Modeling the water demand on farms

The decreasing availability of water caused by depletion and climate change combined with a growing world population requires the productive use of water now and in the future. The young researcher group "AgroHyd" at the Leibniz-Institute for Agricultural Engineering Potsdam-Bornim (ATB) is currently modeling the water demand for agricultural processes at the farm scale and developing indicators to link the hydrological and agricultural perspectives. The aim of the group is to increase productivity in agriculture by raising water productivity in plant production and livestock farming. The effects of various agronomic measures, individual and in combination, on water productivity are assessed using several indicators. Scenarios of agricultural measures, climate and diets are used to test to what extent the water demand for food production will increase due to growing global change in different regions of the world

Substitution halogenierter Kohlenwasserstoffe in der Metallreinigung Teilvorhaben 2. Schlussbericht

Objective: the aim of this project was to reduce environmental load caused by halogenated hydrocarbons by developing and researching alternative processes using aqueous solutions, and implementing these in technical systems. Results: process and system techniques for cleaning with aqueous solutions were developed for various applications, and replace previous cleaning processes using halogenated hydrocarbons without loss of quality. The emphasis of this process development laid on elaboration of methods for selecting cleaners, the examination of different rinsing and drying techniques and the influence of ultrasonics on immersion cleaning. For the purpose of quality assurance, methods were developed to determine residual dirt and to analyze cleaning solutions. Regeneration processes were tested and applied to extend the standing time of bathes. For the implementation of these cleaning processes, a cost effective concept for converting existing systems with clorinated hydrocarbons was developed and employed. Furthermore, different types of aqueous cleaning systems were conceived and installed in production plants. These comprise both flexible central systems for the cleaning of parts from various areas of production and cleaning systems which form part of the production flow. (orig.)SIGLEAvailable from TIB Hannover: F93B1371+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekBundesministerium fuer Forschung und Technologie (BMFT), Bonn (Germany)DEGerman