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This paper addresses the assessment of woody biomass resources in Russia and the Baikal region. The analysis of the literature demonstrates that the Baikal region has considerable amounts of waste from the logging, timber processing, and pulp and paper industries (up to 220 PJ). A review of utilization technologies for woody biomass demonstrates that the existing technologies based on biomass gasification are promising for energy purposes. The gasification of biomass for small-capacity power plants has some advantages compared to its combustion. This paper considers an autonomous power system that consists of photovoltaic converters, wind turbines, storage batteries, a biomass gasification power plant, and a diesel power plant. A mathematical model used to optimize the system's structure finds the minimum of the total discounted costs for the creation and operation of the system with some constraints met. Based on mathematical modeling, the cost-effectiveness of such a power supply system is assessed for different climatic zones of the Baikal region and the coastal area of Lake Baikal. The findings indicate that the optimal solution is the integration of various renewable energy sources in hybrid power systems. The proportion of energy sources of different types in the installed capacities is found. The study demonstrates that the optimal structure of the power system can provide significant savings (the total discounted costs are reduced by almost 2.5 times compared to the option using a diesel power plant alone). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Split City area, with an air distance of approximately 18 km, the survey of land surface temperature (LST) and urban heat islands (UHI) was detected. It also shows how local geomorphology, especially the density of urban areas (especially densely built high-rise buildings and urban canyons) and the amount of greenery and water surfaces, affect the UHI of the observed area. The paper uses a known method of classifying local climatic zoning (LCZ) and its coincidence with the zones of the highest urban temperatures. The paper highlights the critical areas and suggests possible solutions to reduce the UHI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought monitoring and early detection have improved greatly in recent decades through the development and refinement of numerous indices and indicators. However, a lack of guidance, based on user experience, exists as to which drought-monitoring tools are most appropriate in a given location. This review paper summarizes the results of targeted user engagement and the published literature to improve the understanding of drought across North America and to enhance the utility of drought-monitoring tools. Workshops and surveys were used to assess and make general conclusions about the perceived performance of drought indicators, indices and impact information used for monitoring drought in the five main Köppen climate types (Tropical, Temperate, Continental, Polar Tundra, Dry) found across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. In Tropical, humid Temperate, and southerly Continental climates, droughts are perceived to be more short-term (less than 6 months) in duration rather than long-term (more than 6 months). In Polar Tundra climates, Dry climates, Temperate climates with dry warm seasons, and northerly Continental climates, droughts are perceived to be more long-term than short-term. In general, agricultural and hydrological droughts were considered to be the most important drought types. Drought impacts related to agriculture, water supply, ecosystem, and human health were rated to be of greatest importance. Users identified the most effective indices and indicators for monitoring drought across North America to be the U.S. Drought Monitor (USDM) and Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) (or another measure of precipitation anomaly), followed by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (or another satellite-observed vegetation index), temperature anomalies, crop status, soil moisture, streamflow, reservoir storage, water use (demand), and reported drought impacts. Users also noted the importance of indices that measure evapotranspiration, evaporative demand, and snow water content. Drought indices and indicators were generally thought to perform equally well across seasons in Tropical and colder Continental climates, but their performance was perceived to vary seasonally in Dry, Temperate, Polar Tundra, and warmer Continental climates, with improved performance during warm and wet times of the year. The drought indices and indicators, in general, were not perceived to perform equally well across geographies. This review paper provides guidance on when (time of year) and where (climate zone) the more popular drought indices and indicators should be used. The paper concludes by noting the importance of understanding how drought, its impacts, and its indicators are changing over time as the climate warms and by recommending ways to strengthen the use of indices and indicators in drought decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the pandemic, as it becomes more feasible to study and work from home, the quality of residential daylighting has attracted increasing attention. With the rapid growth of high-density residential areas, China is confronted with the incoordination between site planning and interior daylight availability across a wide region. Therefore, this paper investigates the applicability of planning regulations for daylight availability in dense residential areas under different climates across China, with the aim of providing data to optimize design strategies. ClimateStudio and ALFA were used to calculate the daylight factor (DF), daylight illuminance, spatial daylight autonomy (sDA), useful daylight illuminance (UDI), and melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance (m-EDI) of living rooms in four practical mixed housing estates in different Chinese daylight climate zones. The results showed that most of the studied units failed to meet current standards of DF and sDA300,50% for residence. However, more than half of these units still had high potential for UDI and met the recommendation of m-EDI by daylight only. The results verified the importance of integrative consideration of the local daylight climate and interior unit design for residential area layout planning. Finally, this paper suggests two topics for further exploration to bridge the gap between area planning and interior daylight availability in dense residential areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been fruitful publications on thermal comfort of urban residential buildings in China. However, there is a lack of reviews on this topic to perform a comprehensive analysis and find opportunities to meet occupants' thermal comfort needs while improving building energy efficiencies. This paper addresses this issue by presenting a systematic review on the advancements in research on thermal comfort in urban residential buildings in China. Firstly, two common thermal comfort research approaches, i.e., field studies and laboratory studies, are discussed. Secondly, eleven main thermal comfort evaluation indicators are summarized. Finally, this paper analyzes the thermal comfort survey data from different researchers, discusses the impacts of adaptive behaviors on human thermal comfort, and provides recommendations for future research on urban residential thermal comfort. It was found that people have higher and higher requirements for their indoor thermal environment as time goes by, especially in the winter; the thermoneutral temperature is higher in warmer climate regions in the summer but lower in the winter than in colder climate regions; the thermoneutral temperature tends to increase with the indoor air temperature due to an adaptation to the indoor thermal environment. The outcomes of this paper provide valuable information on thermal comfort behaviors of urban residents in different climate zones in China, which can serve as a resource for the academic community conducting future research on thermal comfort and assist policymakers in enhancing building energy efficiencies without compromising the occupants' comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings worldwide have evolved based on local resources and skills, evolving form and orientation to ensure a productive and comfortable indoor environment. Traditional habitations rely on passive climate-responsive mechanisms and physiological resilience. At the same time, contemporary buildings rely increasingly on active mechanisms for fine-tuned convenience and comfort. Those buildings are becoming less habitable due to climate change. This paper presents an overview of research into climate-responsive building adaptation, identifying various factors determining a building's ability to regulate external climatic conditions in providing a habitable indoor environment. The review covers the ability of occupants to manage their thermal environment and adaptation mechanisms, including various adaptation strategies attributed to climate change. Besides a review of relevant research tools and methodologies, the paper also identifies future research challenges. Those challenges include but are not limited to evaluating climate classification provided by building standards given climate change, the need for region-specific climate-change vulnerability assessment of the built environment to develop specific adaptation strategies, a survey of vernacular structures to understand their inherent adaptation capacities, developing a framework to study building adaptation, etc. Thus, this review opens the possibility of further research in building adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of flexible working arrangements, we are observing a dramatic shift in how buildings are occupied today, which presents an opportunity to optimize Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system temperature setpoints based on variations in occupancy. Guidelines often suggest the adoption of the highest or lowest setpoint or setback to minimize energy consumption in hot or cold climates, respectively. However, at outdoor temperatures where variations in occupancy heat loads prompt buildings to fluctuate across cooling, free-running, and heating mode, optimal setpoints and setbacks are not always the lowest or highest. In addition, the perturbations caused by rapid switching between setpoint and setback could diminish energy savings due to system destabilization. This paper aims to systematically compare the potential energy savings from fixed and optimal setpoints and setbacks across wide-ranging occupancy scenarios (four occupancy rates and 14 patterns). Energy simulations were conducted using the Department of Energy reference models for small, medium, and large office buildings to enable an exhaustive search of optimal setpoint/setbacks in 17 climate zones. Explored setpoints were 19.5 °C to 25.5 °C with intervals of 1 °C, and setbacks were 17 °C/19 °C for heating and 26 °C/28 °C for cooling. The findings indicate that, on average, while lower occupancy heat loads results in 5.48% energy reduction, a conventional fixed setpoint and setback strategy provides an additional 11.80%, and optimal selection of setpoints and setbacks could provide an additional 34.36–38.08%, emphasizing the untapped potential energy saving. To facilitate practical applications, this paper presents an interactive graphical interface: Optimal Temperature Setpoint Tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document discusses the challenges faced by urban greenspaces, particularly trees, in urban environments. These challenges include high temperatures, limited water availability, and high levels of pollutants. Urban greening, including the planting of trees and forests, is seen as a nature-based solution to improve quality of life, conserve biodiversity, and enhance climate resilience. The document also provides an outline of a special issue on urban forests and the urban microclimate, which includes research papers on topics such as tree growth and vitality, the cooling effects of urban greenspaces, hydrology in urban areas, and mapping urban greenspaces. The papers cover a range of climatic zones and provide valuable information for sustainable green management. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of this paper is to assess the correlation of groundwater level changes (or groundwater level anomalies (GWLA)) obtained from direct measurements in wells with groundwater storage anomalies (GWSA) calculated using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) products and Global Land Data Assimilation Systems (GLDAS) models across different climate zones, from temperate Poland to Arctic Sweden. We recognize that such validation studies are needed to increase the understanding of the spatio-temporal limits of remote sensing model applicability, not least in data-scarce sub-Arctic and Arctic environments where processes are complex due to the impacts of snow and (perma) frost. Results for temperate climates in Poland and southern Sweden show that, whereas one of the models (JPL_NOAH_GWSA) failed due to water balance term overestimation, the other model (CSR_CLM_GWSA) produced excellent results of monthly groundwater dynamics when compared with the observations in 387 groundwater wells in the region during 2003–2022 (cross-correlation coefficient of 0.8). However, for the sub-Arctic and Arctic northern Sweden, the model suitable for other regions failed to reproduce typical northern groundwater regimes (of the region's 85 wells), where winter levels decrease due to the blocking effect of ground frost on groundwater recharge. This suggests, more generally, that conventional methods for deriving GWSA and its seasonality ceases to be reliable in the presence of considerably infiltration-blocking ground frost and permafrost (whereas snow storage modules perform well), which hence need further attention in future research. Regarding long-term groundwater level trends, remote sensing results for southern Sweden show increasing levels, in contrast with observed unchanged to decreasing (~10 mm/a) levels, which may not necessarily be due to errors in the remote sensing model but may rather emphasize impacts of anthropogenic pressures, which are higher near the observation wells that are often located in eskers used for water supply. For sub-Arctic and Arctic Sweden, the (relatively uncertain) trend of the remote sensing results nevertheless agrees reasonably well with the groundwater well observations that show increasing groundwater levels of up to ~14 mm/a, which, e.g., is consistent with reported trends of large Siberian river basins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floating Photovoltaic (FPV) systems are gradually becoming more desirable due to a multitude of reasons, encompassing proximity to urban water reservoirs (facilitating city access) and their technical advantages. Climate change potentially presents risks of drought and FPV can potentially benefit by providing clean energy as well as saving water from evaporation. However, detailed studies are required to comprehensively evaluate the potential of FPV considering not only the technical parameters but evaluating the climatic effects as well. This paper presents an integrated multi-dimensional framework for the analysis of 2.5 MW grid-connected FPV systems over different climatic zones. In the first layer, a techno-economic and performance evaluation is carried out by fine-tuning different inputs of systems to make it ideal for proposed analyses under actual FPV conditions. Similarly, in the second layer environmental along with forest absorbing carbon analyses are performed. While socio analysis observed in the third fold is based on various SDGs and their indicators. Results reveal that the Dam with cold in winter and hot in summer climate conditions observed a most feasible site with a Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $0.047/kWh and a Net present value (NPV) of million $1.7705, respectively. In contrast, a Dam with mild cold climate conditions proves the least feasible site with LCOE of $0.057/kWh and NPV of million $1.0256, respectively. Similarly, the former Dam saved 20.50% higher CO2 emissions as compared to the latter, as well as required hectares of forest absorbing carbon. A comparative analysis observes a capacity factor of 22% and a performance ratio (PR) of 5%-10% higher as compared to solar photovoltaic (SPV) for dams with extreme weather. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of urbanization has caused obstructed urban natural ventilation and the contribution rate of urbanization is relatively high. Therefore, there is an urgent need for urban development planning that should respect natural ventilation and local climate to reduce negative impacts. By optimizing the urban construction layout to reduce obstruction and leave a passageway for wind to blow in, the natural ventilation environment could be improved. This paper presents a promising approach for natural ventilation planning at both the city and community scales. Based on the assessment of wind environment, heat island intensity, and ventilation potential, the results revealed that winds blowing from the western and northern mountainous area of Shijiazhuang play a natural ventilation inlet role which can provide clean air. The SSHI and SHI were mainly distributed within the Second Ring Road, which has a large proportion of the low ventilation potential level. Thus, six first-class ventilation corridors and thirteen secondary corridors were recommended, which were set to be adapted to the dominant wind direction. Subsequently, an urban climate analysis map (UCAnMap) was developed considering climate sensitivity, and planning recommendations were provided for different climate zones. The relationship between architectural spatial structure and ventilation efficiency was analyzed; the results revealed that increasing the height of the buildings will decrease the proportion of comfortable wind zones, and the overall ventilation efficiency will weaken, so the average building height of a typical block should be controlled within 45 m, which matches ventilation performance requirements. The ventilation efficiency of the block has a certain negative correlation with the building density, and as the building density decreased by more than 10%, the proportion of the comfortable wind zones could increase by 4–5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The freshwater discharge from melting ice sheets in the deglaciation or glaciation is prone to anomalies in ocean-atmosphere transport between different latitudes, which can lead to a series of abrupt millennial-scale climate events, either obvious or not, such as the Younger Dryas (YD) events and YD-like events. Marine Isotope Stage 11c (MIS 11c) serves as one of the best references for the current Holocene, and the studies of possible YD-like events and their triggering mechanisms during Holocene are conducive to the understanding of the occurrence pattern of extreme climate events. In this paper, the results of the study on the J33 δ18O sequence records of stalagmites in Jinfo Cave, Chongqing, are shown: (1) Stalagmites in the Asian monsoon climate zone reveal a millennial-scale weak monsoon event that occurred around 410 ka BP prior to the Glacial Maximum of MIS 11 interglacial period. (2) Both the 410 ka weak monsoon event and the YD event occurred during the gradual strengthening of the monsoon and ascending branch of summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere prior to the Glacial Maximum of interglacial period. This was also a time when Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) disturbance occurred. The duration, internal structure, and pattern of the events were similar, with differences in the change magnitude and ice volume conditions. (3) The weak monsoon event that occurred in 410 ka BP was primarily influenced by the combined effects of insolation and AMOC. This event was characterized by a sustained warming process that accelerated the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, leading to the destabilization of this ice sheet. The continuous flowing of freshwater into the North Atlantic resulted in a short-lived AMOC oscillation. The weakening of the AMOC resulted in a cold anomaly over the North Atlantic. As a result of atmospheric telecorrelation, the weaker AMOC led to a weaker Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arid zone ecosystems, integral to terrestrial systems, exhibit relatively low stability and are prone to influences from human activities and climate change. To elucidate the influence on the ecological environment of the arid zone by climate change and human activities, the paper takes normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) as an evaluation index of the ecosystem and uses trend analysis to evaluation of NDVI variation characteristics in the Shiyang River Basin (SRB) from 1990 to 2020. Simultaneously using methods such as partial correlation analysis and residual analysis to evaluate the impact of climate change and human activities on NDVI changes. This study yielded several key findings: (1) The NDVI in the SRB exhibits an increasing trend of 0.034/10a in the interannual variation. (2) The relation cooperatives between NDVI and the deviation of precipitation and temperature in the SRB range from −0.735 to 0.770 and −0.602 to 0.773, respectively. (3) The changes in land use and groundwater depth in the SRB have a certain impact on NDVI changes. (4) The proportion of areas with significant contributions (contribution rate greater than 60%) from climate change and human activities to NDVI change is 33.5% and 22.5%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to quantify meteorological–hydrological drought propagations and examine the potential impacts by climatic variability, LULC change (LULC), and human regulations. An integrated observation-modeling framework quantifies drought propagation intervals and assesses mechanisms influencing hydrological droughts. Meteorological droughts are characterized using the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), and hydrological droughts are assessed through the Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) across diverse climatic zones. Cross-correlation analysis between SPEI and SSI time series identifies the lag time associated with the highest correlation as the drought propagation interval. Mechanisms are investigated via a coupled empirical-process modeling framework incorporating the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). Discrepancies between simulated and observed SSI time series help quantify the extent of human regulation impacts on hydrological drought characteristics and propagation. The Yellow River Basin (YRB), divided into six subzones based on climate characteristics, is selected as the case study. Key findings include: (1) Meteorological droughts were extremely severe across most YRB during the 1990s, while the 2000s showed some mitigation primarily due to precipitation increases. (2) Hydrological droughts and propagation times from meteorology to hydrology demonstrated substantial spatiotemporal variability. In general, summer propagation times were shorter than other seasons. (3) Propagation times were shorter in arid regions with cropland or built-up land cover versus grassland and woodland, while the reverse held for humid regions. (4) Human regulations prolonged propagation times, likely due to reservoir regulations designed to overcome water deficits. While the YRB is the focus of this paper, the methodologies and findings are applicable to other regions worldwide to enhance drought forecasting and water resource management. In various hydrological and climatic contexts worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the European Energy Efficiency Directive for Buildings, member states are required to develop long-term strategies to adopt more sustainable, secure, and decarbonized energy systems in buildings by 2050. In this line of approach, an optional common regime has been established to define and calculate the smart readiness of buildings and assess their ability to adapt their operation to the needs of the occupants and the network. Thus, the smart readiness indicator (SRI) emerged, which assesses technological readiness by examining the presence and evaluation of the functionality level of various smart services, aiming at energy savings, the ability of the building to respond to users' needs, and energy flexibility. This paper focuses on examining the SRI calculation methodology's application to an office building, which is currently being deeply renovated. Initially, there is an analysis of the SRI, its calculation methodology, and its goals. This is followed by the practical calculation part of the SRI for a typical office building located in Greece and belonging to the climate zone of southern Europe. The results indicate that the SRIs application is not a straightforward issue since parameters that need to be considered are not regulated to the same degree. On the other hand, SRI can provide a stimulus for exploiting the renovation potential of buildings, precisely by integrating the various aspects and linking those to the use of innovative technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the core area of human activities and economic development in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the hilly oasis zone of Xinjiang directly affects the regional sustainable development and stability of the ecosystem. Understanding the effects of different geomorphic types on vegetation distribution is crucial for maintaining vegetation growth and development, especially the improvement in the terrestrial ecological environment in arid areas under the background of climate change. However, there are few studies on the effect of spatial differences in detailed geomorphic types on vegetation distribution patterns. Therefore, this paper divides the Xinjiang hilly oasis zone into six geomorphologic level zones and innovatively investigates the influence of detailed geomorphologic types on the spatial distribution of vegetation and vegetation cover. Further, the area proportion of detailed landform types corresponding to different vegetation coverage in each geomorphic area was quantitatively calculated. Finally, the Geodetector method was used to detect the drivers of interactions between vegetation and the environment. The findings are shown as follows: (1) In the same climate zone, the spatial differentiation of landforms has a great influence on the vegetation distribution, manifesting as the significantly different vegetation distribution in different landform types. Grassland is the main vegetation type in the erosion and denudation of Nakayama; cultivated vegetation and meadows have a larger coverage in the alluvial flood plain and alluvial plain; and the distribution of vegetation in the Tianshan economic zone is characterized by obvious vertical zoning with the geomorphology. (2) The landform type and morphological types are the strongest driving factors for vegetation coverage with q values of 0.433 and 0.295, respectively, which effectually fill the gap caused by only using two terrain indicators, slope and elevation, to study the relationship between landforms and vegetation. (3) In addition, the improved nonlinear interaction resulting from the double factor of landform type and slope is 0.486, which has a stronger control on vegetation coverage than the single factor of landform type. These findings are conducive to enhancing the supply services of vegetation to the ecosystem in arid areas as well as providing important scientific guidance for the construction of ecological civilization and sustainable development in Xinjiang. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyanobacteria form diverse communities and are important primary producers in Antarctic freshwater environments, but their geographic distribution patterns in Antarctica and globally are still unresolved. There are however few genomes of cultured cyanobacteria from Antarctica available and therefore metagenomeassembled genomes (MAGs) from Antarctic cyanobacteria microbial mats provide an opportunity to explore distribution of uncultured taxa. These MAGs also allow comparison with metagenomes of cyanobacteria enriched communities from a range of habitats, geographic locations, and climates. However, most MAGs do not contain 16S rRNA gene sequences, making a 16S rRNA gene-based biogeography comparison difficult. An alternative technique is to use large-scale k-mer searching to find genomes of interest in public metagenomes. This paper presents the results of k-mer based searches for 5 Antarctic cyanobacteria MAGs from Lake Fryxell and Lake Vanda, assigned the names Phormidium pseudopriestleyi FRX01, Microcoleus sp. MP8IB2.171, Leptolyngbya sp. BulkMat.35, Pseudanabaenaceae cyanobacterium MP8IB2.15, and Leptolyngbyaceae cyanobacterium MP9P1.79 in 498,942 unassembled metagenomes from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Sequence Read Archive (SRA). The Microcoleus sp. MP8IB2.171 MAG was found in a wide variety of environments, the P. pseudopriestleyi MAG was found in environments with challenging conditions, the Leptolyngbyaceae cyanobacterium MP9P1.79 MAG was only found in Antarctica, and the Leptolyngbya sp. BulkMat.35 and Pseudanabaenaceae cyanobacterium MP8IB2.15 MAGs were found in Antarctic and other cold environments. The findings based on metagenome matches and global comparisons suggest that these Antarctic cyanobacteria have distinct distribution patterns ranging from locally restricted to global distribution across the cold biosphere and other climatic zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reasonable thermal insulation in cold regions is the key to improve the indoor thermal environment. In this paper, the detached house is taken as the research object, and the sensitivity analysis method is used to quantify the influence of each parameter on the building heat load in three different climate zones. The attenuation characteristics of the heat storage body to the outdoor temperature wave are studied by using the A·M Shklovel calculation method, and the thermal insulation strategy of the envelope structure is optimized by genetic algorithm (GA). The results show that the heat transfer coefficient of roof and exterior wall has the most significant influence on the building heat load. The mean effect response of each factor shows that the Delta (Delta is the value used in Taguchi design methodology to express the relative effect of each factor on the response) of roofs in the three regions is the highest, 3.061, 4.061, and 5.88, respectively. The influence of the type and thickness of the insulation material on the heat storage performance is different. The indoor and outdoor temperature wave penetration attenuation multiple increases with the increase of the thickness of the insulation layer, increases with the decrease of the thermal conductivity of the insulation material, and increases with the increase of the specific heat capacity. The choice of insulation materials is not only related to the above two parameters, but also directly affected by the price. Considering the influence of various factors, the economy of choosing expanded polystyrene board for thermal insulation in the three regions is the best. The optimal thermal insulation thickness of the north wall and roof is 8 and 16 cm (3A climate zone), 10 and 17 cm (2B climate zone), 13 and 20 cm (2A climate zone), respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical features may have a considerable effect on local climate. The local climate zone (LCZ) system proposed by is nowadays seen as a standard approach for classifying any zone according to a set of urban canopy parameters. While many methods already exist to map the LCZ, only few tools are openly and freely available. This paper presents the algorithm implemented in the GeoClimate software to identify the LCZ of any place in the world based on vector data. Six types of information are needed as input: the building footprint, road and rail networks, water, vegetation, and impervious surfaces. First, the territory is partitioned into reference spatial units (RSUs) using the road and rail network, as well as the boundaries of large vegetation and water patches. Then 14 urban canopy parameters are calculated for each RSU. Their values are used to classify each unit to a given LCZ type according to a set of rules. GeoClimate can automatically prepare the inputs and calculate the LCZ for two datasets, namely OpenStreetMap (OSM, available worldwide) and the BD TOPO® v2.2 (BDT, a French dataset produced by the national mapping agency). The LCZ are calculated for 22 French communes using these two datasets in order to evaluate the effect of the dataset on the results. About 55 % of all areas have obtained the same LCZ type, with large differences when differentiating this result by city (from 30 % to 82 %). The agreement is good for large patches of forest and water, as well as for compact mid-rise and open low-rise LCZ types. It is lower for open mid-rise and open high-rise, mainly due to the height underestimation of OSM buildings located in open areas. Through its simplicity of use, GeoClimate has great potential for new collaboration in the LCZ field. The software (and its source code) used to produce the LCZ data is freely available at 10.5281/zenodo.6372337 ; the scripts and data used for the purpose of this article can be freely accessed at 10.5281/zenodo.7687911 and are based on the R package available at 10.5281/zenodo.7646866. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Greenhouse gas emissions depend on natural and anthropic phenomena; however, to reduce emissions, we can only intervene in terms of anthropic causes. Human activity is very different in various countries and cities. This is mainly due to differences in the type of urban environment, climatic conditions, socioeconomic context, government stability, and other aspects. Urban building energy modeling (UBEM), with a GIS-based approach, allows the evaluation of all the specific characteristics of buildings, population, and urban context that can describe energy use and its spatial distribution within a city. In this paper, a UBEM is developed using the characteristics and consumption of eight typical buildings (archetypes) in the climate zone of Santiago de Chile. The archetype-based UBEM is then applied to the commune of Renca, a critical suburb of Santiago, with the use of QGIS to analyze the energy demand for space heating and the potential for energy saving after four retrofitting interventions. Knowing the costs of the retrofitting interventions and the energy price, the simple payback time was evaluated with the reduction in GHG emissions. Starting from the actual building stock, the results show that the most effective retrofitting intervention for the commune of Renca is the thermal insulation of walls and roofs; due to the type of dwellings, this particular intervention could be more convenient if associated with the installation of solar technologies. This methodology can be replicated with the data used by urban planners and public administrations available for many Chilean cities and in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change is a global threat that is better understood through global research spanning many regions, countries, and life-supporting ecosystems. This review focused on the bibliometric analysis of the distribution of a global research compendium on phytoplankton, an aquatic community that accounts for half of the carbon fixation in the global carbon cycle. A total of 716 primary research papers published in the immediate past decade (2012–2022) were reviewed. The articles were sampled from Web of Science and described field and laboratory experiments quantifying the impact of global climate change on phytoplankton from different climate zones (tropical, subtropical, temperate, subpolar, and polar) and ecosystems (freshwater, brackish, and marine). Analyses of these studies suggest that the bulk of the global research effort (80%) focused on high-latitude areas, and only a few (17%) were carried out in the tropics, largely led by four countries (Australia, Brazil, India, and Saudi Arabia), while Africa's contribution was minuscule (<1%). In terms of ecosystems, the majority (76%) of the research was in marine waters, irrespective of the climate zone. Analyses of these studies also highlighted widespread disparities in phytoplankton research in tropical aquatic ecosystems, particularly in Africa. Strategic investment in terms of targeted funding, institutional networks, and partnerships between the global north and global south are necessary to increase phytoplankton research across different ecosystems in the tropics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, empirical relationships between diameter at breast height (DBH), crown diameter (CD), and stem number per hectare (N) were improved in a Paulownia Shan Tong plantation. Various functions of these variables were defined, focusing on growing space (Gs) and stem number per hectare. The linear crown index between CD and DBH seems to be particularly important in predicting stem number per hectare. Based on an analysis of the relationships, a CD-DBH (R² = 0.7254) and a DBH-N graphic model (R² = 0.7302) can be applied widely in plantation forestry. Under suitable site conditions, the investigated Paulownia hybrid can provide a higher increment in DBH than most of poplar hybrids at a certain age. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between the Gs based on CD and DBH. These types of investigations are of fundamental importance in terms of the growing technology of tree plantations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal environment deterioration has seriously threatened urban habitat quality and urban sustainable development. The evolution of the urban built environment (UBE) is an important cause for urban thermal environment variation. However, the dynamic effect of the UBE on the land surface temperature (LST) is rarely studied by combining the local climate zone (LCZ) theory and spatio-temporal heterogeneity. Based on a case study of Beilin District in Xi'an, China, this paper identified LCZ types of Beilin District in 2010, 2015, and 2020 using the GIS method. It also analyzed the spatial–temporal characteristics of the LST in summer based on the remote sensing retrieval method and explored the effects of the built environment on the LST by Geodetector and geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results showed the following: (1) The area share of dense building zones in Beilin District was greater than that of open building zones and natural surface zones, while the share of mid- and high-rise dense building zones continued to increase and the share of low-rise dense building zones continued to decrease during the study period. (2) The LST of different LCZ types in Beilin District was obviously different, and the LST of dense building zones was generally higher than that of open building zones and natural surface zones. Meanwhile, the LST of mid- and low-rise dense building zones increased gradually, and the LST of high-rise open building zones decreased gradually, but the overall warming area was obviously more than the cooling area. (3) The effects of the UBE factors on the LST varied greatly, with their interaction having an enhancement effect. The direct and interactive influence of the two-dimensional (2D) UBE indicators on the LST were greater than those of the three-dimensional (3D) indicators, but there was a gradual decrease in the force of the 2D indicators and a simultaneous diminution, enhancement, and invariance of the force of the 3D indicators. (4) Vegetation cover (VC) and floor area ratio (FAR) acted negatively, and the building height (BH) was changing from a positive to a negative role, with the average action intensity of VC changing from −0.27 to −0.15, FAR from −0.20 to −0.16, and BH from 0.05 to −0.04. The impervious surface area (ISA), building area (BA), and space congestion (SC) acted positively, with the average action intensity of the ISA changing from 0.12 to 0.20, BA from 0.12 to 0.19, and SC was stable at 0.04. The framework enables a deeper portrayal of LST changes in different LCZs, reflecting the direct and interactive effects of different UBE indicators on LST, as well as local variations in the impact effects and provides a basis for urban managers or planners to improve urban heat resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote sensing (RS) data are becoming an increasingly important source of information for water resource management as they provide spatially distributed data on water availability and use. However, in order to guide appropriate use of the data, it is important to understand the impact of the uncertainties of RS data on water resource studies. Previous studies have shown that the degree of closure of the water balance from remote sensing data is highly variable across basins and that different RS products vary in their levels of accuracy depending on climatological and geographical conditions. In this paper, we analyzed the water-balance-derived runoff from global RS products for 931 catchments across the globe. We compared time series of runoff estimated through a simplified water balance equation using three precipitation (CHIRPS, GPM, and TRMM), five evapotranspiration (MODIS, SSEBop, GLEAM, CMRSET, and SEBS), and three water storage change (GRACE-CSR, GRACE-JPL, and GRACE-GFZ) RS datasets with monthly in situ discharge data for the period 2003–2016. Results were analyzed through the lens of 10 quantifiable catchment characteristics in order to investigate correlations between catchment characteristics and the quality of RS-based water balance estimates of runoff and whether specific products performed better than others under certain conditions. The median Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) for all gauges and all product combinations was - 0.02, and only 44.9 % of the time series reached a positive NSE. A positive NSE could be obtained for 73.7 % of stations with at least one product combination, while the overall best-performing product combination was positive for 58.4 % of stations. This confirms previous findings that the best-performing products cannot be globally established. When investigating the results by catchment characteristic, all combinations tended to show similar correlations between catchment characteristics and the quality of estimated runoff, with the exception of combinations using MODIS evapotranspiration, for which the correlation was frequently reversed. The combinations with the GPM precipitation product generally performed worse than the CHIRPS and TRMM data. However, this can be attributed to the fact that the GPM data are available at higher latitudes compared to the other products, where performance is generally poorer. When removing high-latitude stations, this difference was eliminated, and GPM and TRMM showed similar performance. The results show the highest positive correlation between highly seasonal rainfall and runoff NSE. On the other hand, increasing snow cover, altitude, and latitude decreased the ability of the RS products to close the water balance. The catchment's dominant climate zone was also found to be correlated with time series performance, with the tropical areas providing the highest (median NSE = 0.11) and arid areas the lowest (median NSE = - 0.09) NSE values. No correlation was found between catchment area and runoff NSE. The results highlight the importance of further studies on the uncertainties of the different data products and how these interact when combining them, as well as of new approaches to using the data rather than simple water-balance-type approaches. Efforts to improve specific satellite products can also be better targeted using the results of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regions near the Tropic of Cancer are a latitudinal geographical zone with typical climatic, topographic, and human landscape features. It is necessary to explore the region's net primary productivity (NPP) dynamics as it combines complex topography, various vegetation types, and intense human activities. The study sets the transect near the Tropic of Cancer (TCT) and uses the Carnegie–Ames–Stanford (CASA) model to estimate the NPP from 2000 to 2020. After using the RESTREND method, the paper calculates and compares the relative contributions of climate variability and anthropogenic activities to NPP changes. Finally, the geographical detector (Geodetector) model is applied to evaluate how anthropogenic and natural factors affect spatial distribution patterns and NPP changes. The results indicated that the average annual NPP is 820.39 gC·m−2·yr−1 during the 21 years. In addition, when the NPP varies, it increases over the entire study area, with a slope of 4.81 gC·m−2·yr−1, particularly in the western region. Across the entire research area, 63.39% and 77.44% of the total pixels positively contribute to climate variability and human activities in NPP, with a contribution of 0.90 and 3.91 gC·m−2·yr−1, respectively. Within the western, central, and eastern regions, anthropogenic activities have a stronger impact on NPP than climate variability, particularly pronounced in the eastern region. Furthermore, vegetation cover is the dominant factor in the spatial patterns and NPP trends across the TCT and the three regions. In contrast, climate factors are shown to be less influential in NPP distribution than in the western region. The results also demonstrated that the effect of population density and the GDP on NPP gradually rises. Two-factor interaction is much larger than any individual factor, with the dominant interaction factor being vegetation cover with climatic factors. Lastly, the findings revealed that anthropogenic activities positively promote NPP accumulation across the TCT, thus highlighting the importance of human activity-led ecological restoration and ecological protection measures that contribute to regional carbon sequestration and carbon balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The building and construction sector has a significant impact on the CO2 emissions and pollutants released into the atmosphere, which contribute to climate change. The EPDB Directive mandates the achievement of minimum energy class E for all residential buildings by 2030 and energy class D by 2033. Particularly, in Italy, about 86% of the existing building stock predates the enactment of any energy laws or regulations, making it imperative to apply the energy efficiency interventions. This paper provides a support decision tool for the identification of the standardized interventions in the building envelope, the air conditioning system, and domestic hot water production. This study is focused on a specific construction period class (1976–1990) in six different climatic zones. The methodological approach is based on a cataloguing phase and the definition of ante operam energy classes as well as on case study identification, energy requalification intervention identification, solution simulations, and cost estimation. By simulating the standardized interventions for each climatic zone, a range of possible combinations is identified. The most advantageous ones are determined based on a cost–benefit analysis considering the potential class jump achieved. The research result is a matrix of energy efficiency interventions that is applicable to each climatic zone and can be extended to the existing housing stock. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper, based on the amount of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in different areas of China, was to give the corresponding measures to prevent UV aging of asphalt. In this paper, based on the average annual amount of UV radiation in China in the past 30 years and the characteristics of UV aging of asphalt, the climatic zoning of UV radiation of asphalt in China was proposed. A variety of base asphalts and styrene–butadiene–styrene block copolymer (SBS) modified asphalts were selected to carry out a UV radiation test, and the relationship between UV radiation amount and viscosity, low-temperature performance, and the rheological properties of asphalt were studied. The equivalent aging indexes of asphalt during UV radiation were selected, the UV aging equation of asphalt was proposed, and the equivalent UV aging relationship among different UV climate zones was established. The prevention and control strategies of UV aging of asphalt among different zones were proposed, and the above theory was verified using a trial road. The main conclusions in the paper are presented: The climate zoning of asphalt UV radiation in China can be divided into three zones: zone I with an annual UV radiation less than or equal to 69.4 kW·h/m2 in the last 30 years; zone II with an annual UV radiation of 69.4~81.4 kW·h/m2 in the last 30 years; zone III with an annual UV radiation more than or equal to 81.4 kW·h/m2 in the last 30 years. The greater the amount of UV radiation, the greater the loss rate of penetration and ductility. For the same kind of asphalt, there is a relatively stable functional relationship between the loss rate and the amount of UV radiation. The results also show that UV radiation changes the proportion of viscous and elastic components in asphalt, showing that the proportion of viscous components decreases and the proportion of elastic components increases. The penetration loss rate and ductility loss rate of asphalt can be used as equivalent UV aging indexes of asphalt. Under the same outdoor UV irradiation time, for asphalt to achieve the same technical performance as zone I, the anti-UV ability of zone II needs to be improved by more than 5%, and that of zone III needs to be improved by more than 10%. Engineering practice has proved that the zoning established in this paper and the corresponding UV control measures are basically reasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to provide analysis of the main features of regional production of sunflower seeds in Ukraine. To realize aims in the article, the importance of agriculture was pointed and evaluation of sunflower seeds productions in accordance with natural and climatic zones were done. Results showed that areas under sunflower have increased significant and in 2021 there was observed the share of 52% of the harvest collected by agricultural enterprises in the Steppe zone, 39% in the Forest-steppe zone, and 9% in the Polissya zone. Grouping enterprises under the area size of sunflower growing confirmed the fact that the bigger arable land of sunflower has the enterprise, the more productive will be sunflower production, in particular, enterprises that have arable land under sunflower more than 2000 ha get yield more than 24 centners per hectare. These enterprises have possibilities to use new technologies to achieve the desired effect during production. The area and introduced pesticides factors was taken into account in regression analysis due to the importance of both them in increasing sunflower seeds production. Results showed close dependence between mentioned factors. In the article discussed a few aspects regarding the sunflower seeds market in Ukraine under the condition of the hostilities in the region. There are evaluated experts opinions regarding production capacities, processing, export and prices on the domestic and world market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This field study evaluated the building performance of a nearly zero-energy office building near Brussels, Belgium, located in the temperate climatic zone. The building's thermal comfort and energy parameters were monitored from May 2018 to April 2019. The time-integrated thermal discomfort, primary energy use, and greenhouse gas emissions from the building were then analyzed using the monitored data. The case study evaluated the HVAC system performance with an air-cooled chiller with water cooling coils and a water boiler with water heating coils. The findings indicated an indoor overheating degree of 0.05 °C and an indoor overcooling degree of 0 °C for the observed period. The building's primary cooling energy use was found to be 37.54 kWhPE/m2.a and primary heating energy use was found to be 46.08 kWhPE/m2.a for the monitored period. The cooling and heating greenhouse gas emissions were 10.14 kg.CO2e/m2.a and 8.34 kg.CO2e/m2.a, respectively. The observed data also indicated that the HVAC system in the building was operational throughout the monitoring period from May 2018 to April 2019, including a 24/7 schedule. Finally, the paper provided implications for practice and future work based on the study findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this initial study of a research project, this paper seeks to understand the thermal conditions in the cities of Lisbon and Munich, specifically focusing on Urban Heat Island intensity and on thermal comfort using the Universal Thermal Climate Index modeling data at the Local Climate Zone scale. Based on these datasets, Munich has exhibited more unfavourable thermal conditions than Lisbon. In terms of UHII, both cities have shown that low, medium, and high rise compact urban areas and bare rock or paved areas have the highest values, while sparsely built areas have the lowest. These results differ from the UTCI, which indicates that in Lisbon and Munich, these sparsely built areas as well as areas with low plants and vegetation are the most uncomfortable. In Munich, the population was exposed to very strong heat stress, while Lisbon experienced strong heat stress conditions. Conversely, low, medium, and high rise compact urban areas and densely wooded areas in Munich, and scattered trees areas and large low-rise urban areas in Lisbon, have demonstrated the lowest monthly mean and average maximum values. These results will be further explored in future studies in the city of Lisbon and cross-checked with data obtained from roving missions. This will enable a more detailed temporal and local analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecuador is a country with several climate zones. However, their behaviour is similar throughout the year, with no peaks of extreme temperatures in the various seasons. This paper is a first approach to study the adaptive comfort behaviour in several areas and populations of the country. Considering the ASHRAE 55-2020 model, energy simulation programmes are applied not just to the current climate scenario but also to the climate change scenarios of 2050 and 2100. The results of locations are analysed and compared to determine their performance. Thanks to their climate characteristics, adaptive comfort models could be applied as a passive strategy, using natural ventilation for building indoor comfort improvement, particularly social dwellings. According to previous studies, some prototypes have not considered the climate determinants in each region. Given the geographic situation of the study areas, the adaptive comfort model could be applied in all cases. Percentages of application of natural ventilation and heating and cooling degree hours have similar behaviours according to the climatic region, with a variation greater than 30% among them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the potential groundwater assessment and sustainable management in the selected study area. It is the most preferred water source in all climatic zones for its convenient availability, drought dependability, excellent quality, and low development cost. The rural areas, which account for more than 85% of the country's population, encountered a shortage of potable water supply which can be solved by proper groundwater utilization. For the present study area, the groundwater potential is assessed and analysed. Thus, the study area falls into four potential groundwater zones ranging from poor to high. However, the current groundwater management practices in the study area are poor. Despite the pervasive and devastating challenges, immediate and proper responses have not yet been given to the problem. Thus, such frustrating threats and challenges have initiated the researcher to work in the project area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a thermal performance assessment of traditional building constructions and configurations in various Moroccan climates is carried out. This research focuses on enhancing conventional energy efficiency of buildings by investigating the thermal behavior of single clay walls, double clay walls, simple brick walls, and double brick walls based on long-term meteorological data using TRNSYS software. The roof pitch, thermal comfort and discomfort index, and building energy consumption are considered while selecting buildings for each temperature zone. It is noticed that the double brick construction is more efficient in all climatic zones of Morocco. Thus, this material reduces the yearly energy requirement of building by 22% to 25% compared to the usual brick building. On the coldest winter days, a 30° south-facing roof raises the internal temperature by 2.5 °C compared to a horizontal roof. Temperature increases could reduce the air conditioning energy usage by 7% to 32% and overcooling hours by 12% to 21% in cities above 30° N. In addition, the findings are interesting enough to inspire individuals to implement the recommended construction design and study energy efficiency and thermal comfort in Moroccan buildings. Consequently, reducing energy consumption, mitigating climate change, and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The separation models are tools used in solar engineering to estimate direct normal (DNI) and diffuse horizontal (DHI) solar irradiances from measurements of global solar irradiance (GHI). This paper proposes two empirical separation models that stand out owing to their simple mathematical formulation: a rational polynomial equation. Validation of the new models was carried out against data from 36 locations, covering the four major climatic zones. Five current top minute-scale separation models were considered references. The tests were performed on the final products of the estimation: DNI and DHI. The first model (M1) operates with eight predictors (evaluated from GHI post-processed measurements and clear-sky counterpart estimates) and constantly outperforms the already established models. The second model (M2) operates with three predictors based only on GHI measurements, which gives it a high degree of accessibility. Based on a statistical linear ranking method according to the models' performance at every station, M1 leads the hierarchy, ranking first in both DNI and DHI estimation. The high accessibility of the M2 does not compromise accuracy; it is proving to be a real competitor in the race with the best-performing current models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Space heating accounts for a large part of building energy consumption. Lowering the heating temperature set-point (Tsp) is expected to be a feasible approach for energy efficiency. In this paper, eight globally typical cities are selected, and the energy-saving mechanism and variation trends of lowering heating Tsp are investigated under different working conditions (climate conditions, construction completion year and inner heat sources). The results show that significant energy-saving effects even appear in the relatively warm-winter cities. The energy-saving mechanism is dominated by two different categories of heating hours including the temperature-difference saving (TDS) hours and the behavioral saving (BS) hours. The contribution of TDS and BS to the whole annual heating energy saving amount (HSA) depends on the reducing level of heating hours. The HSA of lowing Tsp is mainly affected by TDS influence. After coupling the consideration of different factors, with the decreasing annual HSA of buildings, the dominance of the TDS influence mechanism shrinks gradually while the annual heating energy saving ratio (HSR) increases. This work provides the analysis method for building heating energy saving potential evaluation and reference for the establishment of standards and residents' behavioral energy saving in different climatic zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates the influence of solar activity on GPS measurement accuracy, and, more specifically, its interaction with the ionosphere. The study spanned from 2002 to 2018, coinciding with the 11-year solar cycle. The focus was to assess the effects of solar activity on GPS time series: north, east, and vertical components. Monthly throughout this period, three-day GPS campaign data, encompassing the solar cycle, were collected. Using a global network of 40 GPS stations from the International GNSS Service, the study categorised stations into six regions based on climate zones, so as to address regional differences. Data were further segmented into 8- and 12-hour periods, thus creating new data sets to examine variability in measurement accuracy. The Precise Point Positioning module of the GIPSY-OASIS software (developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) was employed to analyse the data. The research also explored the relationship between solar activity, quantified by the number of sunspots, and the correlation between the phase ambiguity resolution ratio and standard error of GPS coordinate components. The results highlighted a significant inverse correlation between solar activity and GPS signals, ranging from moderately strong (-0.50) to relatively strong (-0.80), hence implying that greater solar activity corresponds to lower GPS accuracy. This phenomenon results from ionospheric effects on signal propagation, which induce errors such as delays and phase fluctuations in GPS signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exponential growth of urban populations and city infrastructure globally presents distinct patterns, impacting climate change forecasts and urban climates. This study conducts a systematic review of the literature focusing on human thermal comfort (HTC) in outdoor urban environments. The findings indicate a significant surge in studies exploring HTC in open urban spaces in recent decades. While historically centered on Northern Hemisphere cities, there is a recent shift, with discussions extending to various metropolitan contexts in the Southern Hemisphere. Commonly employed urban categorization systems include Sky View Factor (SVF), Height × Width (H/W) ratio, and the emerging Local Climate Zones (LCZs), facilitating the characterization of urban areas and their usage. Various thermal indices, like Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET), Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI), and Standard Effective Temperature (SET), are frequently utilized in evaluating external HTC in metropolitan areas. These indices have undergone validation in the literature, establishing their reliability and applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the acceleration of urbanization, the environment and climate necessary for our survival have gradually deteriorated, leading to the increasing prominence of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification, as a standard of urban morphology, has become an essential tool for monitoring the UHI effect and conducting temperature studies. Deep Learning (DL) models have the ability to represent high-level semantic features. Therefore, this paper proposes amixed scene unmixing DL framework for LCZ mapping and analysis using Very High Resolution (VHR) remote sensing images. This framework consists of a two-stream deep network, including a pure scene classification network (PS-Net) and a mixed scene unmixing network (MSU-Net). We conducted random sampling tests in Wuhan, China in the experiment A. The results show that this model achieved a satisfactory accuracy with the Overall Accuracies (OAs) is 96.78% and a mixed scene unmixing Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.0495. Furthermore, we applied the proposed model to generate LCZ map for five districts in Wuhan in the experiment B. The test accuracy between two experiments differs very slightly. These results demonstrate the applicability and potential of our model for LCZ mapping and urban climate analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban heat island effect exacerbates the vulnerability of cities to climate change, emphasizing the need for sustainable urban planning driven by data evidence. In the last decade, the Local Climate Zone (LCZ) model emerged as a key tool for categorizing urban landscapes, aiding in the development of urban temperature mitigation strategies. In this work, the contribution of hyperspectral satellite imagery to LCZ mapping, leveraging the Italian Space Agency (ASI)'s PRISMA satellite, is investigated. Mapping performances are compared with traditional multispectral-based LCZ mapping using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. The Random Forest algorithm is utilized for LCZ classification, with evaluation conducted through spectral separability analysis and accuracy assessment between PRISMA and Sentinel-2 derived LCZ maps as well as with the benchmark LCZ Generator mapping tool. An initial experiment on the effect of PRISMA image pan-sharpening on LCZ spectral separability is also presented. Results obtained for Milan (Northern Italy) demonstrate the potential of hyperspectral imagery in enhancing LCZ identification compared to multispectral data, with promising improvements in LCZ maps overall accuracy. Finally, air temperature patterns within each LCZ class are explored, qualitatively confirming the influence of urban morphology on thermal comfort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lucerne is regarded as the best legume crop for forage to be cultivated in South Africa. It is commonly used to produce good quality hay. It also plays an important role in soil conservation, regeneration, and crop rotation systems as it supplies substantial amounts of nitrogen to succeeding crops through symbiotic N2 fixation, which makes it the preferable choice for intensive forage production systems. Fertilizer in liquid inoculant formulations has demonstrated to contribute growth and yield increase for leguminous crops. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to determine the effects of Sinorhizobium meliloti liquid formulation inoculation on the growth, yield, and nitrogen content in lucerne. The strain RF14 (Sinorhizobium meliloti) was collected from the Agricultural Research Council at Roodeplaat (Plant Health and Protection located (East), Pretoria (South Africa). The liquid inoculant contained 6.5 × 109 viable cells mL−1. According to the Kooen–Gieger climatic classification, the experiments were conducted on two different climatic zones. The first site was in Bronkhorspruit (Blesbokfontein farm) in the Gauteng province and the second was in Hartbeesfontein (Rietfontein Farm) in the Northwest province. The results showed that lucerne inoculation with liquid inoculant formulation of Sinorhizobium meliloti significantly increased nodule number, size, growth, and yield in both bioclimatic zones. The significantly increased were compared to the negative control. The Sinorhizobium meliloti inoculant increased nitrogen accumulation in all inoculated treatments compared to the control. The finding of this research provides important information on the impact of rhizobium microbial inoculant application in the improvement of soil fertility through nodule formation. In addition, seed vigor improvement was translated in overall growth and yield increase in lucerne plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings account for nearly one-third of overall energy consumption in today's world energy status, in which a considerable part is used for indoor conditioning. Energy efficiency enhancement of buildings components and technologies is a key priority, given the essential need for carbon neutrality and climate change mitigation around the world. Exterior wall insulation is considered as the most effective technology for protecting buildings against continual ambient fluctuations. Proper design and implementation of wall insulation would lead to performance enhancement, energy conservation as well as improved thermal comfort. They can also protect building structures against corrosion and heat fatigue, extending the life of buildings. There are many different types of thermal insulation materials currently on the market, each with its own set of thermal qualities and functionality. This paper aims to examine the qualities, benefits, and drawbacks of several exterior wall insulation technologies, and provide recommendations for how to use various forms of exterior wall insulation in different climates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropower plays an essential role in Europe's energy transition and can serve as an important factor in the stability of the electricity system. This is even more crucial in areas that rely strongly on renewable energy production, for instance, solar and wind power, as for example the Peloponnese and the Ionian islands in Greece. To safeguard hydropower's contribution to total energy production, an accurate prediction of the annual precipitation is required. Valuable tools to obtain accurate predictions of future observations are firstly a series of sophisticated data preprocessing techniques and secondly the use of advanced machine learning algorithms. In the present paper, a complete procedure is proposed to obtain accurate predictions of meteorological data, such as precipitation. This procedure is applied to the Greek automated weather stations network, operated by the National Observatory of Athens, in the Peloponnese and the Ionian islands in Greece. The proposed prediction algorithm successfully identified the climatic zones based on their different geographic and climatic characteristics for most meteorological stations, resulting in realistic precipitation predictions. For some stations, the algorithm underestimated the annual total precipitation, a weakness also reported by other research works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing climate change processes and increasing environmental pressure suggest the need to adjust the wine production systems worldwide to the new conditions while reducing their environmental pressure. The grapes' cultivation phase may be influenced by expected changes. It follows that existing grape wine cultivation systems should be analyzed to identify major 'hotspots' and opportunities for change. Several studies have analyzed materials, energy inputs, and related emissions along the grape wine life cycle. However, most research focuses on traditional grape wine growing areas, and no study has yet focused on grape wine grown in unconventional desert areas. The research presented in this paper analyzed the carbon footprint (CF) of grapes grown in the Mediterranean, semi-arid, and arid climatic regions in the state of Israel. It revealed that, on average, a ton of grapes generates 342 kg CO2 eq from the cradle to the farm gate. The product was analyzed using a life-cycle approach, with the aim of studying the CF of each phase according. Most emissions were found to be related to the use of fertilizers (37%), fuel for transportation and mechanization (19%), and water supply (17%). The CF of grapes in the arid region was found to be the highest at 361 kg CO2 eq compared to 317 kg CO2 eq in the semi-arid region and 346 kg CO2 eq in the Mediterranean region. The analysis emphasizes the arid and semi-arid potential to reduce its CF by implementing farm management practices, including the choice of grape varieties, changing vineyard infrastructure, fertilizers, water management, and more. As presented here, understanding cropping systems in these regions can promote a better adaptation of the cropping systems to the changing conditions around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper frequency analysis of annual extreme daily rainfall of 14 gauging stations located in an arid zone of Iran were performed using parametric and nonparametric approaches. The parametric methods include normal, two- and three-parameter log-normal, two-parameter gamma, Pearson and log-Pearson type III, extreme value type I (Gumbel), generalized extreme value and generalized logistic distributions. The nonparametric approach is Fourier series method. The data were fitted to all of above mentioned models and the results showed that the goodness of fit of the data to Fourier series is much better than other parametric methods. Thus the Fourier series can be used as an alternative approach for frequency analysis of extreme daily rainfall in an arid zone. In addition, the quantiles can be calculated by the Fourier series. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]