Phytotechnology implementation in marine and freshwater environments: case study of floating wetlands

Phytotechnologies are plant-based approaches that solve or complement the solution of environmental problems, by remediating soil, water, and air or restoring ecosystem services in managed landscapes. Floating treatment wetlands (FWIs) are examples of a phytotechnology, also named nature-based solution, that provides water treatment and management with low capital costs, high success rate, low maintenance requirement, and aesthetic nature when compared to conventional solutions. They also promote biodiversity and ecosystem establishment, enabling creation of habitat, nursery spot or as stepping stone. FWIs comprise a floating platform, colonized by selected plants and an anchoring system. The selection of the plant species is very important for the success of a full coverage system and also to assure a full development of a rooting system for phytoremediation purposes. In the present study 4 FWIs were implemented (with different floating materials: 2 of cork and 2 of hand-assembled recycled material), in order to compare the performance and their establishment in two environments: saline and freshwater. The saline environment was associated to a port marina and the freshwater environment to a pond. Selected plant species were considered for each environment. Monitoring of the system is being carried out along time concerning the associated biodiversity, plant establishment and floatability evaluation of the floating platforms. Based on the analysis of these results, this work hopes that these nature-based solutions can contribute to better water management, in order to involve the conservation and rehabilitation of natural ecosystems.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Long-term abatement potential and current policy trajectories in Latin American countries

This paper provides perspectives on the role of Latin American and Latin American countries in meeting global abatement goals, based on the scenarios developed through the CLIMACAP–LAMP modeling study. Abatement potential in Latin America, among other things, is influenced by its development status, the large contributions of non-CO2 and land use change CO2 emissions, and energy endowments. In most scenarios in this study, the economic potential to reduce fossil fuel CO2 as well as non-CO2 emissions in Latin America in 2050 is lower than in the rest of the world (in total) when measured against 2010 emissions, due largely to higher emission growth in Latin America than in the rest of the world in the absence of abatement. The potential to reduce land use change CO2 emissions is complicated by a wide range of factors and is not addressed in this paper (land use emissions are largely addressed in a companion paper). The study confirms the results of previous research that the variation in abatement costs across models may vary by an order of magnitude or more, limiting the value of these assessments and supporting continued calls for research on the degree to which models are effectively representing key local circumstances that influence costs and available abatement options. Finally, a review of policies in place in several Latin American countries at the time of this writing finds that they would be of varying success in meeting the emission levels proposed by the most recent IPCC reports to limit global temperature change to 2 °C