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BACKGROUND: The Kingdom of Jordan belongs to the ten water scarcest countries in the world, and climate change is likely to increase the frequency of future droughts. Jordan is considered among the 10 most water impoverished countries in the world, with per capita water availability estimated at 170 m per annum, compared to an average of 1,000 m per annum in other countries. Jordan Government has taken the strategic decision to develop a conveyor system including a 325 km pipe to pump 100 million cubic meters per year of potable water from Disi-Mudawwara close to the Saudi Border in the south, to the Greater Amman area in the north. The construction of the water pipeline has started end of 2009 and shall be finished in 2013. Later on, the pipeline could serve as a major part of a national water carrier in order to convey desalinated water from the Red Sea to the economically most important central region of the country. The conveyor project will not only significantly increase water supplies to the capital, but also provide for the re-allocation of current supplies to other governorates, and for the conservation of aquifers. In the context of the Disi project that is co-funded by EIB two Environmental and Social Management Plans have been prepared: one for the private project partners and one for the Jordan Government. The latter includes the Governments obligation to re-balance water allocations to irrigation and to gradually restore the protected wetlands of Azraq (Ramsar site) east of Amman that has been depleted due to over-abstraction by re-directing discharge of highland aquifers after the Disi pipeline becomes operational. The Water Strategy recognizes that groundwater extraction for irrigation is beyond acceptable limits. Since the source is finite and priority should be given to human consumption it proposes to tackle the demand for irrigation through tariff adjustments, improved irrigation technology and disincentive to water intensive crops. The Disi aquifer is currently used for irrigation by farms producing all kinds of fruits and vegetables on a large scale and exporting most of their products to the Saudi and European markets and it is almost a third of Jordan's total consumption. The licenses for that commercial irrigation were finished by 2011/12. Whilst the licenses will be not renewed the difficulty will be the enforcement and satellite based information become an important supporting tool for monitoring. OUTLOOK: The ESA funded project Water management had the objective to support the South-North conveyor project and the activities of EIB together with the MWI in Jordan to ensure the supply of water for the increasing demand. EO Information provides a baseline for land cover and elevation and support the monitoring of further stages. usw.
In daily life, construction polymers play an important role. Most of products are not reusable for different reasons (cost, hygiene, ) so the need of an environment saving production and disposal is evident. To besides from the obvious task on saving resources and environment, there is also a growing economical interest in this issue. On of the most promising candidates for a thermoplastic construction polymer that can be manufactured from bio-renewable resources and is biodegradable is Polylactic acid (PLA), for which Corn starch (in the U.S.) or sugarcanes (rest of world) are the common feedstock. Polylactic acid can be processed like most thermoplastics into fiber (for example using conventional melt spinning processes) and film. However, the low glass transition temperature prohibits many applications, like usage for coffee cups that will simply soften and flow away upon filling with hot drinks. One popular option to cope with this is the modification with other polymers, either conventional product or even enantiomers of PLA itself. For example, the melting temperature can be increased 40-50 C and the Heat Deflection temperature of PLLA can be increased from approximately 60 C to up to 190 C for by physically blending the polymer with PDLA (poly-D-lactide). PDLA and PLLA are known to form a highly regular stereocomplex with increased crystallinity. The maximum effect in temperature stability is achieved when a 50-50 blend is used, but even at lower concentrations of 3-10Prozent of PDLA a substantial effect is achieved. In the latter case PDLA is used as a nucleating agent, thereby increasing the crystallization rate. Due to the higher crystallinity of this stereo-complex, the biodegradability will become slower. The interesting feature is that the polymer blend remains transparent, which is one to the desirable properties that must be kept upon modification.
Flowering time is strongly regulated by the circadian clock, which drives photoperiodic flowering. We recently explored natural allelic diversity of the clock in the dicot Arabidopsis and found a 'memory' of the proceeding environment. Furthermore, we showed that clock variation has a large role in directing flowering time under field conditions. Cloning of one circadian quantitative trait locus revealed variation at the flowering-time gene EARLY FLOWERING 3 (ELF3). Here we will further explore allelic variation in clock genes to define key loci that direct photoperiodic flowering. Firstly, we will complete the construction of new Arabidopsis recombinant inbred populations derived from accessions originating from extremely differing latitudes, and map the genomes of these lines at kilobase resolution. These populations will be scored for variation in the clock and flowering time; dynamic correlations will be constructed. Together, components underling clock-gene variation that directs seasonal flowering will be identified. Secondly, we will examine the molecular genetics of circadian control of flowering in the monocot barley using existing and newly generated variation at barley ELF3. This gene is the likely direct regulator of the seasonality locus Ppd-H1. This second program should reveal dicot/monocot clock conservations and identify allelic variation at the circadian-clock gene ELF3 that could be directly used in barley breeding programs.
Aufgrund der Zunahme der erfassten Abwassermengen bzw. durch die Intensivierung des Reinigungsprozesses ist es in den letzten Jahren ein starker Anstieg des Klärschlammvolumens zu verzeichnen. Die zunehmende Schwierigkeit, die auf Kläranlagen anfallenden Schlämme zu entsorgen, lässt nach neuen Abwasserreinigungsverfahren mit verringertem Klärschlammanfall bzw. neuen Verwertungsmöglichkeiten suchen. Dieses Problem stellt sich nicht nur in Europa sondern in verstärktem Ausmaß auch in den Entwicklungsländern. In China wurde in den letzten Jahren mit Unterstützung der Weltbank ein massives Investitionsprogramm zum Ausbau der Abwasserreinigung initiiert. In diesem Zusammenhang wird innovativen Verfahren zur Klärschlammreduktion eine hohe Bedeutung beigemessen. Im Rahmen einer Studie wurden unterschiedliche innovative Verfahrensweisen untersucht und bewertet. Als vielversprechende Möglichkeit wurde die Intensivierung der Klärschlammfaulung durch Schlammdesintegration identifiziert. Mittels Aufschlussverfahren, wie z.B. Ozonierung, wird der biologische Abbauprozess unterstützt und dadurch ein erhöhter Anteil der organischen Inhaltsstoffe des Klärschlamms in Biogas umgewandelt. Das entstehende Biogas wird zur Strom- und Wärmerzeugung genutzt. Diese neuartige Technologie wird derzeit in einer Versuchsanlage an der Kläranlage Tulln intensiv untersucht. In einem weiteren Schritt werden parallel Pilotversuche in China (Shanghai) aufgenommen um das Verfahren weiter zu optimieren.
Das Vorhaben wurde im Rahmen der deutsch-indonesischen Kooperation auf dem Gebiet der wissenschaftlichen Forschung und technologischen Entwicklung durchgeführt. Hierbei sollte der indonesische Partner kurzfristig in den Bau moderner Windkraftanlagen eingearbeitet werden. Bei der Lieferung der beiden Anlagen stand die Nutzung der erzeugten Energie mit im Vordergrund. Es wurde ein Konzept für den Betrieb von Eiserzeugungsanlagen ohne Zwischenspeicherung der elektrischen Energie erstellt. Die Ergebnisse aus dem Testbetrieb zeigten, dass die realisierte Betriebskonzeption voll funktionstüchtig ist. Nach entsprechender Ausbildung war der indonesische Partner in der Lage, die Windkraftanlagen selbständig zu installieren.
Objective: SHIVA aims to reduce uncertainties in present and future stratospheric halogen loading and ozone depletion resulting from climate feedbacks between emissions and transport of ozone depleting substances (ODS). Of particular relevance will be studies of short and very short-lived substances (VSLS) with climate-sensitive natural emissions. We will perform field studies of ODS production, emission and transport in understudied, but critical, regions of the tropics using ship, aircraft and ground-based instrumentation. We will parameterize potential climate sensitivities of emissions based on inter-dependencies derived from our own field studies, and surveys of ongoing work in this area. We will study the chemical transformation of ODS during transport from the surface to the tropical tropopause layer (TTL), and in the stratosphere, using a combination of aircraft and balloon observations together with process-oriented meso-scale modelling. These investigations will be corroborated by space-based remote sensing of marine phytoplankton biomass as a possible proxy for the ocean-atmosphere flux of ODS. From this a systematic emission inventory of VSLS ODS will be established to allow construction of future-climate scenarios. The impact of climate-sensitive feedbacks between transport and the delivery of ODS to the stratosphere, and their lifetime within it, will be studied using tracer observations and modelling. Further global modelling will assess the contribution of all ODS, including VSLS (which have hitherto normally been excluded from such models) to past, present and future ozone loss. Here, the sensitivity of natural ODS emissions to climate change parameters will be used in combination with standard IPCC climate model scenarios in order to drive measurement-calibrated chemical transport model (CTM) simulations for present and future stratospheric ozone; to better predict the rate, timing and climate-sensitivity of ozone-layer recovery.
The goal of this study was to enable a prognosis on the future rainfall conditions of the Nile Equatorial Lakes regions by delivering time-series of monthly rainfall sums for the time-period from 2021 to 2050 that can be used for all kinds of applications. One example might be the dimensioning of hydraulic structures. In these very long lasting investments, future climatic conditions have to be considered during present planning and construction.The principal sources of information on future climate conditions are General Circulation Models (GCMs). These are physically based atmospheric models that resemble a numerical weather prediction system but on a much coarser scale. This forecast cannot be perfect. Especially, it cannot predict single values, e. g. if January 2050 will be rather wet or dry, but only climatic references, i.e. state, if Januaries in general will become wetter or dryer in the future. Even if the predictions of a GCM were perfect, its output could not be used directly for hydrological purposes, due to its coarse resolution. The monthly precipitation values that are provided by the GCM present the spatially averaged precipitation over a grid cell of several thousand square kilometres. This 'block rainfall' can differ significantly from rainfall measured at the ground. Rain gauges are influenced by local effects like micro climatic conditions or orographic effects of mountain ranges that GCMs are not able to resolve.This study combined the information from different data sources. As global trend information, monthly precipitation values from two GCMs (ECHAM5 and HadCM3) were used. Three CO2-emission scenarios (A1b, A2 and B1) were considered in this data. As local ground reference observed monthly rainfall sums from several rain gauges in East Africa as well as from three reanalysis projects (Climate Research Unit, University of Delaware and GPCC) were used.At each rain gauge or observation point in the reanalysis a technique called 'Quantile-Quantile-Transformation' was applied to establish a relationship between the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of the GCMs and that of the ground references during the calibration period from 1961-1990. The CDFs were fitted by non-parametric Kernel-Smoothing. To account for potential shifts in the annual cycles of GCMs and ground references, the transformations was done separately for each month.Assuming that the relation between Global Model and local response will be constant in the future, the global predictions of the GCM can be downscaled to local scale, leading to future rainfall scenarios that are coherent with observed past rainfall.Combining the data from three CO2-emission scenarios of two GCM with three reanalysis data sets, an ensemble of 18 different rainfall time-series was created for each observation point. The range of this ensemble helps to estimate the possible uncertainties in the prognosis of future monthly precipitation sums from 2021 to 2050.
Globalization raised the importance of food safety and quality concerns. Developed countries implement precautionary food regulation policies to protect their affluent consumers from unsafe food imported from developing and transition countries. However, the alarming number of trade disputes at WTO evidences cases of abuse of such policies. While claims on protectionist nature of food regulations are valid in principle, yet there is little empirical evidence about their economic effects. The questions of 1) quantification of trade impact of food standards and 2) investigation of national food regulation systems are absolutely essential for the new trade agenda. These problems for developing countries are on the focus of trade policy debate, whereas for transition countries are not considered seriously. Such a research for these recently liberalized markets gains a special significance. - The proposed research will employ Gravity Model for quantitative estimation of impact of EU aflatoxin standards on transition countries- exports.- Russian food regulations for cereal value chain, their enforcement and monitoring mechanisms will be investigated through value chain and cost-benefit analysis.- Compliance of Russian norms with EU standards will be estimated applying comparative advantage analysis.The study area is Stavropol region of the Russian Federation. Local experts will contribute to the construction of the research data set and analysis. The results of the research will assist 1) international policy makers in designing new global trade agenda and 2) Russian producers, exporters and decision makers in improving cereal value chain.
Kurzbeschreibung: Um die Bauzeit neuer, unterirdisch geführter Verkehrswege zu verkürzen und in einigen Fällen eine wirtschaftlich vertretbare Realisierung überhaupt zu ermöglichen, wird oft der Einsatz einer Tunnelbohrmaschine (TBM) angestrebt. Druckhaftes Gebirge kann, wenn in häufigen Intervallen oder entlang eines langen Streckenabschnittes angetroffen wird, die Wirtschaftlichkeit oder gar die Machbarkeit eines TBM-Vortriebes in Frage stellen. Ausgehend von grundlagenorientierten Forschungsergebnissen, die in den letzten Jahren an der ETH Zürich erhalten wurden, sollen beim vorliegenden Forschungsprojekt Entscheidungsgrundlagen erarbeitet und Hilfsmittel für die Projektierung bereitgestellt werden. Bei der Beurteilung der Machbarkeit eines maschinellen Vortriebes in einem konkreten Fall stützt sich der Projektingenieur auf Erfahrungen, Plausibilitätsüberlegungen und tunnelstatische Berechnungen. Die Arbeitspakete des Forschungsvorhabens tragen Rechnung diesen Grundlagen der Entscheidungsfindung. In einer ersten Phase werden die Erfahrungen aus ausgeführten Projekten, die im Schrifttum dokumentiert sind, aufgearbeitet und nach einheitlichen Gesichtspunkten dargestellt. Anschließend werden für die verschiedenen TBM-Typen die geotechnischen und verfahrenstechnischen Zusammenhänge verstanden, die spezifischen Gefährdungen und tunnelseitigen Lösungsansätze dargestellt, die relevanten Einflussfaktoren gegliedert und die zahlreichen Wechselwirkungen strukturiert und qualitativ analysiert. In einer dritten Phase, ausgehend von den bereits geleisteten Forschungsarbeiten der ETH Zürich, werden ausgewählte Fragestellungen vertieft studiert. Projektziele: Projektziele: Erarbeitung von Entscheidungsgrundlagen und Bereitstellung von Hilfsmitteln für die Projektierung von TBM-Vortrieben in druckhaftem Gebirge: - Aufarbeitung und einheitliche Darstellung von Erfahrungen aus ausgeführten Projekten, die im Schrifttum dokumentiert sind; - Verstehen der geotechnischen und verfahrenstechnischen Zusammenhänge, Darstellung der spezifischen Gefährdungen und der tunnelseitigen Lösungsansätze Gliederung der relevanten Einflussfaktoren und Strukturierung der zahlreichen Wechselwirkungen; - Herstellung von Nomogrammen, welche die einfache Ermittlung der für das Vermeiden eines Verklemmens des Schildes erforderlichen Vorschubkraft bzw. die Beurteilung der Gefahr 'Schildblockierung' ermöglichen und somit eine zweckmäßiges Hilfsmittel für die Projektierungsarbeit in der Praxis darstellen; - Gewinn von Erkenntnissen über die Vor- und Nachteile der verschiedenen Maschinentypen und Ausbaukonzepte je nach Tunneldurchmesser.
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