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Due to rapid urbanisation, urban microclimate research has become increasingly popular in the last decade. Significant variation in microclimate conditions can be created due to diversity in urban geometry and it can affect outdoor thermal comfort. Biometeorological measurements and survey were conducted in different urban settings (square, park, street) of the city of Novi Sad during a warm autumn day in October 2019. Air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and globe temperature, but also outdoor thermal comfort indices such as Mean Radiant Temperature (Tmrt) and Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) were obtained for each location. The largest differences in the biometeorological conditions are noticed between the urban park and other urban areas. The maximum average value of Ta was at the city square with 27.9 oC, while in the urban park and street Ta were about 25 oC. The values of RH were the lowest at the city square. Globe temperature (Tg) had the highest values, on average, at the city square (about 40 oC), while the average values in the urban park and street were about 26-28 oC. The highest average PET values are registered at the city square (41.4 oC), followed by substantially lower average PET registered in urban park (27.1 oC) and urban street canyon (26.2 oC). The analysis showed that during about 70% of the time, urban dwellers experience extreme heat stress at the city square. Contrary to that, no extreme heat stress is noticed in urban park and street canyon.

Urban and rural thermal properties mainly depend on surface cover features as well as vegetation cover. Surface classification using the local climate zone (LCZ) system provides an appropriate approach for distinguishing urban and rural areas, as well as comparing the surface urban heat island (SUHI) of climatically different regions. Our goal is to compare the SUHI effects of two Central European cities (Szeged, Hungary and Novi Sad, Serbia) with a temperate climate (Köppen-Geiger’s Cfa), and a city (Beer Sheva, Israel) with a hot desert (BWh) climate. LCZ classification is completed using WUDAPT (World Urban Database and Access Portal Tools) methodology and the thermal differences are analysed on the basis of the land surface temperature data of the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensor, derived on clear days over a four-year period. This intra-climate region comparison shows the difference between the SUHI effects of Szeged and Novi Sad in spring and autumn. As the pattern of NDVI (Normalised Difference Vegetation Index) indicates, the vegetation coverage of the surrounding rural areas is an important modifying factor of the diurnal SUHI effect, and can change the sign of the urban-rural thermal difference. According to the inter-climate comparison, the urban-rural thermal contrast is the strongest during daytime in summer with an opposite sign in each season.

Hot summers with several intensive heat waves lead to strong heat-related mortality in Central and Southeast European cities. Therefore, the aim of the study was to evaluate association between maximum temperature and mortality during the summer period in 2015 and to contribute to the future long-term assessment of heat-related mortality in urban population. The daily number of deaths of all causes and cause-specific mortality for the population of Novi Sad were used, as well as hourly air temperature data from the Novi Sad urban network (NSUNET) system. Four heat waves were detected using the Huth and Kysely methods. Three heat wave periods lasted longer than ten days. In July and August, 45% of days had a maximum temperature above 30 ºC, and more than 70% of days had a maximum temperature above 25 ºC. The average number of deaths was higher during the heat wave days. Significant association was found between Tmax and all-cause, cardiorespiratory, non-cardiorespiratory in total population, all-cause and cardiorespiratory mortality in the age group 65 and over. This study demonstrates a high magnitude of relation between mortality and temperature. Finally, the results show that population in urban areas is highly vulnerable during heat waves.

Due to excessive pollution, Veliki bački Canal (VBC) was turned into an open collection system for wastewater from food industry, farms and settlements. This lead to classification of the canal as a pollution "black spot" in Danube basin. As there is high percentage of residents living alongside the canal, VBC could represent potential health risk. In order to conduct an environmental assessment of the region, local residents' attitudes are being investigated through questionnaire in ten settlements (500 respondents). The results are indicating that local residents perceive the canal as extremely polluted, mainly due to industry and its by-products. Respondents claim that current state of the canal could have harmful effects to their health, as there are frequent reports of oil spills, dead fish and odor. Extremely negative attitude is reported among the residents of Vrbas, where the most is polluted section of the canal. Questionnaire reveals that most of the respondents are willing to participate in actions of cleaning VBC, which indicates high environmental awareness.

This paper presents development and implementation of an automated urban climate monitoring system in mid-sized European city Novi Sad (Vojvodina, Serbia). The urban climate monitoring network contains 27 stations (25 in urban area and 2 in non-urbanized environment). To determine the representativeness station cites we used Stewart-Oke Local Climate Zones (LCZ) classification, authors' local knowledge and field surveys to delineate urban area and surrounding environments. For LCZ determination we used Lelovics-Gál automated GIS (Geographic Information System) method. Stations measure the values and every 10 minutes send the readings related to air temperature, relative humidity, battery voltage, status value and other technical information to the main server. In order for the data stored in database server to be ready for usage in urban climate studies and for analyzing entire systems' work, we created Urban Path System tool (UP-SYS_tool) and URBAN-PATH Portal. Furthermore, the automatic data procession system visualizes the measured values from urban climate monitoring network in Novi Sad and informs the citizens about the most recent temperature, relative humidity and thermal comfort measurements. These, in situ measurements should provide long-term time series in order to highlight the thermal differences among different urban structures in city/es (intra-urban and inter-urban comparisons), and contribute to better understanding of urban climate in the urban canopy layer.

In the second part of the 20th century, urbanization accelerated and reached enormous magnitude, which results more and more people live in urbanized regions. Nowadays, about half of the human population is affected by the burdens of urban environments and furthermore the modified parameters of the urban atmosphere compared to the natural environment. Novi Sad (45°15’N, 19°50’E) is located in the northern part of Serbia, i.e. on the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and it is the second largest city in the country with a population of about 320,000 in a built-up area of approximately 80 km2. The geographical area is plain, from 80 to 86 m a.s.l., with a gentle relief, so its climate is free from orographic effects. According to Köppen-Geiger climate classification, this region is categorised as Cfa climate (temperate warm climate with a rather uniform annual distribution of precipitation). In the last 20 years, a few papers have been published considering urban heat island (UHI) investigations of Novi Sad. The first publication in 1994 is theoretically based and presents all parameters, methods and measurements, which have to be used in order to work on UHI research of Novi Sad. The next studies from 1995 and 2006 analyzed various temperature parameters based on 30-40 year long time series and used rural and urban stations in order to get urban-rural temperature differences. Based on meteorological parameters and the structure of urban area, in 2010 the necessity of defining locations of an urban climate network was showed in order to advance further UHI research. In the last two publications from 2011 a new empirical modeling method, adjusted for cities located on plains, has been used in order to determine locations for representative stations of an urban climate network in Novi Sad.

Conventional approach in the investigation of urban climate of Novi Sad has been done through simple urban-rural air temperature differences. These inter-urban air temperature differences showed how much is city warmer than its surroundings, so-called urban heat island (UHI) effect. Temperature differences exist inside the city as well. To get to know the intensity of these intra-urban temperature differences, installation of meteorological stations in different parts of the city or mobile measurements are needed. In 2012 started IPA HUSRB project made by Department of Climatology and Landscape Ecology (University of Szeged) and Faculty of Sciences (University of Novi Sad). The main goal of this project is the development and installation of wireless urban meteorological network (temperature and relative humidity sensors) in Szeged and Novi Sad. Before the deployment of sensors, necessary metadata about each potential urban meteorological station site needs to be collected. Field work, collected metadata and Stewart and Oke climate-based classification system from 2012 were used for defining the potential urban meteorological stations sites on the territory of the city of Novi Sad (Serbia) and its surroundings.

Šid municipality is situated in the south-western part of Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (north­western Serbia). Four geomorphological units are represented on its territory: The Fruška Gora Mountain, Srem loess plateau, Srem loess terrace and alluvial plains of river Sava and its tributaries. The largest part of Šid municipality consists of the early Quaternary sediments of intergranular porosity which form the water collecting environment for the phreatic aquifer. Because of the incomplete database, the main goals of this paper are restricted on defining basic characteristics of water regime of the phreatic aquifer in Šid municipality and their causal connection with the climatic, hydrological and anthropogenic factors. The results showed the prevailing presence of climatic type of the phreatic aquifer water regime in the study area, with fragmentary presence of climatic-hydrological type near rivers and climatic-anthropogenic type near and inside the city of Šid. Special emphasis is given to the inadequate phreatic water table depth monitoring in the study area. This situation prevents the detailed study of the phreatic aquifer water regime and estimating the exact directions of its outputs, which creates a significant problem that needs to be solved in the near future.

Within urban zones land cover, being the expression of human activities, could be greatly modificated by changes in urban surfaces. Land cover modifications can be measured with mathematical metrics that quantify different aspects of landscape pattern. This research examines land cover patches by a set of landscape metrics for area and size. (Number of patches - NP, CA - Class area, Mean patch size - MPS, % - class ratio). The classification of land cover patches was based on Corine Land Cover 2006 (CLC2006) seamless vector data. The main goal of the research is to investigate the impact of artificial surfaces on Urban Heat Island (UHI) in the City of Novi Sad. The methodology is based on crossing of landscape and geographical approach to UHI research. UHI metrics of Novi Sad reveal strong human impact indicating direct proportional relation between presence of artificial surface areas and increased air temperatures.

Standard Normal Homogeneity Test (SNHT) was applied for the detection of inhomogeneities in the time series of mean monthly air temperature data for 7 stations in Vojvodina Province (North Serbia) for the period 1949-2010. In time series of two stations missing data have been found, but gaps do not exceed 5% of dataset. These gaps have been filled in with values from the three best correlated neighbouring stations. Seven series of the moving average multi-annual air temperature (48-month and 72-month span) have been investigated. For inhomogeneity detection of these time series AnClim software package has been used, while further analysis used various statistical and cartography methods. Reference series have been chosen from 4 to 6 stations, based on distance, similar altitudes and squared correlation coefficient higher than 0.9. SNHT has been applied for detecting abrupt homogeneity breaks. The critical level of the test was 95%. Detected break points were compared to metadata records in order to diagnose causes of featured inhomogeneities. That type of information was crucial for applying calculated corrections of investigated series. After the homogenization process, the adjustment values have been analysed. The breaks which are explained in metadata are related to the relocations of the stations and show mostly low correction values. Differences between average values of raw and homogenised monthly time series are mostly within range from 0 to 0.12°C. According to low difference data, the results present very similar linear trends of original and homogenised time series for all stations. Still, there are a substantial changes of spatial distribution patterns. The patterns for homogenised series seem more regular, due to successful application of homogenisation process, making the image of climate variations in Vojvodina more reliable.

The loess sequence preserved in the Požarevac brickyard in north‐eastern Serbia comprises eight loess units separated by seven paleosols. Geochronological investigation using amino acid racemization and luminescence dating support stratigraphic correlations of loess units L3, S2LL1 and L1 at the Požarevac section with loess of glacial cycles E [Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 10], D (MIS 9–8), C (MIS 7–6) and B (MIS 5–2) across central Europe. Correlation with the marine oxygen‐isotope stratigraphy and associated paleoclimatic inferences are further supported by magnetic susceptibility, particle size and carbonate content measured in Požarevac sediments. Malacological investigations at the Požarevac section reveal the continuous presence of the Chondrula tridens and Helicopsis striata faunal assemblages throughout the last 350 ka. The loess malacological fauna, which is characterized by the complete absence of cold‐resistant and cold‐preferring species, suggests a stable, dry and relatively warm glacial and interglacial climate, compared with other central European loess localities. Together these data suggest that the south‐eastern part of the Carpathian (Pannonian, Middle Danube) Basin was a refugium for warm‐preferring and xerophilous land‐snails during the generally unfavorable glacial climates of the late Middle and Late Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban climate monitoring system (UCMS) was established in Novi Sad (Serbia) in 2014 based on the Local Climate Zones (LCZs) classification system, GIS model calculations and field work. Seven built and two land cover LCZ types were delineated and 27 stations equipped with air temperature and relative humidity sensors were distributed across all LCZs. Suitability of the developed monitoring system for human outdoor thermal comfort research in different LCZs of the city and its surroundings was investigated during a heat wave period using Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) index. During the daytime (night-time) the highest thermal loads are present in open midrise (compact midrise) LCZ, while the most comfortable is LCZ A (dense trees) during the whole day. In general, the highest thermal loads are obtained in midrise, followed by low-rise, sparsely built, low plants and dense trees LCZs. All LCZs (except LCZ A - dense trees) had higher PET when compared to LCZ D (LCZ D - low plants) during evening and nocturnal hours with maximum difference of 7.1 °C (00 UTC) between LCZ 2 (compact midrise) and LCZ D (low plants). Contrary to this, LCZ D (low plants) had higher PET compared to the majority of LCZs during the daytime with maximum difference of 8.5 °C (9 UTC) when compared to LCZ A (dense trees). Furthermore, the smallest thermal comfort differences during heat wave occurred between LCZs with similar structure (i.e. open low-rise and large low-rise, compact midrise and compact low-rise) and cover (i.e. sparsely built and low plants). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rivers Danube, Sava and Tisa belong to the Black Sea river basin and they flow through many European countries, while in Serbia they flow through the Pannonian flatland. The water quality of these rivers, which is affected by complex anthropogenic activities and natural factors, is one of important factors that are taken into account in the evaluation of development sustainability of this region. Using the correlation analysis in this paper we tested the impact of air temperature as a natural factor on certain parameters indicating the water quality. A significant correlation was found between air temperature and total nitrogen oxides in the Danube of up to -0.744, namely of -0.740 on the Tisa, and -0.299 on the Sava. A significant correlation was found in electrical conductivity - up to -0.793 on the Danube, -0.226 on the Tisa, and 0.380 on the Sava. Correlation links were found between air temperature and oxygen, Biochemical oxygen demand, as well as suspended matters saturation percentage, but their correlation values are significantly lower. Based on the results of the research it was concluded that air temperature had low effect on changes in water quality during the year and that anthropogenic impact was far more dominant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses air temperature and crude death rate data from Belgrade in the period from 1888 to 2008, in order to show expected correlation. Basic statistical analysis demonstrates statistically significant correlation values between these parameters. The starting assumption was that people in earlier times were more sensitive to extreme cold temperatures, particularly in the winter season. Statistical results confirm previous mentioned assumptionparticularly in the period before the First World War. Further analysis showed that in the last twenty years, air temperatures and death rates have opposite correlation outcomes. Statistical analysis points out that, in the last twenty years, death rates are increasing more rapidly in the summer season, due to increasing frequencies of extreme air temperature events. KEY WORDS: geography, crude death rate, air temperature, seasonal impact, Belgrade, Serbia The article was submitted for publication on February 2,2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study we present interdisciplinary investigations of the Borkovac reservoir (Vojvodina, Serbia). The limnological characteristics of the reservoir were analysed in the scope of its sustainable use for irrigation, fishing and tourism. This multipurpose water accumulation has been established in 1975 as a part of regional hydrological system of the Fruška Gora mountain region. The main environmental problems recognized in this study were: water regime, intensive sedimentation in the reservoir, enhanced water eutrophycation and toxic cyanobacterial blooms. Observed environmental problems and proposed solutions in the case of the Borkovac accumulation including construction of the sediment precipitator at the Borkovac stream junction to lake, sediment removal, artificial water mixing and oxygenation, phosphorous inactivitation, different kinds of biomanipulations and biomass removal and introduction of ecoremedation methods could also be applied to other artificial water bodies of the Fruška Gora slopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]