) and subsets thereof (e.g. regional), covering forestry, industrial manufacturing, consumption and recycling. The objective will be achieved by:a) defining economic, environmental and social sustainability indicators ,b) developing a tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment by integrating a set of models ,c) supplying the tool with real data, aggregated as needed and appropriate,d) testing the tool in a stepwise procedure allowing adjustments to be made according to the experiences gained,e) applying the tool to assess the sustainability of the present European FWC (and subsets thereof) as well the impacts of potential major changes based on scenarios,f) making the adapted versions of the tool available to stakeholder groupings (industrial, political and others).The multi-functionality of the FWC is taken into account by using indicators to assess the sustainability of production processes and by including in the analysis the various products and services of the FWC. Wide stakeholder consultations will be used throughout the process to reach the objective. EFORWOOD will contribute to EU policies connected to the FWC, especially to the Sustainable Development Strategy. It will provide policy-makers, forest owners, the related industries and other stakeholders with a tool to strengthen the forest-based sector's contribution towards a more sustainable Europe, thereby also improving its competitiveness. To achieve this, EFORWOOD gathers a consortium of highest-class experts, including the most representative forest-based sector confederations.EFORWOOD addresses with a high degree of relevance the objectives set out in the 3rd call for proposals addressing Thematic Sub-priority 1.1.6.3 Global Change and Ecosystems, topic V.2.1. Forestry/wood chain for Sustainable Development. Prime Contractor: Stiftelsen Skogsbrukets Forskningsinstitut, Skogforsk; Uppsala; Sweden.
Project main goals: The main purpose of this project is to develop an innovative 400 kWth solar reformer for several applications such as Hydrogen production or electricity generation. Depending of the feed source for the reforming process CO2 emissions can be reduced significantly (up to 40 percent using NG), because the needed process heat for this highly endothermic reaction is provided by concentrated solar energy. A pre-design of a 1 MW prototype plant in Southern Italy and a conceptual layout of a commercial 50 MWth reforming plant complete this project. Key issues: The profitability decides if a new technology has a chance to come into the market. Therefore several modifications and improvements to the state-of-the-art solar reformer technology will be introduced before large scale and commercial system can be developed. These changes are primarily to the catalytic system, the reactor optimisation and operation procedures and the associated optics for concentrating the solar radiation. For the dissemination of solar reforming technology the regions targeted are in Southern Europe and Northern Africa. The potential markets and the impact of infrastructure and administrative restrictions will be assessed. The environmental, socio-economic and institutional impacts of solar reforming technology exploitation will be assessed with respect to sustainable development. The market potential of solar reforming technology in a liberalised European energy market will be evaluated. Detailed cost estimates for a 50 MWth commercial plant will be determined.
Objective: The GenFC proposal addresses the topic 'Generic tools for FC systems modelling, testing, safety and quality assurance' under the activity code SUSTDEV-1.2.1: Fuel cells including their applications. It falls into research activities having an impact in the medium to long term. The overall goal of GenFC is to provide a generic modelling tool to fuel cell and fuel cell systems developers making fuel cell modelling expert knowledge available to all of them. The fuel cell and fuel cell systems developers can us e this tool to improve and accelerate fuel cell development and to contribute to a future success of the fuel cell technology. It is believed that from the fuel cell (hardware) developer's point of view, a fuel cell modelling environment is desirable which can be used for simulation tasks exactly catering to the demand of the application engineer. The integrated modelling tool will assist fuel cell developers to improve their design- and optimisation processes in terms of accelerating development cycles, l owering costs, improving quality and hence also safety. The user of such a modelling environment will be able to choose through a user friendly interface a model out of a set of different types of fuel cells. Each type of fuel cell will be available in dif ferent implementations and each implementation is suitable for a particular application. The consortium consists of fuel cell technology developers, specific software providers, software engineers and fuel cell model users. Existing and in the course of t he project to be developed models and hardware in the loop systems for different types of fuel cells on all levels from system integration, via stack and cell down to electrode processes, are integrated in the tool and interfaced with a common data-base fo r process and design parameters. GenFC can help establish a competitive fuel cell industry in Europe contributing to the great challenge of migrating from a fossil fuel based economy to a sustainable one.
Objective: Background: There are seven projects running which are supported by the European Commission under FP5 dealing with the integration of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Distributed Generation (DG). This cluster represents a total budget of about 35 million? More than 100 participating institutions from research, industry and the utility sector are contributing. Proposed Actions: The subject of the proposed CA is to extend the existing cluster activities in such a way that a real European added value by mobilising research will be obtained as a major contribution to the ERA. This extension will be realized by the inclusion of forthcoming projects supported by FP6 by national and regional activities. 1. A systematic exchange of information by improving links to relevant research, to regulatory bodies and to policies and schemes on the European, the national, the regional and the international level. 2. Set-up of strategic actions such as trans-national co-operation, the organization and a co-ordination of common initiatives on standards, testing procedures and the establishment of common education. 3. Identification of the highest priority research topics in the field of integration and formation of appropriate realization schemes. a) The establishment of an expert-group covering important cross-cutting areas such as power-quality, ICT/IST, laboratory experiments est.) The formation of a group of contact persons to national, regional and international policy). Set-up of a full data- and information-exchange system with links to national, regional and international information systems).
The proposed regulation concerning the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals (REACH) requires demonstration of the safe manufacture of chemicals and their safe use throughout the supply chain. There is therefore a strong need to strengthen and advance human and environmental risk assessment knowledge and practices with regard to chemicals, in accord with the precautionary principle. The goal of the project OSIRIS is to develop integrated testing strategies (ITS) fit for REACH that enable to significantly increase the use of non-testing information for regulatory decision making, and thus minimise the need for animal testing. To this end, operational procedures will be developed, tested and disseminated that guide a transparent and scientifically sound evaluation of chemical substances in a risk-driven, context-specific and substance-tailored (RCS) manner. The envisaged decision theory framework includes alternative methods such as chemical and biological read-across, in vitro results, in vivo information on analogues, qualitative and quantitative structure-activity relationships, thresholds of toxicological concern and exposure-based waiving, and takes into account cost-benefit analyses as well as societal risk perception. It is based on the new REACH paradigm to move away from extensive standard testing to a more intelligent, substance-tailored approach. The work will be organised in five interlinked research pillars (chemical domain, biological domain, exposure, integration strategies and tools, case studies), with a particular focus on more complex, long-term and high-cost endpoints. Case studies will demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the new ITS methodologies, and provide guidance in concrete form. To ensure optimal uptake of the results obtained in this project, end-users in industry and regulatory authorities will be closely involved in monitoring and in providing specific technical contributions to this project.
Objective: The project highSol aims at the transformation of innovative manufacturing concepts on a laboratory scale into the full industrial scale. The result will be the demonstration of technologies which will enable the mass manufacturing of Photovoltaic products with a serious reduction of manufacturing costs. The objectives are: - Demonstrating the automated manufacturing of Photovoltaic products based on thin wafers with a thickness of 150 micro m. - Increasing and maintaining the overall yield with the implementation of in-process quality control and feedback systems. - Demonstrating the manufacturing integration with the implementation of interfaces which will serve for future standards. The objectives will be reached by the following approach: Saving feedstock, by enabling manufacturing of 150Mikro m wafer with a wafer size of 210*210mm, will enable a direct cost reduction of 25%. As the envisaged cost reduction in Photovoltaic industry is 5% per year, this action alone will provide European Photovoltaic industry.
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