Nature conservation needs to incorporate the human approach 

A study led by Victoria Reyes-García of ICTA-UAB advocates a biocultural perspective in biodiversity protection policies

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA

An international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) stresses the need to apply a biocultural approach in nature conservation programs.  

When deciding which aspects of nature to protect, conservationists have largely relied on ecological criteria that define the vulnerability and resilience of species. However, there is a growing call to broaden conservation criteria to include human aspects as well. 

A new article led by ICREA Professor at ICTA-UAB Victoria Reyes-García and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) argues that new biocultural approaches are needed to introduce means to connect humans and other components of nature in order to achieve nature stewardship.  

"The focus on ecological criteria alone has failed to halt our biodiversity crisis," says Victoria Reyes-García, who explains that "this has also created unintended injustices on Indigenous peoples and local communities worldwide.  

According to the researchers, the purely ecological approach, sans humans, risks perpetuating existing inequalities. For example, while proposals to safeguard 30-50% of the planet against extraction or development is sound conservation math, such proposals “face opposition”, on the grounds that they might increase the negative social impacts of conservation actions and pose immediate risks for people whose livelihoods directly depend on nature”, they say. 

“Conservation is designed to reduce or remove human impacts on species to give some breathing room to those species to recover,” noted Ben Halpern, coauthor on the study and Director of UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis (NCEAS). "However, if taking those actions limits opportunities for people to engage with the species that define their culture and their values, the conservation will have no sticking power and can actually harm those cultures and people.” 

To help implement this biocultural approach, the research team compiled the most comprehensive list thus far of culturally important species: 385 wild species (mostly plants) that have a recognized role in supporting cultural identity, as they are generally the basis for religious, spiritual and social cohesion, and provide a common sense of place, purpose and belonging. 

The list of species is part of a proposed framework and metric — a “biocultural status” — that combines information on the biological as well as the cultural conservation status of different components of nature. 

“We realized that prevailing classifications based on how vulnerable species are did not consider any of their cultural importance to people,” says Sandra Díaz, a researcher at CONICET and the National University of Córdoba. "Without the acknowledgement and protection of local, special relationships to nature that sustain some populations — often Indigenous — we risk losing an important dimension of conservation,” she adds. 

“When the human cultures that use and value an animal or plant species are lost, a whole body of values, of knowledge about that species is lost too, even if the organism itself does not go extinct. Our relationship with the natural world becomes impoverished,” notes Diaz. 

Conversely, according to the authors, recognizing the connections between people and nature and incorporating them into decision-making could enable actions based on both ecological conservation priorities and cultural values, while aligning with local priorities. The study’s focus on culturally important species could pave the way for mechanisms to enable the adoption of biocultural approaches, which has so far proven difficult.  

The paper comes at a timely moment, as the Convention on Biological Diversity prepares for the next set of biodiversity goals such as the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. 

“As the conservation community increasingly seeks to include diverse worldviews, knowledge and values in nature management and restoration, the framework and metric proposed here offer a concrete mechanism that combines local perspectives on which species are culturally important, with scientific assessments of the biological and cultural status of those species,” Reyes-García says. “Together, they provide an actionable way to guide decisions and operationalize global actions oriented to enhance place-based practices, such as those of Indigenous people, that have supported the conservation of social-ecological systems over the long term.” To sustain culturally important species, according to the authors, society will need a more complete list of these species’ conservation status, and ultimately, direct greater support to the cultures that value them. 

According to co-author Rodrigo Cámara-Leret of the University of Zurich, one of the most important messages in this study is that conservation assessments have largely overlooked species that matter to local cultures, underscoring a big communication gap between local people and the academic community, and even between the natural and social sciences. 

“To close this communication gap and foster more equitable conservation, we need to promote more long-term engagement with local communities to develop and maintain truly collaborative conservation partnerships,” he says. “For this to happen, there are growing calls for academic institutions to recalibrate how they judge impact, and for donor agencies to step up to the challenge of supporting longer research projects that take time, but which are highly effective in knowledge generation and promoting biocultural conservation.” 

 

ICTA-UABs strategic research program, promoted within the framework of the María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence 2020-2023, granted by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, is structured around 5 interrelated Societal Challenges, focused on Oceans. Land. Cities, Consumption and Policies. Investigating these Societal Challenges is critical to envision a transition towards a sustainable Earth. This research is part of the Societal Challenges Land and Policy.
 

 

 

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2217303120 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Biocultural vulnerability exposes threats of culturally important species

Using machine learning to forecast amine emissions

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FÉDÉRALE DE LAUSANNE

 

IMAGE: A POWER PLANT MADE WITH AI. view more 

CREDIT: KEVIN MAIK JABLONKA (EPFL)

Global warming is partly due to the vast amount of carbon dioxide that we release, mostly from power generation and industrial processes, such as making steel and cement. For a while now, chemical engineers have been exploring carbon capture, a process that can separate carbon dioxide and store it in ways that keep it out of the atmosphere.

This is done in dedicated carbon-capture plants, whose chemical process involves amines, compounds that are already used to capture carbon dioxide from natural gas processing and refining plants. Amines are also used in certain pharmaceuticals, epoxy resins, and dyes.

The problem is that amines could also be potentially harmful to the environment as well as a health hazard, making it essential to mitigate their impact. This requires accurate monitoring and predicting of a plant’s amine emissions, which has proven to be no easy feat since carbon-capture plants are complex and differ from one another.

A group of scientists has come up with a machine learning solution for forecasting amine emissions from carbon-capture plants using experimental data from a stress test at an actual plant in Germany. The work was led by the groups of Professor Berend Smit at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences and Professor Susana Garcia at The Research Centre for Carbon Solutions of Heriot-Watt University in Scotland.

“The experiments were done in Niederhauẞen, on one of the largest coal-fired power plants in Germany,” says Berend Smit.  “And from this power plant, a slipstream is sent into a carbon capture pilot plant, where the next generation of amine solution has been tested for over a year. But one of the outstanding issues is that amines can be emitted with flue gas, and these amine emissions need to be controlled.”

Professor Susana Garcia, together with the plant’s owner, RWE, and TNO in the Netherlands, developed a stress test to study amine emissions under different process conditions. Professor Garcia describes how the test went: “We developed an experimental campaign to understand how and when amine emissions would be generated. But some of our experiments also caused interventions of the plant’s operators to ensure the plant was operating safely.”

These interventions led to the question of how to interpret the data. Are the amine emissions the result of the stress test itself, or have the interventions of the operators indirectly affected the emissions? This was further complicated by our general lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind amine emissions. “In short, we had an expensive and successful campaign that showed that amine emissions can be a problem, but no tools to further analyze the data,” says Smit.

He continues: “When Susana Garcia mentioned this to me, it sounded indeed like an impossible problem to solve. But she also mentioned that they measured everything every five minutes, collecting many data. And, if there is anybody in my group that can solve impossible problems with data, it is Kevin.” Kevin Maik Jablonka, a PhD student, developed a machine learning approach that turned the amine emissions puzzle into a pattern-recognition problem.

“We wanted to know what the emissions would be if we did not have the stress test but only the operators' interventions,” explains Smit. This is a similar issue as we can have in finance; for example, if you want to evaluate the effect of changes in the tax code, you would like to disentangle the effect of the tax code from, say, interventions caused by the crisis in Ukraine.”

In the next step, Jablonka used powerful machine learning to predict future amine emissions from the plant’s data. He says: “With this model, we could predict the emissions caused by the interventions of the operators and then disentangle them from those induced by the stress test. In addition, we could use the model to run all kinds of scenarios on reducing these emissions.”

The conclusion was described as “surprising”. As it turned out, the pilot plant had been designed for pure amine, but the measuring experiments were carried out on a mixture of two amines: 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol and piperazine (CESAR1). The scientists found out that those two amines actually respond in opposite ways: reducing the emission of one actually increases the emissions of the other.

“I am very enthusiastic about the potential impact of this work; it is a completely new way of looking at a complex chemical process,” says Smit. “This type of forecasting is not something one can do with any of the conventional approaches, so it may change the way we operate chemical plants.”

Reference

Kevin Maik Jablonka, Charithea Charalambous, Eva Sanchez Fernandez, Georg Wiechers, Peter Moser, Juliana Monteiro, Berend Smit, Susana Garcia. Machine learning for industrial processes: Forecasting amine emissions from a carbon capture plant. Science Advances 04 January 2023. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adc9576

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adc9576 

ARTICLE TITLE

Machine learning for industrial processes: Forecasting amine emissions from a carbon capture plant.

Leveraging machine learning to help predict ship exhaust gas emissions

Researchers build an AI model that can prediction emissions under different air-to-fuel ratios

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL KOREA MARITIME AND OCEAN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: NKMOU RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A MACHINE LEARNING MODEL THAT CAN PREDICT THE LEVEL OF EXHAUST GAS EMISSIONS RELEASED BY SHIPS; THIS WILL HELP REDUCE THE AIR POLLUTION IN PORTS view more 

CREDIT: DR. WON-JU LEE, NATIONAL KOREA MARITIME AND OCEAN UNIVERSITY

Ships are a major means of commercial transport, contributing to 80% of global goods and energy trade. However, they emit exhaust gases—from the engines when they are sailing, and from the engines and boiler when they dock in ports. These emissions negatively affect not only human health, but also the environment. Therefore, the International Maritime Organization has imposed regulations on the type of fuel used in ships. While efforts are being made to reduce the level of emissions from ships, a completely eco-friendly fuel is yet to be developed. In the meantime, assessing and predicting the level of exhaust emissions from ships is of paramount importance.

Given this background, a group of researchers from the National Korea Maritime and Ocean University (NKMOU) led by Dr. Won-Ju Lee, an Associate Professor in the institute’s Division of Marine System Engineering, have measured the emissions of a continuously operating oil-fired boiler in a training ship under different air-to-fuel ratios. “The exhaust data for CO2, NOx, and SO2 gases were collected for 18 cases and used for predicting emissions through data-driven modeling,” explains Dr. Lee.

Their work was made available online on 18 September 2022 and published in Volume 375 of the Journal of Cleaner Production on 15 November 2022.

The researchers employed unsupervised learning to compress the original data for generating three new datasets. They combined them to create an ensemble dataset. The performance of these five datasets was evaluated – in terms of CO2, NOx, and SO2 predictions – using four base models. The Support Vector Machine-based models with the original and ensemble datasets produced the best results.

Then, the researchers merged the base models to develop four base ensemble models. These models, in turn, were used to build double ensemble models. As expected, the double ensemble models made the most accurate emission predictions for all three gases.

Lastly, the researchers applied the developed models to a new dataset, verifying the results and establishing the models’ superiority and generalizability.

How can this work help the shipping industry reduce its carbon footprint, though? Dr. Lee discusses the future implications of their work. “The results of this study can be used to predict emissions of exhaust gases and will be applied to marine boilers soon. It shall enable the marine engineers to take action to reduce emissions, curbing air pollution in port areas. Since installing expensive equipment such as gas analyzers in boilers is not economically feasible for shipping companies, the proposed technology will prove indispensable. Furthermore, the ensemble data generation and double ensemble model techniques can enhance the performance of various other machine learning applications.”

Here’s to achieving carbon neutrality, enabled by technology and artificial intelligence models!

 

***

 

Reference

Authors: Min-Ho Park1,2, Jae-Jung Hur3, Won-Ju Lee2,3

Title of original paper: Prediction of oil-fired boiler emissions with ensemble methods considering variable combustion air conditions

Journal: Journal of Cleaner Production

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134094

Affiliations:

1Division of Marine Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Republic of Korea

2Interdisciplinary Major of Maritime and AI Convergence, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Republic of Korea

3Division of Marine System Engineering, Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Republic of Korea

 

About National Korea Maritime & Ocean University 

South Korea’s most prestigious university for maritime studies, transportation science and engineering, the National Korea Maritime & Ocean University is located on an island in Busan. The university was established in 1945 and since then has merged with other universities to currently being the only post-secondary institution that specializes in maritime sciences and engineering. It has four colleges that offer both undergraduate and graduate courses.  

Website: http://www.kmou.ac.kr/english/main.do 

 

About Dr. Won-Ju Lee

Dr. Won-Ju Lee is an Associate Professor at the Division of Marine System Engineering at Korea Maritime and Ocean University, South Korea. His research focuses on diesel engine, marine environment, combustion, recycling emission, and marine engine CBM. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Korea Maritime and Ocean University in 2017. Prior to completing the Ph.D., he worked as a chief engineer for an observation ship and as a gas engineer for LNG carriers.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Cleaner Production

DOI

10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.134094 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Prediction of oil-fired boiler emissions with ensemble methods considering variable combustion air conditions

From water sources of the Tibetan Plateau to the ocean: State of nutrients of the Changjiang linked to the land-use changes and climate variability

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

 

IMAGE: LOW CONCENTRATIONS WERE FOUND IN THE QINGHAI-TIBETAN PLATEAU, AND THEN NUTRIENTS INCREASE IN THE RIVER AT 3500 KM-3000 KM UPSTREAM THE RIVER MOUTH AND FURTHER DOWNWARDS TO THE RIVER MOUTH. VERTICAL ARROWS SHOW THE CONFLUENCE OF MAJOR TRIBUTARIES, AND HORIZONTAL ARROW INDICATES THE LOCATION OF THE THREE GORGES RESERVOIR. view more 

CREDIT: ©SCIENCE CHINA PRESS

This study has examined the state changes of nutrients (N, P, and Si) from one of the top ten largest world river system, Changjiang, based on field expeditions and time-series data since early 1980s. The study covers an area of ca. 80% of the whole drainage basin (i.e. 1.8×106 km2) and 70% of water course, including main stream and 15 major tributaries.

A considerable increase in anthropogenic nutrients (e.g. N and P) appears when the river lefts the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and changes in species ratio have been identified from some of the major tributaries draining through high population and extensive agriculture areas. This influence can be tracked further downstream and all way to the estuary.

Different from the previous studies, the present study provides evidence that Three Gorges Dam and the reservoir have a rather limited impact on the so called “Trapping of Nutrients”. Examination of data in 2003-2016 indicates that there is a lack of systematics (i.e. trend) between upstream the reservoir and downstream the dam, even though for dissolved silicates.

Time-series data at the river mouth since 1980s indicate a continuous increasing mode for dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus. Particularly, nitrogen in the river started to be high in early 1980s, while a considerable increase in phosphate appeared later in mid-1990s with higher rate than that for nitrogen. This makes the Changjiang outstanding in terms of loadings and species ratio for anthropogenic nutrients compared to other top-ten world river systems.

Furthermore, the present study reveals that tidal-influenced deltaic area has an important but previously ignored role in regulating seaward flux of the Changjiang. Remobilization of nutrients from the tidal-influenced deltaic area contribute additional 5%-10% for dissolve inorganic nitrogen and silicates, but up to 20% for phosphate. Such an amount of nutrients is not related to the agriculture but to coastal urbanization.

In comparison to other rivers, watersheds of the Changjiang is still in the accumulation phase for anthropogenic nutrients, and a “legacy” source can sustain relatively high concentrations in the river even in the period of reduction of application of chemical fertilizers in agriculture. Hence, management strategy needs to take into consideration of the potential of legacy source.

At drainage basin scale, the continuous increase of anthropogenic nutrients in the Changjiang is mainly regulated by the human activities, while the influence of climate variability is rather limited and not systematic based on the current data sets.

Concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphate increase both over last three decades, while dissolved silicates remain rather stable. Beside the annual trend, fluxes in flood (July) and dry (January) periods are also compared.

Major source and sink terms are compared and summarized for anthropogenic nutrients (i.e. N and P) based on expeditions and data compilation in the literature for the period of 2003-2015. In comparison to the retention of nutrients in the watersheds, seaward riverine flux is rather minor.

CREDIT

©Science China Press

Zhang J, Zhang G, Du Y, Zhang A, Chang Y, Zhou Y, Zhu Z, Wu Y, Zhang Z, Liu S. 2022. From the water sources of the Tibetan Plateau to the ocean: State of nutrients in the Changjiang linked to land use changes and climate variability. Science China Earth Sciences, 65(11): 2127–2174, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-021-9969-0

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JOURNAL

Science China Earth Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s11430-021-9969-0 

How climate change impacts the Indian Ocean dipole, leading to severe droughts and floods

A study led by Brown researchers showed how melting ice water from massive glaciers can ultimately lead to droughts and flooding in East Africa and Indonesia.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — With a new analysis of long-term climate data, researchers say they now have a much better understanding of how climate change can impact and cause sea water temperatures on one side of the Indian Ocean to be so much warmer or cooler than the temperatures on the other — a phenomenon that can lead to sometimes deadly weather-related events like megadroughts in East Africa and severe flooding in Indonesia.

The analysis, described in a new study in Science Advances by an international team of scientists led by researchers from Brown University, compares 10,000 years of past climate conditions reconstructed from different sets of geological records to simulations from an advanced climate model.

The findings show that about 18,000 to 15,000 years ago, as a result of melted freshwater from the massive glacier that once covered much of North America pouring into the North Atlantic, ocean currents that kept the Atlantic Ocean warm weakened, setting off a chain of events in response. The weakening of the system ultimately led to the strengthening of an atmospheric loop in the Indian Ocean that keeps warmer water on one side and cooler water on the other.

This extreme weather pattern, known as a dipole, prompts one side (either east or west) to have higher-than-average rainfall and the other to have widespread drought. The researchers saw examples of this pattern in both the historical data they studied and the model’s simulation. They say the findings can help scientists not only better understand the mechanisms behind the east-west dipole in the Indian Ocean, but can one day help to produce more effective forecasts of drought and flood in the region.

“We know that in the present-day gradients in the temperature of the Indian Ocean are important to rainfall and drought patterns, especially in East Africa, but it’s been challenging to show that those gradients change on long time-scales and to link them to long-term rainfall and drought patterns on both sides of the Indian Ocean,” said James Russell, a study author and professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Brown. “We now have a mechanistic basis to understand why some of the longer-term changes in rainfall patterns in the two regions have changed through time.”

In the paper, the researchers explain the mechanisms behind how the Indian Ocean dipole they studied formed and the weather-related events it led to during the period they looked at, which covered the end of the last Ice Age and the start of the current geological epoch.

The researchers characterize the dipole as an east-west dipole where the water on the western side — which borders modern day East African countries like Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia — is cooler than the water on eastern side toward Indonesia. They saw that the warmer water conditions of the dipole brought greater rainfall to Indonesia, while the cooler water brought much drier weather to East Africa.

That fits into what is often seen in recent Indian Ocean dipole events. In October, for example, heavy rain led to floods and landslides in Indonesian islands of Java and Sulawesi, leaving four people dead and impacting over 30,000 people. On the opposite end, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia experienced intense droughts starting in 2020 that threatened to cause famine.

The changes the authors observed 17,000 years ago were even more extreme, including the complete drying of Lake Victoria — one of the largest lakes on Earth.

“Essentially, the dipole intensifies dry conditions and wet conditions that could result in extreme events like multi-year or decades-long dry events in East Africa and flooding events in South Indonesia,” said Xiaojing Du, a Voss postdoctoral researcher in the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and Brown’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, and the study’s lead author. “These are events that impact people’s lives and also agriculture in those regions. Understanding the dipole can help us better predict and better prepare for future climate change.”

The dipole the researchers studied formed from the interactions between the heat transport system of the Atlantic Ocean and an atmospheric loop, called a Walker Circulation, in the tropical Indian Ocean. The lower part of the atmospheric loop flows east to west across much of the region at low altitudes near the ocean surface, and the upper part flows west to east at higher altitudes. The higher air and lower air connect in one big loop.

Interruption and weakening of the Atlantic Ocean heat transport, which works like a conveyor belt made of ocean and wind currents, was brought on by massive melting of the Laurentide ice sheet that once covered most of Canada and the northern U.S. The melting cooled the Atlantic and consequent wind anomalies triggered the atmospheric loop over the tropical Indian Ocean to become more active and extreme. That then led to increased precipitation in the east side of the Indian Ocean (where Indonesia sits) and reduced precipitation in the west side, where East Africa sits.

The researchers also show that during the period they studied, this effect was amplified by a lower sea level and the exposure of nearby continental shelves.

The scientists say more research is needed to figure out exactly what effect the exposed continental shelf and lower sea level has on the Indian Ocean’s east-west dipole, but they’re already planning to expand the work to investigate the question. While this line of the work on lower sea levels won’t play into modeling future conditions, the work they’ve done investigating how the melting of ancient glaciers impacts the Indian Ocean dipole and the heat transport system of the Atlantic Ocean may provide key insights into future changes as climate change brings about more melting.

“Greenland is currently melting so fast that it’s discharging a lot of freshwater into the North Atlantic Ocean in ways that are impacting the ocean circulation,” Russell said. “The work done here has provided a new understanding of how changes in the Atlantic Ocean circulation can impact Indian Ocean climate and through that rainfall in Africa and Indonesia.”

The study was supported with funding from the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the National Science Foundation.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.add4909 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

ARTICLE TITLE

North Atlantic cooling triggered a zonal mode over the Indian Ocean during Heinrich Stadial 1

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

4-Jan-2023

Nanomaterials for (Environment) Water Purification

Book Announcement

BENTHAM SCIENCE PUBLISHERS

The book “Nano Materials Induced Removal of Textile Dyes from Waste Water“ discusses the environmental issue of the nanomaterial. As the topic is extreme vast only a particular part of the environmental issue i.e. water pollution has been given a focus. The topic has been further concentrated to the removal of various dyes from water by specific nano-system.

Chapter 1 has been discussed the basic of Nano system, its synthesis approach, advantages, disadvantages, few application its commercial benefits etc.

Chapter 2 is mainly associated with the basic science behind the reason that nanomaterial behaves completely different from its bulk form.    

Chapter 3 discusses some of the basic characterization technique of nanomaterial. These include few basic techniques like STM, AFM, SEM, TEM etc. and some dedicated direct or indirect techniques for particular application this book is dedicated to.

Chapter 4 describes the classifications of dyes as well as their characteristics. 

Chapter 5 is dedicated to the interaction of nanomaterials with different dyes in broad sense. The state of art has been discussed in this consequence. At the end of this chapter the basic techniques of removal of dyes with nanomaterial will be mentioned. Emphasis will be put on mainly photo-catalysis and adsorption.  

Chapter 6 deals with the detail of photo catalysis and the mechanism how it interacts with dyes to remove it. 

Chapter 7 follows the previous one with photo-catalysis being replaced by adsorption. Different adsorption model as well reaction kinetics has been elaborated.

Chapter 8 discusses few particular nano-system that are the most popular from the point of view of this particular application. The nanosystem may be carbon based, oxide based, polymer based or nitride based system.  

This book is properly designed to solve basic queries of common academicians and technologist about fundamental nanoscience and nanomaterial induced removal of textile dyes. Its basic concepts, chronological development and applications has been thoroughly discussed with appropriate examples and comparisons. We strongly believe that this effort shall be very important and useful for the budding engineers and scientist who are interested in nanoscience. 

The efforts have been given so that the style of the writing can be kept simple and easily understanding and the essence of the subject can be fed even to a school student. Also we have tried to keep the volume of the book reasonable so that the journey into this subject from the introduction to the advanced application can be finished within a couple of hours say within certain four hour’s air journey from Kolkata to Mumbai.

The main targeted audience will be PG students and the research scholars in the field of physics, chemistry and materials Science

About the Authors:

Diptonil Banerjee is currently working as an associate professor in the department of physics, faculty of engineering, Teerthanker Mahaveer University from 2020. Dr. Banerjee, completed both his graduation and Masters in Physics from University of Calcutta in the year 2005 and 2007, respectively. He did his PhD from Jadavpur University on Materials Science and Nanotechnology in the year of 2012. Presently, Dr. Banerjee is working mainly on carbon based nanotechnology and related applications. He has also started working on some oxide based nanostructures as well. He is entrusted by the Department of Science and Technology (Gov't of India) with few projects of considerable budget. 

Besides, he is an editorial board member and a reviewer of good numbers of quality journals. Currently, he is having an h index 21 and i10 index 41 with cumulative citation over 1270.

Amit Kumar Sharma did his graduation (BSc) in 2000 and post-graduation (MSc) in Electronics & Computational Physics in 2002 from Dr. B.R.A. Univ. (Agra University), Agra. He did Ph.D. in Applied Science (Physics) from Gautam Buddh University (Formerly U.P. Technical University), Lucknow in 2012. He is currently working as Assoc. Prof. in the Dept. of Physics, Faculty of Engineering (TMU), Moradabad since 2019. Earlier, he worked as CSIR-postdoctoral fellow (Post-Doc) in Biophysics Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Department of Atomic Energy, Kolkata. His areas of research are Molecular Physics, Biophysics, Toxin and flavonoids, Sensors and Computational Physics. He has published 15 research papers in the International Journal of repute and more than 21 papers in proceedings of conferences

Nirmalya Sankar Das is presently working as assistant professor in the Department of Physics in Techno International - Batanagar (formerly known as Techno India – Batanagar), Kolkata, India. He is also the teacher –in- charge of the department. He pursued his graduation with physics honors as well as masters from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. After completing his Masters, he did his PhD from the same University in the field of Nanoscience and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Kalyan Kumar Chattopadhyay.

During his PhD, he was involved in making different oxide and sulphide thin films like pure and doped NiO, ZnO, CdS films synthesized by RF magnetron sputtering technique. Also he has extensively studied the optical and electrical properties of all those thin films. Presently his research interest focuses on the optical, electrical and electronic properties of different semiconductor oxide, sulphide and nitride nanostructures. Apart from academics Dr. Das has also engaged in different administrative activities as well. Apart from those academic aspects, he is a very good artist. His creations, both in the scientific and creative art section, have always been highly appreciated. 

Keywords:

Nanomaterials, Reaction kinetics, Material Science, Zinc oxide, Microscopy, Carbon nanotube, Quantum Mechanics, Silicon nanowire, Quantum Confinement, graphene, Dye, Graphitic carbon nitride , Catalysis, Density functional theory, Adsorption, Density of state      

Please visit for more information: https://bit.ly/3S0numO

 

New study: Methane

emissions offset

carbon uptake in

Baltic macroalgae

 habitats

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY

Bladderwrack in the Baltic Sea emits significant amounts of methane, which, to some extent, can offset the uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide by these algae. This is shown by a new study from Askö Laboratory, where the fluxes of greenhouse gases between surface waters and the atmosphere were measured continuously over several seasons.

"It was a bit surprising that methane was emitted from the bladderwrack, since this algae grows on hard substrates and not on soft sediments, where methane is produced normally”, says Christoph Humborg, scientific director of Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre and co-author of the new study published in Nature Communications. “But what we found was that these algae form pockets of sediment where methane forming microorganisms, archaea, could be detected. We found these archaea also on floating filamentous algae and organic matter debris associated with dense stands of bladderwrack.”

Coastal ecosystems can take up and store large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so-called “blue carbon”. Restoring such ecosystems could therefore be an important nature-based solution to mitigate climate change. Well-known blue carbon ecosystems include mangrove, sea grass meadows and salt marshes. However, more recently, it has been suggested that also macroalgae, such as the bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosus) – common to the Baltic Sea – can take up large amounts of atmospheric carbon. If this carbon is, for example, exported to and sequestered in the deep sea, macroalgae could be one of the most important blue carbon ecosystems globally.

Bladderwrack forests take up significant amounts of carbon dioxide
In the recently published study, with Florian Roth as first author, researchers from Stockholm University and University of Helsinki in the collaboration CoastClim* measured greenhouse gas fluxes between the water surface and atmosphere outside the Askö Laboratory in Trosa over a whole year, using the Water Equilibration Gas Analyzer System, WEGAS. The measurements confirmed that mixed vegetation and bladderwrack forests in the coastal zone do take up significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The fluxes vary over the year, but altogether the uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the bladderwrack habitats added up to 0.52 tons CO2 per hectare and year, which can be compared with 0.71 ton CO2 per hectare and year for areas with mixed vegetation.

However, this uptake is offset by methane fluxes from the water to the atmosphere from the very same environments. As methane is a stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the net carbon uptake is reduced to 0.38 ton and 0.46 ton CO2-eq. (carbon dioxide equivalents, meaning the global warming potential of the gases converted to that of carbon dioxide) per hectare and year for bladderwrack and mixed vegetation sites, respectively.

Methane forming microorganisms were found both in small pockets of sediment and on fliamentous algae overgrowing the bladderwrack. Picture from the publication by Roth et al.

Marcoalgae habitats important from a climate perspective
As awareness is rising of the potential of blue carbon habitats and the possibility to include them in climate mitigation strategies, it is increasingly important to quantify the fluxes of greenhouse gases and the net carbon uptake in these environments correctly.

“Caring for and restoring macroalgae habitats could still be important from a climate perspective. Our study shows that these environments are net carbon sinks, just not as large as has sometimes been suggested”, Christoph Humborg clarifies.

From a management perspective, it is also important to know whether methane production in the macroalgae habitats is influenced by their health status, i.e., whether macroalgae habitats in eutrophic degraded systems produce more methane than healthy macroalgae stands. This hypothesis will be tested by the Swedish-Finnish researcher group in mesocosm-experiments next year.

“Our measurements were done in situ in the Baltic Sea, which is affected by eutrophication”, says Christoph Humborg. “A less eutrophic ecosystem with less organic matter accumulation and less filamentous algae growth could likely produce less methane. If so, taking measures to help the Baltic Sea recover from eutrophication would substantially improve the blue carbon potential of these habitats and contribute to mitigating climate change.”

Article in Nature Communications: Roth et al: Methane emissions offset atmospheric carbon dioxide uptake in coastal macroalgae, mixed vegetation and sediment ecosystems

Watch short film on Youtbe: Methane emissions offset carbon uptake in macroalgae habitats in the Baltic Sea

Contact:
Christoph Humborg, Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre, e-mail: christoph.humborg@su.se, phone: 08-674 76 68
Florian Roth, Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre and Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, e-mail: florian.roth@su.se

*The Centre for Coastal Ecosystem and Climate Change Research (CoastClim) evaluates the links between coastal biodiversity, carbon cycling, and climate feedbacks. The data will serve as a foundation for decision-support to improve the use and management of coastal ecosystems with the potential for climate change mitigation. The development of CoastClim is part of a strategic partnership between the University of Helsinki and Stockholm University that focuses on strengthening collaborative marine ecosystem and climate change research between universities. Read more about CoastClim at www.coastclim.org

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

ARTICLE TITLE

Methane emissions offset atmospheric carbon dioxide uptake in coastal macroalgae, mixed vegetation and sediment ecosystems

New “semi-sub” shows spy potential of sailing at waterline

Peer-Reviewed Publication

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: AN UNMANNED SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE VEHICLE PROTOTYPE DEVELOPED AT WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY view more 

CREDIT: WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

PULLMAN, Wash. – An unmanned semi-submersible vehicle developed at Washington State University may prove that the best way to travel in water undetected and efficiently is not on top, or below, but in-between.

The roughly 1.5-foot-long semi-sub prototype, built with off-the-shelf and 3D-printed parts, showed its seaworthiness in water tests, moving quickly with low drag and a low profile. The researchers detailed the test results in a study published in the journal Unmanned Systems.

This vessel-type isn’t new. Authorities have discovered crudely made semi-subs being used for illicit purposes in recent years, but the WSU project aims to demonstrate how engineer-developed half-submerged vessels can efficiently serve military, commercial and research purposes.

“A semi-submersible vehicle is relatively inexpensive to build, difficult to detect, and it can go across oceans,” said Konstantin Matveev, the WSU engineering professor leading this work. “It's not so susceptible to waves in comparison to surface ships since most of the body is underwater, so there are some economic advantages as well.”

Since the semi-sub sails mostly at the water line, it does not need to be made of as strong materials as a submarine which has to withstand the pressure of being underwater for long periods of time. The semi-sub also has the advantage of having a small platform in contact with the atmosphere, making it easier to receive and transmit data. 

For this study, Matveev and co-author Pascal Spino, a recent WSU graduate and former president of the WSU RoboSub club, piloted the semi-sub in Snake River’s Wawawai Bay in Washington state. They tested its stability and ability to maneuver. The semi-sub reached a max speed of 1.5 meters per second (roughly 3.4 miles an hour), but at higher speeds, it rises above the water creating more of a wake and expending more energy. At lower speeds, it is almost fully immersed and barely makes a ripple.

The researchers also outfitted the semi-sub with sonar and mapped the bottom of a reservoir near Pullman, Washington to test its ability to collect and transmit data. 

While not yet completely autonomous, the WSU semi-sub can be pre-programmed to behave in certain ways, such as running a certain route by itself or responding to particular objects by pursuing them or running away. 

While the WSU semi-sub is relatively small at 450 mm long with a 100 mm diameter (about 1.5 foot long and 4 inches in diameter), Matveev said it is possible for larger semi-subs to be built to carry significant cargo. For instance, they could be used to help refuel ships or stations at sea. They could even be scaled up to rival container ships, and since they experience less drag in the water, they would use less fuel creating both an environmental and economic advantage.

For now, the Matveev’s lab is continuing work on optimizing the shape of semi-submersible vehicle prototypes to fit specific purposes. He is currently collaborating with the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland to work on the vehicles’ operational capabilities and compare numerical simulations with results from experiments.

An unmanned semi-submersible vehicle prototype developed at Washington State University

CREDIT

Washington State University

WSUSemiSubMotion1 (VIDEO)

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JOURNAL

Unmanned Systems

DOI

10.1142/S2301385023500048 

ARTICLE TITLE

Development and testing of unmanned semi-submersible vehicle

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Jan-2023