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Coastal environment, its natural world, and humans, are besides climate change effects subject to significant pressures by maritime-related, tourism, energy, aquaculture, and other sectors, all resulting in chemical pollution of all environmental components, noise pollution, and visual pollution. Humans attempt to adapt, mainly through devising and applying technological solutions. The senses incorporate the environment into the body and there is a mismatch between the way senses evolved and present surroundings, causing the disruption of visual acuity, smell, taste, and hearing. The disruptions to sensory landscape have thus altered the relationships between the organisms and the environment. The perceptual world or 'umwelt' differs for each organism. The impacts of environmental alterations to sensory landscape disrupt human sensory functioning, resulting in health impacts. Habitat disturbance in aquatic environments caused by acidification, contaminants, noise, optical degradation, elevated temperature, and electromagnetic fields can severely impact animal sensory biology. The paper focuses on sensory system responses of both humans and the wildlife to anthropogenically-induced and climate changes, reviews the issues resulting therefrom, and proposes solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marine litter has been identified as one of major threats to marine ecosystems due to its environmental, economic, safety, health, and cultural impacts. The paper analyses the sources of marine litter and the obstacles to resolving the issue of pollution by marine litter. It addresses the quality of the national waste management concept as well as the efficiency of its implementation in the Republic of Croatia where the Adriatic Sea is subject to substantial pressure from littering. Resolving the problem of marine litter means adopting appropriate policy regarding waste generated at sea, marinas, cruising and fishing, and at land in line with circular economy principles. Findings of the study show that the country should be proactive in adopting policies to reduce and modify packaging and link the bioeconomy to the circular economy in achieving environmental and economic benefits in terms of materials and energy efficiency. Further research concerning all Mediterranean countries should integrate, in a holistic manner, municipal waste management, food packaging and food waste, marine litter, tourism, local agriculture, and local economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The description of sound as a form of energetic pollutant is very complex as is also its impact on aquatic life. Human activities causing continuous and implosive underwater noise, such as marine traffic, maintenance of ships, coastal tourism, marine research, military, offshore energy platforms, generation of ocean energies and construction operations are expected to increase. The paper analyses current approach to minimise the impact of underwater noise and limit its emissions, examines regulatory approach and discusses the possibilities to control this type of pollution in order to ensure the preservation of natural underwater soundscape. The timely implementation and further development of the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive and its provisions related to underwater noise is of exceptional importance for the Adriatic Sea, which is facing increasing pressure from various industries generating underwater noise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity as a planetary boundary and sustainability are strongly related to fish stocks and fisheries that are regulated by a number of sources of law with the aim of achieving their sustainability. The paper analyses current application, impact and effectiveness of the Common Fisheries Policy that sets the rules for fishing fleets management in the European Union and for fish stocks conservation as well as the 2020 Report on its implementation by the European Court of Auditors. It also examines the present and potential implementation and effects of Blue Growth, Marine Strategy Framework Directive, United Nations legal framework and Sustainable Development Goals on fisheries and aquaculture activities in the Adriatic Sea, a semi-enclosed and biodiversity rich sea. Improvements in implementing marine ecosystem approach and marine spatial planning are proposed in policy and regulatory framework, focusing on characteristics of the Adriatic Sea. Resilient solutions require placing more focus on characteristics of regional seas and applying site-specific tailor-made solutions and less complex but efficient governance for the seas which entail integrated approach to exploitation and preservation of the resources and their health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions produced by the fuel combustion in marine engines are one of major causes of the marine environment pollution and have negative impact on both human health and the environment. That impact is more pronounced for vessels which mostly operate near ports and inhabited areas, such as ro-ro passenger ships. In order to evaluate the environmental impact of a ship, a life cycle assessment of a ro-ro passenger vessel operating in the Adriatic Sea has been performed. Two different power system designs were investigated, i.e. lithium-ion battery-driven vessel and diesel engine-driven vessel. The analyses were performed by means of general LCA software GREET 2018, where the life cycle for both power system designs is divided in two stages: constitutive parts of the first stage are processes from life cycle of fuel without its use in vessel, while vessel operation represents the second stage. The analysis showed that diesel engine-driven vessel emits 79.740 kg CO2-eq/nm, versus battery-driven vessel with 27.471 kg CO2-eq/nm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) introduced Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) with an aim to improve energy efficiency of ships. At the same time, the advances in ship power system are oriented towards integrated power system (IPS) designs, which are characterized by centralized total energy production, application of electric propulsion engines and generally higher degree of waste heat utilization. After several years of EEDI implementation, among other difficulties, it became clear that prescribed approach cannot be simply applied to IPS. Based on the extensive analysis of different parameters influencing energy and ecological performances of various IPS configurations, a physically consistent methodology for evaluating energy efficiency of IPS and their effect on the environment is established. Moreover, a new Index of Energy Efficiency and Environmental Eligibility (I4E) is introduced quantifying the ship power system environmental impact, and its applicability to both conventional and IPS is confirmed. Finally, I4E policy implications are discussed, and within its application to a fleet of ro-ro passenger ships, it is confirmed that ships with IPS have lower environmental impact compared to the fleet average, and therefore are more desirable from environmental viewpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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High-pressure low-discharge axial piston pumps are commonly used for the dosage of fluids of various physical properties and can be found in numerous technical systems. The discharge characteristics of these pumps should be very precise and reliable. Experiments performed with a high-pressure low-discharge axial piston pump show that in the operating range of the discharge pressure and stroke length, the actual discharge of the pump deviates from the theoretical one by up to 35 %. The operation of non-return valves during the suction and discharge phases are analysed and the analytical expression that corrects this deviation is derived. The proposed expression predicts the measured discharge with a relative error of less than 3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]