Effect of the Distribution System on Drinking Water Quality

The overall objective of this paper is to characterise the main aspects of water quality deterioration in a distribution system. The effect of residence time on chlorine uptake and the formation and evolution of disinfection by-products in distributed drinking water are discussed

Formation of Haloforms during Chlorination of Natural Waters

Recent drinking water regulations have lowered the standards for disinfection by-products and have added new disinfection by-products for regulation. Natural organic matter (NOM), mainly humic compounds, plays a major role in the formation of undesirable organic by-products following disinfection of drinking water. Many disinfection by-products have adverse carcinogenic or mutagenic effects on human health. This paper deals with the formation potencial of disinfection by-products in water samples taken from different places in the Flaje catchment

The future distribution of wetland birds breeding in Europe validated against observed changes in distribution

Wetland bird species have been declining in population size worldwide as climate warming and land-use change affect their suitable habitats. We used species distribution models (SDMs) to predict changes in range dynamics for 64 non-passerine wetland birds breeding in Europe, including range size, position of centroid, and margins. We fitted the SDMs with data collected for the first European Breeding Bird Atlas and climate and land-use data to predict distributional changes over a century (the 1970s-2070s). The predicted annual changes were then compared to observed annual changes in range size and range centroid over a time period of 30 years using data from the second European Breeding Bird Atlas. Our models successfully predicted ca. 75% of the 64 bird species to contract their breeding range in the future, while the remaining species (mostly southerly breeding species) were predicted to expand their breeding ranges northward. The northern margins of southerly species and southern margins of northerly species, both, predicted to shift northward. Predicted changes in range size and shifts in range centroids were broadly positively associated with the observed changes, although some species deviated markedly from the predictions. The predicted average shift in core distributions was ca. 5 km yr(-1) towards the north (5% northeast, 45% north, and 40% northwest), compared to a slower observed average shift of ca. 3.9 km yr(-1). Predicted changes in range centroids were generally larger than observed changes, which suggests that bird distribution changes may lag behind environmental changes leading to 'climate debt'. We suggest that predictions of SDMs should be viewed as qualitative rather than quantitative outcomes, indicating that care should be taken concerning single species. Still, our results highlight the urgent need for management actions such as wetland creation and restoration to improve wetland birds' resilience to the expected environmental changes in the future

Abnormal grain growth in DC flash sintered 3‐mol% yttria‐stabilized zirconia ceramics

The origin of nonuniform microstructure and abnormal grain growth (AGG) was investigated in flash sintered 3 mol% yttria-stabilized zirconia (3YSZ) ceramics. The microstructural homogeneity decreased with increasing direct current (DC) density and with dwell time in a flash state, eventually resulting in AGG in the specimen core, the first observation of AGG in 3YSZ. Abnormal grains up to 100 μm in size emerged when the DC density was ≥160 mA/mm2, and the specimen's density exceeded 99% of theoretical, starting from the cathode and propagating toward the anode. The results are discussed by comparison with established mechanisms and previous experimental evidence concerning AGG in oxides, focusing on the possible effects of the electrochemical reduction at the cathode end of the specimen

Effect of the Distribution System on Drinking Water Quality

The overall objective of this paper is to characterise the main aspects of water quality deterioration in a distribution system. The effect of residence time on chlorine uptake and the formation and evolution of disinfection by-products in distributed drinking water are discussed

Benefits of Using Traffic Volumes Described on Examples in the Open Transport Net Project Pilot Regions

The paper describes the goals of the Open Transport Net project in the pilot regions for regional development and the motivation to use traffic volumes in order to reach the project objectives. In the introduction, a short overview of the Open Transport Net project is provided. It is followed by descriptions of the identified problems in the pilot regions and incentives to use traffic volumes for achieving good quality results. The basics of traffic volumes as well as their visualisation are further described and demonstrated including several examples

Long-term population dynamics of the field vole from the Czech Republic

Tkadlec, E., Bejček, V., Flousek, J., Šťastný, K., Zima, J., Sedláček, F