Sea-level rise vulnerability in the countries of the Coral Triangle

Sea-level rise is a major threat facing the Coral Triangle countries in the twenty-first century. Assessments of vulnerability and adaptation that consider the interactions among natural and social systems are critical to identifying habitats and communities vulnerable to sea-level rise and for supporting the development of adaptation strategies. This paper presents such an assessment using the DIVA model and identifies vulnerable coastal regions and habitats in Coral Triangle countries at national and sub-national levels (administrative provinces). The following four main sea-level rise impacts are assessed in ecological, social and economic terms over the twenty-first century: (1) coastal wetland change, (2) increased coastal flooding, (3) increased coastal erosion, and (4) saltwater intrusion into estuaries and deltas. The results suggest that sea-level rise will significantly affect coastal regions and habitats in the Coral Triangle countries, but the impacts will differ across the region in terms of people flooded annually, coastal wetland change and loss, and damage and adaptation costs. Indonesia is projected to be most affected by coastal flooding, with nearly 5.9 million people expected to experience flooding annually in 2100 assuming no adaptation. However, if adaptation is considered, this number is significantly reduced. By the end of the century, coastal wetland loss is most significant for Indonesia in terms of total area lost, but the Solomon Islands are projected to experience the greatest relative loss of coastal wetlands. Damage costs associated with sea-level rise are highest in the Philippines (US $6.5 billion/year) and lowest in the Solomon Islands (US $70,000/year). Adaptation is estimated to reduce damage costs significantly, in particular for the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia (between 68 and 99%). These results suggest that the impacts of sea-level rise are likely to be widespread in the region and adaptation measures must be broadly applied.     

Derivation of correlations to evaluate the impact of retrofitted post-combustion CO2 capture processes on steam power plant performance

When integrating a post-combustion CO₂ capture process and CO₂ compression into a steam power plant, the three interface quantities heat, electricity and cooling duty must be satisfied by the power plant, leading to a loss in net efficiency. The heat duty shows to be the largest contributor to the overall net efficiency penalty of the power plant. Additional energy penalty results from the cooling and electric power duty of the capture and compression units.In this work, the dependency of the energy penalty on the quantity and quality of the heat duty is analyzed and quantified for a state-of-the-art hard coal fired power plant. Furthermore, the energy penalty attributed to the additional cooling and power duty is quantified. As a result correlations are provided which enable to predict the impact of the heat, cooling and electricity duty of post-combustion CO₂ capture processes on the net output of a steam power plant in a holistic approach.     

Model-Based Selection of Areas for the Restoration of Acrocephalus paludicola Habitats in NE Germany

The global Aquatic Warbler (Acrocephalus paludicola, Vieillot, 1817) population has suffered a major decline due to the large-scale destruction of its natural habitat (fen mires). The species is at risk of extinction, especially in NE Germany/NW Poland. In this study, we developed habitat suitability models based on satellite and environmental data to identify potential areas for habitat restoration on which further surveys and planning should be focused. To create a reliable model, we used all Aquatic Warbler presences in the study area since 1990 as well as additional potentially suitable habitats identified in the field. We combined the presence/absence regression tree algorithm Cubist with the presence-only algorithm Maxent since both commonly outperform other algorithms. To integrate the separate model results, we present a new way to create a metamodel using the initial model results as variables. Additionally, a histogram approach was applied to further reduce the final search area to the most promising sites. Accuracy increased when using both remote sensing and environmental data. It was highest for the integrated metamodel (Cohen’s Kappa of 0.4, P < 0.001). The final result of this study supports the selection of the most promising sites for Aquatic Warbler habitat restoration.     

Cosmological implications of the Machian principle

The famous idea of Ernst Mach concerning the non-absolute but relational character of particle inertia is taken up in this paper and is reinvestigated with respect to its cosmological implications. From Thirring’s general relativistic study of the old Newtonian problem of the relativity of rotations in different reference systems, it appears that the equivalence principle with respect to rotating reference systems, if at all, can only be extended to the system of the whole universe, if the mass of the universe scales with the effective radius or extent of the universe. A reanalysis of Thirring’s derivations still reveals this astonishing result, and thus the general question must be posed: how serious this result has to be taken with respect to cosmological implications. As we will show, the equivalence principle is, in fact, fulfilled by a universe with vanishing curvature, i.e. with a curvature parameter, which just has the critical density , where is the Hubble constant. It turns out, however, that this principle can only permanently be fulfilled in an evolving cosmos, if the cosmic mass density, different from its conventional behaviour, varies with the reciprocal of the squared cosmic scale. This, in fact, would automatically be realized, if the mass of each cosmic particle scales with the scale of the universe. The latter fact, on one hand, is a field-theoretical request from a general relativistic field theory which fulfills H. Weyl’s requirement of a conformal scale invariance. On the other hand, it can perhaps also be concluded on purely physical grounds, when taking into account that as source of the cosmic metrics only an effective mass density can be taken. This mass density represents the bare mass density reduced by its mass equivalent of gravitational self-binding energy. Some interesting cosmological conclusions connected with this fact are pointed out in this paper.     

Photocatalysis for arsenic removal from water: considerations for solar photocatalytic reactors

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - The following work provides a perspective on the potential application of solar heterogeneous photocatalysis, which is a nonselective advanced...