¿És d'interès públic mantenir una xarxa de seguiment de ratpenats als espais naturals protegits de l'Alt Empordà?

Entre els anys 2001 a 2009 s’han realitzat diverses campanyes d’estudi de ratpenats a l’Alt Empordà, sobretot en espais naturals protegits. A banda d’unes 300 nits de camp, s’han realitzat nou conferències, s’ha editat material didàctic i generat desenes de notícies. Durant aquest període, s’han citat 25 espècies de ratpenats (86% de les catalanes). A l’Albera i l’AltaGarrotxa és on s’han trobat més espècies, segurament a causa de l’elevada diversitat d’hàbitats i presència de boscos ben conservats. Entre els diferents espais naturals, s’hi ha pogut confirmar connectivitat, sobretot gràcies als corredors fluvials amb vegetació de ribera existents. En general, aquest estudi mostra l’interès dels ratpenats com a bioindicadors de la qualitat del nostre entorn i convida investigadors i gestors a continuar fent campanyes de divulgació i sensibilitzacióBetween 2001 and 2009, several field studies on bats have been carried out in the Alt Empordà region, especially in protected areas. Besides 300 nights in the field, nine conferences were held, educational material has been edited and dozens of news articles have been published. During this period, 25 species of bats (86% of Catalan species) have been cited.Most species were found in the Albera mountain range and the Alta Garrotxa region, surely because of their elevated diversity of habitats and the presence of wellconserved forests. A connection between the different natural parks has been confirmed thanks to the river corridors and their vegetation. In general, this study is interested in bats as bioindicators of environmental quality and invites researchers and managers to continue outreach and awareness campaigns

The District Energy-Efficient Retrofitting of Torrelago (Laguna de Duero – Spain)

The urban growth is estimated to reach up the 66 % by 2050 and consequently the need of resources within the cities will increase significantly. This, combined with the 40 % of energy consumption and 36 % of CO2 emissions of the building sector, makes necessary to accelerate the transition towards more sustainable cities. The CITyFiED project contributes to this transition, aiming to develop an innovative and holistic methodological approach for energy-efficient district renovation and deliver three large scale demonstration cases in the cities of Lund (Sweden), Laguna de Duero (Spain) and Soma (Turkey). CITyFiED methodology consists of several phases that ease the decision-making tasks towards the district renovation, considering the energy efficiency as the main pillar and local authorities as clients. For the case of Torrelago district (Spain) the intervention consists of a set of energy conservative measures including the facąde retrofitting of 143.025 m2 of living space in 31 twelve-storey buildings; the renovation of the district heating network with a new biomass thermal plant; the integration of renewable energy sources, including a micro-cogeneration system, and the installation of individual smart meters. After the renovation action, one-year monitoring campaign is ongoing. The CITyFiED monitoring platform will collect information from the energy systems and deliver environmental, technical, economic and social key performance indicators by March 2019. At the end of the project the achievement of the predefined goals will be verified: Up to 36 % of energy saving and 3,429 tons-CO2/yr emissions saving covering the 59,4 % of the energy consumption with renewable sources.The research and results presented in this paper evolve from activities related to the CITyFiED project, which has received funding from the European Commission under the Grant Agreement no. 609129. This article is the result of cooperative research work of many experts from various countries and we would like to gratefully acknowledge the rest of the CITyFiED partners

Assessment of urban-scale potential for solar PV generation and consumption

The rise of grid electricity price and a growing awareness of climate change is resulting in an increasing number of photovoltaic facilities installed in buildings. Electricity market regulation and climatic conditions, in particular solar radiation, are the main factors that determine the economic viability of a photovoltaic facility. This paper describes a method for evaluating the potential for photovoltaic (PV) production and self-consumption for the building stock of a particular city. A GIS 3D city map is used to calculate solar irradiation. Building-level electricity use is calculated based on building type, geometry and other characteristic inferred from building age, taking the cadastre GIS as main input. The methodology identifies the realistic potential for rooftop photovoltaic installations, as well as the optimum size to be installed from an economic perspective. To represent different regulations that can affect economic viability of PV installations, calculations should adapt for the specific installation conditions and regulatory situation, as for example self-consumption and net metering. The proposed methodology is applied to a case study in Irun (Spain), where results for potential of PV generation and self-consumption for the building stock are presented. The results offer public administration a realistic view of economically viable PV potential for the city and allow to analyse different mechanisms to promote their installations. It also serves for individual electricity consumers to evaluate and optimize new photovoltaic energy facilities. Finally, it serves policy makers to estimate the repercussion of electricity market regulations on the economic viability of PV systems.The work described in this article is partially funded by the PLANHEAT project, Grant Agreement Number 723757, 2016-2019, as part of the call H2020-EE-2016-RIA-IA. This study was also supported by “Irungo Udala - Ayuntamiento de Irun” who collaborated in the data acquisition and funding

Tachyonic preheating using 2PI-1/N dynamics and the classical approximation

We study the process of tachyonic preheating using approximative quantum equations of motion derived from the 2PI effective action. The O(N) scalar (Higgs) field is assumed to experience a fast quench which is represented by an instantaneous flip of the sign of the mass parameter. The equations of motion are solved numerically on the lattice, and the Hartree and 1/N-NLO approximations are compared to the classical approximation. Classical dynamics is expected to be valid, since the occupation numbers can rise to large values during tachyonic preheating. We find that the classical approximation performs excellently at short and intermediate times, even for couplings in the larger region currently allowed for the SM Higgs. This is reassuring, since all previous numerical studies of tachyonic preheating and baryogenesis during tachyonic preheating have used classical dynamics. We also compare different initializations for the classical simulations.Comment: 32 pages, 21 figures. Published version: Some details added, section added, references added, conclusions unchange

Metodología de selección de especies de arbolado para el sombreado urbano en la parte oriental de la cornisa Cantábrica

The mitigation of the Urban Heat Island is one of the biggest future challenges in cities due to climate change. One of the methods to achieve the cooling of urban spaces is the attenuation of solar radiation provided by the trees. In the present article, a methodology of selection of arboreal species is proposed for the improvement of thermal comfort in urbanized areas of the eastern part of the Cantabrian coast. Starting from a pre-selection of native species, a classification of various species suitable for shading is obtained, describing its main characteristics and its possible use scope according to the typology of urban space.La mitigación del efecto Isla de Calor es uno de los mayores retos del futuro en las ciudades debido al cambio climático. Uno de los métodos para conseguir el enfriamiento de los espacios urbanos es la atenuación de radiación solar proporcionada por el arbolado. En el presente artículo se plantea una metodología de selección de especies arbóreas para la mejora del confort térmico en zonas urbanizadas de la parte oriental de la cornisa cantábrica. Partiendo de una preselección de especies autóctonas, se obtiene una clasificación de diversas especies aptas para el sombreado describiéndose sus principales características y su posible ámbito de utilización en función de la tipología de espacio urbano

Detecting the presence-absence of bluefin tuna by automated analysis of medium-range sonars on fishing vessels

This study presents a methodology for the automated analysis of commercial medium-range sonar signals for detecting presence/absence of bluefin tuna (Tunnus thynnus) in the Bay of Biscay. The approach uses image processing techniques to analyze sonar screenshots. For each sonar image we extracted measurable regions and analyzed their characteristics. Scientific data was used to classify each region into a class (“tuna” or “no-tuna”) and build a dataset to train and evaluate classification models by using supervised learning. The methodology performed well when validated with commercial sonar screenshots, and has the potential to automatically analyze high volumes of data at a low cost. This represents a first milestone towards the development of acoustic, fishery-independent indices of abundance for bluefin tuna in the Bay of Biscay. Future research lines and additional alternatives to inform stock assessments are also discussed