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The Saarschleife geotope (SE-Germany) represents one of the most prominent geotopes of the SaarLorLux region and is known far beyond the borders of the Greater Region. Surprisingly, there is no visual representation of the relief history and genesis of this river meander, which is unique for Central Europe - as is common at places with comparable outstanding phenomena, such as e.g. the Rocher Saint-Michel d'Aiguilhe (France) or some national parks in the U.S. (e.g. Grand Canyon). The Saarschleife geotope therefore was choosen as a pilot object for the envisaged analysis of the landscape genesis but also regarding the 3D mapping and visualization. The visualisation presents the relief history and geological evolution of the last 300 million years in selected geological epochs, which are of fundamental importance for the understanding of today's geomorphological relief conditions, and is compiled into a summarized chronology.
Terrestrial cyanobacteria grow as phototrophic biofilms and offer a wide spectrum of interesting products. For cultivation of phototrophic biofilms different reactor concepts have been developed in the last years. One of the main influencing factors is the surface material and the adhesion strength of the chosen production strain. In this work a flow chamber was developed, in which, in combination with optical coherence tomography and computational fluid dynamics simulation, an easy analysis of adhesion forces between different biofilms and varied surface materials is possible. Hereby, differences between two cyanobacteria strains and two surface materials were shown. With longer cultivation time of biofilms adhesion increased in all experiments. Additionally, the content of extracellular polymeric substances was analyzed and its role in surface adhesion was evaluated. To test the comparability of obtained results from the flow chamber with other methods, analogous experiments were conducted with a rotational rheometer, which proved to be successful. Thus, with the presented flow chamber an easy to implement method for analysis of biofilm adhesion was developed, which can be used in future research for determination of suitable combinations of microorganisms with cultivation surfaces on lab scale in advance of larger processes.
Science on ecosystems and people to support the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
(2023)
In December 2022, members of the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted the new Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) to guide international biodiversity conservation efforts until 2030 in order to be able to live ‘in harmony with nature’ by 2050. This framework addresses the implementation gap left after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, which were the previous global instrument for mainstreaming biodiversity conservation between 2010 and 2020.
The aim of this editorial is to draw attention to the GBF targets that are most relevant to our readership, with two objectives: First, to suggest how Ecosystems and People may be a venue for emerging research insights in support of the GBF. Second, to highlight examples of recent research in Ecosystems and People that can contribute to enrich, or even challenge, the evidence and development of the GBF Targets.
1. Woody riparian vegetation (WRV) benefits benthic macroinvertebrates in running waters. However, while some functions are provided by WRV irrespective of surrounding and catchment land use, others are context-specific. In recent large-scale studies, effects of WRV on macroinvertebrates were therefore small compared to catchment land use, raising the question about the relevance of WRV for restoration.
2. Model-based recursive partitioning was used to identify context-dependent effects of WRV on the macroinvertebrates' ecological status in small (catchment area 10–100 km2) lowland (n = 361) and mountain (n = 748) streams. WRV cover was quantified from orthophotos along the near (500 m) and far (5000 m) upstream river network and used to predict the site's ecological status. Agricultural, urban and woodland cover at the local and catchment scales along with hydromorphology were considered as partitioning variables.
3. In rural agricultural landscapes, the effect of WRV on the ecological status was large, indicating that establishing near-upstream WRV can improve the ecological status by as much as two of the five classes according to the EU Water Framework Directive.
4. Even in urban landscapes, effects of far-upstream WRV were large if catchments had a moderate share of agricultural land use in addition. The beneficial effects of WRV were only limited in purely urban catchments or in a multiple stressor context.
5. Synthesis and applications. While woody riparian vegetation (WRV) can even improve the ecological status in urban settings, it is especially relevant for river management in rural agricultural catchments, where developing WRV potentially are effective measures to achieve good ecological status.
Die Umbenetzungsagglomeration bietet die Möglichkeit einer Trennung nach zwei Partikeleigenschaften. Hierbei wird nach den Benetzungseigenschaften des Feststoffs in Bezug zur Suspensions- und Bindeflüssigkeit getrennt und nach der Größe. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist, die Reinheit der entstehenden Graphitagglomerate in einer Mischung mit Quarzsand gravimetrisch zu bestimmen und diese mit den Benetzungseigenschaften zu korrelieren. Die Güte dieser Ergebnisse wird mit einer Mikroröntgentomographie (µ-CT) untersucht. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass sich Quarzsand mit Paraffinöl nicht benetzen lässt und somit Reinheiten von 99,5 % bis 99,9 % erreicht werden, was das Ergebnis der µ-CT bestätigt. Einen Einfluss der Partikelgröße des Quarzsandes konnte im untersuchten Bereich nicht bestätigt werden.
Owing to a long history of anthropogenic pressures, freshwater ecosystems are among the most vulnerable to biodiversity loss1. Mitigation measures, including wastewater treatment and hydromorphological restoration, have aimed to improve environmental quality and foster the recovery of freshwater biodiversity2. Here, using 1,816 time series of freshwater invertebrate communities collected across 22 European countries between 1968 and 2020, we quantified temporal trends in taxonomic and functional diversity and their responses to environmental pressures and gradients. We observed overall increases in taxon richness (0.73% per year), functional richness (2.4% per year) and abundance (1.17% per year). However, these increases primarily occurred before the 2010s, and have since plateaued. Freshwater communities downstream of dams, urban areas and cropland were less likely to experience recovery. Communities at sites with faster rates of warming had fewer gains in taxon richness, functional richness and abundance. Although biodiversity gains in the 1990s and 2000s probably reflect the effectiveness of water-quality improvements and restoration projects, the decelerating trajectory in the 2010s suggests that the current measures offer diminishing returns. Given new and persistent pressures on freshwater ecosystems, including emerging pollutants, climate change and the spread of invasive species, we call for additional mitigation to revive the recovery of freshwater biodiversity.
This research conducted a probabilistic life-cycle assessment (pLCA) into the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions performance of nine combinations of truck size and powertrain technology for a recent past and a future (largely decarbonised) situation in Australia. This study finds that the relative and absolute life-cycle GHG emissions performance strongly depends on the vehicle class, powertrain and year of assessment. Life-cycle emission factor distributions vary substantially in their magnitude, range and shape. Diesel trucks had lower life-cycle GHG emissions in 2019 than electric trucks (battery, hydrogen fuel cell), mainly due to the high carbon-emission intensity of the Australian electricity grid (mainly coal) and hydrogen production (mainly through steam–methane reforming). The picture is, however, very different for a more decarbonised situation, where battery electric trucks, in particular, provide deep reductions (about 75–85%) in life-cycle GHG emissions. Fuel-cell electric (hydrogen) trucks also provide substantial reductions (about 50–70%), but not as deep as those for battery electric trucks. Moreover, hydrogen trucks exhibit the largest uncertainty in emissions performance, which reflects the uncertainty and general lack of information for this technology. They therefore carry an elevated risk of not achieving the expected emission reductions. Battery electric trucks show the smallest (absolute) uncertainty, which suggests that these trucks are expected to deliver the deepest and most robust emission reductions. Operational emissions (on-road driving and vehicle maintenance combined) dominate life-cycle emissions for all vehicle classes. Vehicle manufacturing and upstream emissions make a relatively small contribution to life-cycle emissions from diesel trucks (<5% each), but these are important aspects for electric trucks (5% to 30%).
Hydrological variability is a key factor in structuring biotic and abiotic processes in river ecosystems and is of particular importance to fish populations. We used 171 hydrological indices (HI) and young-of-the-year (YOY) fish abundances as indicators of reproductive success to compare species' response patterns to high and low flows on short-, intermediate-, and long-term scales. Our study included 13 common fish species in headwater streams of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Generalized linear models using YOY abundances and HI on high- and low-flow patterns explained on average 64 % of the variability. HI calculated from long time series worked better than HI describing short- and intermediate-term high- and low flows. Species' reproductive success response to low flow HI depended on specific ecological traits whereas high flow HI differentially affected species according to their life history strategies. Equilibrium strategists responded negatively to high frequency and magnitude along with late timing of high flow, while periodic and opportunistic species mostly thrived under these conditions. We identified four species traits that mediated these differences between life history strategies. The reproductive success of species with low relative fecundity, large eggs and larvae, and long incubation periods was negatively impacted by the high frequency, high magnitude, and late timing of high flows. Conversely, the reproductive success of species with high relative fecundity, short incubation periods and small eggs and larvae was fostered by strong, frequent, and late high flows. The consideration of the relationship between reproductive success, life history, and fish species traits over several years under a range of flows is a novel step towards the implementation of measures to mitigate negative impacts and enhance conditions for successful fish reproduction.
In the past decade, research on measuring and assessing the environmental impact of software has gained significant momentum in science and industry. However, due to the large number of research groups, measurement setups, procedure models, tools, and general novelty of the research area, a comprehensive research framework has yet to be created. The literature documents several approaches from researchers and practitioners who have developed individual methods and models, along with more general ideas like the integration of software sustainability in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or science communication approaches to make the resource cost of software transparent to society. However, a reference measurement model for the energy and resource consumption of software is still missing. In this article, we jointly develop the Green Software Measurement Model (GSMM), in which we bring together the core ideas of the measurement models, setups, and methods of over 10 research groups in four countries who have done pioneering work in assessing the environmental impact of software. We briefly describe the different methods and models used by these research groups, derive the components of the GSMM from them, and then we discuss and evaluate the resulting reference model. By categorizing the existing measurement models and procedures and by providing guidelines for assimilating and tailoring existing methods, we expect this work to aid new researchers and practitioners who want to conduct measurements for their individual use cases.
Social media data are transforming sustainability science. However, challenges from restrictions in data accessibility and ethical concerns regarding potential data misuse have threatened this nascent field. Here, we review the literature on the use of social media data in environmental and sustainability research. We find that they can play a novel and irreplaceable role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals by allowing a nuanced understanding of human-nature interactions at scale, observing the dynamics of social-ecological change, and investigating the co-construction of nature values. We reveal threats to data access and highlight scientific responsibility to address trade-offs between research transparency and privacy protection, while promoting inclusivity. This contributes to a wider societal debate of social media data for sustainability science and for the common good.
Additive manufacturing is an essential tool in innovative production processes. The extended degrees of freedom offer much potential in usage, construction, and product design. Rising raw material and energy costs, constantly increasing environmental requirements, and the increasing demand for resource-saving products represent a paradigm shift in classic production processes.
In addition to the purely energetic evaluation, developing energy models is a method to determine energy consumption and reduce it in the long term. The specific energy consumption model, also known as the SEC model, allows a quick estimation of energy consumption by multiplying the SEC with a unit like the mass of the workpiece, the manufacturing time, or the exposed area. Here, high dependence on the used machine, the considered peripheral devices, and the geometry are noticeable.
Previous studies, such as those by Kellens et al. and Baumers et al., have laid the basis for understanding the energy demands of PBF-LB/M processes. Various energy models have subsequently been proposed, including those by Paul and Anand, Yi et al., Lv et al., and Hui et al. These models are often limited by their specificity to sub-processes or subsystems. This results in limitations in their applicability to other manufacturing machines or inaccuracies in energy consumption predictions. The simulation accuracy ACC is mostly in the range of 90% with the limitation of small sample sizes. Moreover, nearly, all these models rely heavily on process time information, making the accuracy of their simulations largely dependent on the quality of the underlying time model.
In the following study, two manufacturing machines of the PBF-LB/M process are analyzed and compared with other studies. The aim is to analyze the power and resource consumption to use these data to build an improved energy model with a high accuracy, which can be used as an additional parameter in the adapted design methodology. Furthermore, potential savings are derived from the load curves.
Diadromous fish have exhibited a dramatic decline since the end of the 20th century. The allis shad (Alosa alosa) population in the Gironde-Garonne-Dordogne (GGD) system, once considered as a reference in Europe, remains low despite a fishing ban in 2008. One hypothesis to explain this decline is that the downstream migration and growth dynamics of young stages have changed due to environmental modifications in the rivers and estuary. We retrospectively analysed juvenile growth and migration patterns using otoliths from adults caught in the GGD system 30 years apart during their spawning migration, in 1987 and 2016. We coupled otolith daily growth increments and laser ablation inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometry measurements of Sr:Ca, Ba:Ca, and Mn:Ca ratios along the longest growth axis from hatching to an age of 100 days (i.e., during the juvenile stage). A back-calculation allowed us to estimate the size of juveniles at the entrance into the brackish estuary. Based on the geochemistry data, we distinguished four different zones that juveniles encountered during their downstream migration: freshwater, fluvial estuary, brackish estuary, and lower estuary. We identified three migration patterns during the first 100 days of their life: (a) Individuals that reached the lower estuary zone, (b) individuals that reached the brackish estuary zone, and (c) individuals that reached the fluvial estuary zone. On average, juveniles from the 1987 subsample stayed slightly longer in freshwater than juveniles from the 2016 subsample. In addition, juveniles from the 2016 subsample entered the brackish estuary at a smaller size. This result suggests that juveniles from the 2016 subsample might have encountered more difficult conditions during their downstream migration, which we attribute to a longer exposure to the turbid maximum zone. This assumption is supported by the microchemical analyses of the otoliths, which suggests based on wider Mn:Ca peaks that juveniles in 2010s experienced a longer period of physiological stress during their downstream migration than juveniles in 1980s. Finally, juveniles from the 2016 subsample took longer than 100 days to exit the lower estuary than we would have expected from previous studies. Adding a new marker (i.e., Ba:Ca) helped us refine the interpretation of the downstream migration for each individual.
Background: The environmental impact of electric scooters has been the subject of critical debate in the scientific community for the past 5 years. The data published so far are very inhomogeneous and partly methodologically incomplete. Most of the data available in the literature suffer from an average bias of 34%, because end-of-life (EOL) impacts have not been modelled, reported or specified. In addition, the average lifetime mileage of shared fleets of e-scooters, as they are operated in cities around the world, has recently turned out to be much lower than expected. This casts the scooters in an unfavourable light for the necessary mobility transition. Data on impact categories other than the global warming potential (GWP) are scarce. This paper aims to quantify the strengths and weaknesses of e-scooters in terms of their contribution to sustainable transport by more specifically defining and extending the life cycle assessment (LCA) modelling conditions: the modelling is based on two genuine material inventories obtained by dismantling two different e-scooters, one based on a traditional aluminium frame and another, for the first time, based on plastic material.
Results: This study provides complete inventory data to facilitate further LCA modelling of electric kick scooters. The plastic scooter had a 26% lower lifetime GWP than the aluminium vehicle. A favourable choice of electric motor promises a further reduction in GWP. In addition to GWP, the scooter's life cycles were assessed across seven other impact categories and showed no critical environmental or health impacts compared to a passenger car. On the other hand, only the resource extraction impact revealed clear advantages for electric scooters compared to passenger cars.
Conclusions: Under certain conditions, scooters can still be an important element of the desired mobility transition. To assure a lifetime long enough is the crucial factor to make the electric scooter a favourable or even competitive vehicle in a future sustainable mobility system. A scooter mileage of more than 5400 km is required to achieve lower CO2eq/pkm emissions compared to passenger cars, which seems unlikely in today's standard use case of shared scooter fleets. In contrast, a widespread use of e-scooters as a commuting tool is modelled to be able to save 4% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the German mobility sector.
Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera are three orders of freshwater macroinvertebrates with a short terrestrial adult life-stage that they use to disperse by flying upstream. This aerial dispersal can be assisted by native riparian forest, but regional variation has not yet been empirically tested. In this study we compared the EPT community of 153 sampling sites located in freshwater streams in four European regions (Central Plains, Central Highlands, Alps, Iberia). In each site, we assessed the EPT community dispersal ability using the Species Flying Propensity index. We also calculated the native deciduous forest cover in the riparian buffer and several environmental stressors such as saprobic pollution or catchment anthropization. Finally, we tested which of these parameters have a significant effect on the EPT community. In the Central Highlands and in Iberia, the share of weak dispersers increased with native deciduous forest cover, indicating a positive effect on dispersal of EPTs. In the Central Plains and the Alps, no such effect was found. We conclude that the effect of native deciduous forest depends on regional landscape characteristics and the regional species pool, but considering the dispersal of the regional EPT communities is needed to create effective river management policies.
We present the concrete realization of a virtual laboratory equipped with a pedagogical agent. Its functionality and media didactics takes into account the results of an usability test on a prototype system, and the students' demand on such an automated assistance as obtained from a preliminary survey. The pedagogical agent mediates between the content and the learner by activating him or her. To provide information about the learner's skills, we propose a pragmatic and simplified competence model that is based on fundamental representations in physics (experiment, figure, text and equation). Moreover, an automated feedback relates the student's self-assessment with the submitted answer to the correctness of the respective task. In consequence, the pedagogical agent enables mental reflection for a crucial review of the own learning process. Interestingly, learning pathways can be envisioned, thus, giving valuable insight into individual strengths and weaknesses.
One key for successful and fluent human-robot-collaboration in disassembly processes is equipping the robot system with higher autonomy and intelligence. In this paper, we present an informed software agent that controls the robot behavior to form an intelligent robot assistant for disassembly purposes. While the disassembly process first depends on the product structure, we inform the agent using a generic approach through product models. The product model is then transformed to a directed graph and used to build, share and define a coarse disassembly plan. To refine the workflow, we formulate "the problem of loosening a connection and the distribution of the work" as a search problem. The created detailed plan consists of a sequence of actions that are used to call, parametrize and execute robot programs for the fulfillment of the assistance. The aim of this research is to equip robot systems with knowledge and skills to allow them to be autonomous in the performance of their assistance to finally improve the ergonomics of disassembly workstations.
Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km2 resolution for 0–5 and 5–15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km2 pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (−0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications.
The current work investigates the capability of a tailored multivariate curve resolution–alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) algorithm to analyse glucose, phosphate, ammonium and acetate dynamics simultaneously in an E. coli BL21 fed-batch fermentation. The high-cell-density (HCDC) process is monitored by ex situ online attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and several in situ online process sensors. This approach efficiently utilises automatically generated process data to reduce the time and cost consuming reference measurement effort for multivariate calibration. To determine metabolite concentrations with accuracies between ±0.19 and ±0.96·gL−l, the presented utilisation needs primarily — besides online sensor measurements — single FTIR measurements for each of the components of interest. The ambiguities in alternating least squares solutions for concentration estimation are reduced by the insertion of analytical process knowledge primarily in the form of elementary carbon mass balances. Thus, in this way, the established idea of mass balance constraints in MCR combines with the consistency check of measured data by carbon balances, as commonly applied in bioprocess engineering. The constraints are calculated based on online process data and theoretical assumptions. This increased calculation effort is able to replace, to a large extent, the need for manually conducted quantitative chemical analysis, leads to good estimations of concentration profiles and a better process understanding.
Many borate crystals feature nonlinear optical properties that allow for efficient frequency conversion of common lasers down into the ultraviolet spectrum. Twinning may degrade crystal quality and affect nonlinear optical properties, in particular if crystals are composed of twin domains with opposing polarities. Here, we use measurements of optical activity to demonstrate the existence of inversion twins within single crystals of YAl3(BO3)4 (YAB) and K2Al2B2O7 (KABO). We determine the optical rotatory dispersion of YAB and KABO throughout the visible spectrum using a spectrophotometer with rotatable polarizers. Space-resolved measurements of the optical rotation can be related to the twin structure and give estimates on the extent of twinning. The reported dispersion relations for the rotatory power of YAB and KABO may be used to assess crystal quality and to select twin-free specimens.
Ahmad et al. in their paper for the first time proposed to apply sharp function for classification of images. In continuation of their work, in this paper we investigate the use of sharp function as an edge detector through well known diffusion models. Further, we discuss the formulation of weak solution of nonlinear diffusion equation and prove uniqueness of weak solution of nonlinear problem. The anisotropic generalization of sharp operator based diffusion has also been implemented and tested on various types of images.