Exploring the Relationship between Environmental and Economic Payback Times, and Heritage Values in an Energy Renovation of a Multi-Residential Pre-War Building

Cultural value and heritage have been identified as necessary for a sustainable living environment, alongside environmental concern and energy efficiency. In this study, multiple methods, i.e., life cycle assessment, payback, and questionnaires and interviews with tenants, and empirical data from a recent energy renovation of a multi-residential pre-war building with wooden construction were used to analyse the impact of the renovation on cultural and aesthetic values, environmental impact, financial payback time, and user satisfaction. In the energy renovation, the fa\ue7ade, which had been disfigured in an earlier renovation, was recreated to resemble the original architecture. The main questions are: What impact has the recreation of the fa\ue7ade on the environmental payback time in comparison to a more conventional renovation? What are the consequences for the user satisfaction and financial return on investment? The results show that the recreated fa\ue7ade has improved the building’s aesthetics without compromising the environmental benefits. It also resulted in better thermal comfort, which is highly valued by the tenants. The improved aesthetics are also appreciated by the tenants, but to a lesser extent. Financially, the renovation is estimated to be not viable. Results of this study can be applied in the decision-making of similar renovation project

Value creation by re-renovation – focus on the user perspective

Historic multi-residential buildings that have been renovated at an earlier occasion are today facing new interventions. Re-renovation defines a concept for a second major renovation which opens up for the possibility of re-creating architectural and heritage values that has been lost in earlier renovations at the same time as demands for modernisation, energy efficiency, and economy are met. This paper focuses on what values heritage and historic buildings represent for residents, how they perceive the effects of energy renovation, what building elements they appreciate, and the implications for carrying out re-renovation. An empirical study of two cases with rental and owner-occupied housing has been applied combing a questionnaire survey (n= 83) and interviews (n=9). Findings indicate that historic buildings create values for their residents which should be considered by property owners when planning a renovation or re-renovation. Methodologically, asking residents about heritage values is challenging and the paper provides suggestions for further research in the field

Value creation by re-renovation – focus on the user perspective

Historic multi-residential buildings that have been renovated at an earlier occasion are today facing new interventions. Re-renovation defines a concept for a second major renovation which opens up for the possibility of re-creating architectural and heritage values that has been lost in earlier renovations at the same time as demands for modernisation, energy efficiency, and economy are met. This paper focuses on what values heritage and historic buildings represent for residents, how they perceive the effects of energy renovation, what building elements they appreciate, and the implications for carrying out re-renovation. An empirical study of two cases with rental and owner-occupied housing has been applied combing a questionnaire survey (n= 83) and interviews (n=9). Findings indicate that historic buildings create values for their residents which should be considered by property owners when planning a renovation or re-renovation. Methodologically, asking residents about heritage values is challenging and the paper provides suggestions for further research in the field

CryoSat instrument performance and ice product quality status

Over the past 20 years, satellite radar altimetry has shown its ability to revolutionise our understanding of the ocean and climate. Previously, these advances were largely limited to ice-free regions, neglecting large portions of the Polar Regions. Launched in 2010, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) polar-orbiting CryoSat satellite was specifically designed to measure changes in the thickness of polar sea ice and the elevation of the ice sheets and mountain glaciers. To reach this goal, the CryoSat products have to meet the highest performance standards, achieved through continual improvements of the associated Instrument Processing Facilities. Since April 2015, the CryoSat ice products are generated with Baseline-C, which represented a major processor upgrade. Several improvements were implemented in this new Baseline, most notably the release of freeboard data within the Level 2 products. The Baseline-C upgrade has brought significant improvements to the quality of Level-1B and Level-2 products relative to the previous Baseline-B products, which in turn is expected to have a positive impact on the scientific exploitation of CryoSat measurements over land ice and sea ice. This paper provides an overview of the CryoSat ice data quality assessment and evolutions, covering all quality control and calibration activities performed by ESA and its partners. Also discussed are the forthcoming evolutions of the processing chains and improvements anticipated in the next processing Baseline

Hf–Zr anomalies in clinopyroxene from mantle xenoliths from France and Poland: implications for Lu–Hf dating of spinel peridotite lithospheric mantle

Clinopyroxenes in some fresh anhydrous spinel peridotite mantle xenoliths from the northern Massif Central (France) and Lower Silesia (Poland), analysed for a range of incompatible trace elements by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, show unusually strong negative anomalies in Hf and Zr relative to adjacent elements Sm and Nd, on primitive mantle-normalised diagrams. Similar Zr–Hf anomalies have only rarely been reported from clinopyroxene in spinel peridotite mantle xenoliths worldwide, and most are not as strong as the examples reported here. Low Hf contents give rise to a wide range of Lu/Hf ratios, which over geological time would result in highly radiogenic εHf values, decoupling them from εNd ratios. The high 176Lu/177Hf could in theory produce an isochronous relationship with 176Hf/177Hf over time; an errorchron is shown by clinopyroxene from mantle xenoliths from the northern Massif Central. However, in a review of the literature, we show that most mantle spinel peridotites do not show such high Lu/Hf ratios in their constituent clinopyroxenes, because they lack the distinctive Zr–Hf anomaly, and this limits the usefulness of the application of the Lu–Hf system of dating to garnet-free mantle rocks. Nevertheless, some mantle xenoliths from Poland or the Czech Republic may be amenable to Hf-isotope dating in the future

Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the ‘‘Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Altimetry for the future: building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the “Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Strategies for an Integrated Sustainable Renovation Process: Focus on the Swedish Housing stock ‘People’s Home’

This study focuses on elaboration of scenario parameters to support strategies for an integrated renovation process of culturally valuable pre-boom housing stock from the People’s Home(Folkhemmet) period i.e. 1945-1960 in Sweden. This stock, now in focus for renovations, combinesolder craftsmanship with thorough planning on a neighborhood level. Their qualities refer to aesthetics, material use, living qualities and efficient use of space. Present renovation strategies often reduce the complexity of the problem to technological and energy saving measures in a short-term perspective. Integrated and differentiated strategies are needed in order to improve energy efficiency and environmental performance, whilst respecting and safeguarding potential loss of invaluable cultural, architectural and social values (immaterial values). This paper presents a model to identify and describe both material and immaterial parameters which need to be known,valued and balanced in integrated sustainable renovation of the People’s Home housing stock. The model covers ten areas: (a) general description, (b) architectural quality, (c) social quality, (d)cultural quality, (e) technical description, (f) technical performance, (g) functional performance, (h)environmental performance, (i) economic performance, and (j) renovation process quality. A specialattention is given to our exploration to define and describe immaterial values such as architectural, cultural and social qualities