Climate change and economic consequences for inland waterway transport in Europe

Future climate conditions are likely to affect inland waterway transport in Europe. According to some climate scenarios, in summer, in the river Rhine, periods with low water levels are likely to occur more often and become more serious. Then inland waterway transport carriers will experience more severe restrictions on the load factor of their inland ships, which implies a stronger reduction in transport capacity in the market. Transport prices will rise under such conditions. Some studies reviewed in this paper find that at extremely low water levels, the price per tonne for inland waterway transport in the river Rhine area will almost double. These increased transport prices result in welfare losses. For the dry summer in 2003, the losses for North West Europe are estimated to sum up to around €480 million. Increased transport prices trigger adaptation. Inland waterway carriers may use smaller vessels, and shippers have the opportunity to shift from inland waterway transport to alternative transport modes in periods with low water levels. This effect is probably rather modest, however, with a modal shift to road and rail smaller than 10 %. Also, changes in transport costs may lead to relocation of certain economic activities in the long run.     

Agroforest’s growing role in reducing carbon losses from Jambi (Sumatra), Indonesia

This paper examines the size and intensity of changes among five land categories during the two time intervals in a region of Indonesia that is pioneering negotiations concerning reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). Maps at 1973, 1993, and 2005 indicate that land-cover change is accelerating, while carbon loss is decelerating in Jambi Province, Sumatra. Land dynamics have shifted from Forest loss during 1973–1993 to Agroforest loss during 1993–2005. Forest losses account for most reductions in aboveground carbon during the both time intervals, but Agroforest plays an increasingly important role in carbon reductions during the more recent interval. These results provide motivation for future REDD policies to count carbon changes associated with all influential land categories, such as Agroforests.     

Conceptualising climate change in rural Australia: community perceptions, attitudes and (in)actions

Public engagement and support is essential for ensuring adaptation to climate change. The first step in achieving engagement is documenting how the general public currently perceive and understand climate change issues, specifically the importance they place on this global problem and identifying any unique challenges for individual communities. For rural communities, which rely heavily on local agriculture industries, climate change brings both potential impacts and opportunities. Yet, to date, our knowledge about how rural residents conceptualise climate change is limited. Thus, this research explores how the broader rural community—not only farmers—conceptualises climate change and responsive activities, focussing on documenting the understandings and risk perceptions of local residents from two small Australian rural communities. Twenty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted in communities in the Eden/Gippsland region on the border of New South Wales and Victoria and the north-east of Tasmania. There are conflicting views on how climate change is conceptualised, the degree of concern and need for action, the role of local industry, who will ‘win’ and ‘lose’, and the willingness of rural communities to adapt. In particular, residents who believed in anthropogenic or human-induced factors described the changing climate as evidence of ‘climate change’, whereas those who were more sceptical termed it ‘weather variability’, suggesting that there is a divide in rural Australia that, unless urgently addressed, will hinder local and national policy responses to this global issue. Engaging these communities in the twenty-first-century climate change debate will require a significant change in terminology and communication strategies.     

Pulmonary Function Changes Associated with an Air Pollution Episode in January 1987

In January 1987, an air pollution episode occurred In central and western Europe. Levels of SO₂, NO₂, black smoke, sulphates and other components were elevated, with 24 hour average concentrations of SO₂ reaching a maximum of close to 300 μg/m3 In an area In the southeast of the Netherlands. Pulmonary function was measured In a group of children of 6- 12 years old at the end of the episode, and also two and three and a half weeks after the episode. A baseline lung function value was obtained about three months before the episode. Pulmonary function growth between baseline and retest dates was estimated from a simple growth model which was validated using measured pulmonary function growth data from a longitudinal study. A decline of pulmonary function (FVC, FEV₁ and PEF) from predicted baseline levels was observed, starting on the last day of the episode. Two weeks after the episode, FVC, FEV₁ PEF and MMEF were all decreased, and three and a half weeks after the episode, there was still a deficit compared to predicted baseline levels for FVC and FEV₁     

The Cost Estimation of Thermal and Catalytic Incinerators for the Control of VOCs

In an earlier paper, major commercially available incinerator technologies designed to treat dilute waste gas streams containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were described in a qualitative comparison. In addition, a simplified procedure was outlined through which important sizing parameters could be calculated given certain information about the waste gas. This paper describes the use of these parameters in developing a study (±30percent) cost estimate for the total capital investment and the total annual costs incurred in treating a waste stream of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). An illustrative problem used in the former paper is completed here in order to contrast some of the economic differences between thermal and catalytic incinerator systems.     

Quantifying summed fullerene nC60 and related transformation products in water using LC LTQ Orbitrap MS and application to environmental samples

The application of engineered nanomaterials increases strongly. Development of analytical techniques and their application to environmental samples is essential for human and environmental risk assessment of the nanoparticles. The objective of this study was to develop a sensitive analytical method to quantify nC(60) in water, using accurate mass screening liquid chromatography-hybrid linear ion trap Orbitrap mass spectrometry. nC(60) can be transformed by oxidation, reduction and photochemical reaction. Therefore, the formation of some transformation products of nC(60) was studied as well. Finally, the developed analytical method was applied to surface water samples from several locations in the Netherlands. The developed method enabled to detect and quantify aqueous concentrations of the summed nC(60) and its transformation products as low as 5 ng/L. It was observed that nC(60) transformation products exceed quantities of the parent C(60). Despite the high sensitivity of the developed method, no nC(60) or transformation products were detected in an array of Dutch surface waters. This might be due to low emissions, losses in the aqueous phase by sedimentation, sorption or further transformation processes.     

Toxicity of zinc oxide nanoparticles in the earthworm, Eisenia fetida and subcellular fractionation of Zn

The extensive use of nanoparticles (NPs) in a variety of applications has raised great concerns about their environmental fate and biological effects. This study examined the impact of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and salts on ZnO NP dispersion/solubility and toxicity to the earthworm Eisenia fetida. To be able to better evaluate the toxicity of NPs, exposure in agar and on filter paper was proposed for enabling a comparison of the importance of different uptake routes. A dose-related increase in mortality was observed in earthworms exposed in agar with almost 100% mortality after 96 h exposure to the highest concentration (1000 mg ZnO/kg agar). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the addition of salts enhanced the aggregation of ZnO NPs in agar and consequently affected the dissolution behavior and biological availability of the particles. On filter paper, mortality was the highest at the lowest exposure concentration (50 mg ZnO/L) and seemed to decrease with increasing exposure levels. TEM images of ZnO showed that the solubility and morphology of NPs were changed dramatically upon the addition of humic acids (HA). The subcellular distribution pattern of Zn in earthworms after 96 h exposure in agar and on filter paper showed that the Zn taken up via dietary ZnO particles (from agar) was mainly found in organelles and the cytosol while the Zn accumulated as soluble Zn from filter paper was mainly distributed in cell membranes and tissues. Antioxidant enzymatic activities (SOD, CAT, and GSH-px) were investigated in the worms surviving the toxicity tests. A slight increase of SOD activities was observed at the lowest exposure dose of ZnO (50mg/kg), followed by a decrease at 100mg/kg in the agar cubes. Activities of both CAT and GSH-Px enzymes were not significantly influenced in the worms exposed to agar, although a slight decrease at 500 and 1000 mg ZnO/kg agar was observed. A similar change trend of SOD activities was observed for the earthworms on filter paper, but a significant decrease began at a higher ZnO NP concentration of 500 mg ZnO/L. The use of soil extracts instead of deionized water (DW) to simulate a realistic exposure system significantly reduced the toxicity of the ZnO NPs on filter paper, which increases the predictive power of filter paper toxicity tests for the environmental risk assessment of NPs.     

Scenario analysis of perspective change to support climate adaptation: lessons from a pilot study on Dutch river management

Climate adaptation is a complex task surrounded by uncertainty. To support climate adaptation policies, a new scenario approach is pursued to explore possible discontinuous future developments of societal perspectives on climate adaptation issues. The scenario approach was tested for a case study on Dutch river management. In a series of scenario development workshops, a select group of stakeholders explored the perspectives on the management of the River Meuse in the past, present, and future. The process was supported by an analytical perspectives mapping tool to illustrate and analyze the development of perspectives over time. The process and analytical tools contributed to insight into the drivers of perspective change for the case study at hand. Moreover, the stakeholders highlighted the potential of the approach for water management policy for creating awareness about the plurality of perspectives and the dynamics of perspective change, monitoring perspectives and perspective change as part of a flexible policy approach, and anticipating on the occurrence of shock events. Further work is required to better represent the social dynamics of perspectives change, to better empirically ground the perspective change model, and to apply integrated water models in the scenario development process to assess water–society interactions.     

Implications of geographic variability on Comparative Toxicity Potentials of Cu, Ni and Zn in freshwaters of Canadian ecoregions

Current methods of estimating potential environmental impacts of metals in hazard and Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) do not consider differences in chemistry and landscape properties between geographic sites. Here, we developed and applied a model for regional aquatic impact characterization of metals using an updated method for estimating environmental fate factor (FF), bioavailability factor (BF) and aquatic ecotoxicity factor (EF). We applied the model to analyze differences in Comparative Toxicity Potentials (CTPs) of Cu, Ni and Zn for 24 Canadian ecoregions. The combined impacts of regional variability in ambient chemistry (in particular DOC, pH and hardness) and landscape properties (water residence time) can change the CTPs of these metals for freshwater by up to three orders of magnitude and change the relative ranking of metal hazard between ecoregions. Variation among Canadian freshwater chemistries and landscape characteristics influence the FFs within two orders of magnitude, BFs within two orders of magnitude for Ni and Zn and four orders of magnitude for Cu, and EFs within one order of magnitude. Sensitivity of metal FFs to environmental parameters alone spans three orders of magnitude when a constant water chemistry was used for all ecoregions. These results indicate that application of regionalised metal CTPs can have a significant influence in the analysis of ecotoxicological impacts in the life cycle assessment of products and processes.