Moisture absorption and dimensional stability of poplar wood impregnated with sucrose and sodium chloride

This paper deals with the effect of vacuum-pressure impregnation of Poplar wood (Populus alba) by aqueous solutions of sucrose and sodium chloride on its physical properties. Groups of samples with different concentrations of substances in the aqueous solution were compared within each other and also with a reference (non-impregnated) group. The specimens from all groups were tested for density, moisture absorption and dimensional stability. The obtained data were statistically analysed and compared each other. The most satisfying final properties were achieved in impregnation of sucrose with concentration of 6,25 g/100 ml H2O. The retention was 31 kg m-3 (WPG around 8 %). The values of ASE (anti-swelling efficiency) reached to 36 % and MEE (moisture exclusion efficiency) was reduced by 33 %

Recognition of stream drying based on benthic macroinvertebrates: a new tool in Central Europe

Many streams in the extensive Central European region have an intermittent flow regime. Conventional hydrological methods used to identify zero-flow conditions, and in particular drying events, have limited use when assessing large areas dominated by low-order streams. We developed a novel multimetric index to recognise antecedent stream drying based on the analysis of benthic macroinvertebrate communities. The data used to develop the index were collected in pristine streams with different flow permanence regimes between 2012 and 2014, using standard sampling methods for ecological status assessment. The data include 64 perennial, 19 near-perennial and 27 intermittent benthic macroinvertebrate samples. Metrics considered for the index included variables based on (i) the occurrence of indicator taxa, (ii) the proportion of biological and ecological traits, and (iii) structural community metrics. Linear discriminant analysis identified the metric combinations that best discriminated among the three flow permanence categories. Different metrics were used in the final multimetric index calculation for the autumn and spring season that followed stream drying. In both seasons, the index included the proportion of indicator taxa and the proportion of taxa with high body flexibility. In addition, the autumn index included the proportion of taxa with a preference for organic substrates, whereas in spring the index included total abundance. Independent data from regulatory monitoring activity were used to validate the accuracy of the index. The correct classification of independent samples was 92% and 96% for samples from perennial and non-perennial sites, respectively. The index can be calculated using data collected by routine monitoring programmes used to assess ecological status and provides information about stream intermittence where conventional hydrological monitoring is limited. As intermittent streams increase in extent in global regions including Central Europe, the tool may be of particular interest to those who use invertebrates to monitor or manage these ecosystems

Disentangling responses to natural stressor and human impact gradients in river ecosystems across Europe

1. Rivers are dynamic ecosystems in which both human impacts and climate-driven drying events are increasingly common. These anthropogenic and natural stressors interact to influence the biodiversity and functioning of river ecosystems. Disentangling ecological responses to these interacting stressors is necessary to guide management actions that support ecosystems adapting to global change. 2. We analysed the independent and interactive effects of human impacts and natural drying on aquatic invertebrate communities—a key biotic group used to assess the health of European freshwaters. We calculated biological response metrics representing communities from 406 rivers in eight European countries: taxonomic richness, functional richness and redundancy, and biomonitoring indices that indicate ecological status. We analysed metrics based on the whole community and on a group of taxa with traits promoting resistance and/or resilience (‘high RR’) to drying. We also examined how responses vary across Europe in relation to climatic aridity. 3. Most community metrics decreased independently in response to impacts and drying. A richness-independent biomonitoring index (the average score per taxon; ASPT) showed particular potential for use in biomonitoring, and should be considered alongside new metrics representing high RR diversity, to promote accurate assessment of ecological status. 4. High RR taxonomic richness responded only to impacts, not drying. However, these predictors explained little variance in richness and other high RR metrics, potentially due to low taxonomic richness. Metric responsiveness could thus be enhanced by developing region-specific high RR groups comprising sufficient taxa with sufficiently variable impact sensitivities to indicate ecological status. 5. Synthesis and applications. Metrics are needed to assess the ecological status of dynamic river ecosystems—including those that sometimes dry—and thus to identify priority sites requiring action to tackle the causes of environmental degradation. Our results inform recommendations guiding the development of such metrics. We propose concurrent use of richness-independent ‘average score per taxon’ indices and metrics that characterize the richness of resistant and resilient taxa. We observed interactions between aridity, impacts and drying, highlighting that these new metrics should be region specific, river type specific and adaptable, promoting their ability to inform management actions that protect biodiversity in river ecosystems responding to climate change.European Cooperation in Science and Technology. Grant Number: CA1511

XXV. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách

Title in English: 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences: Conference proceedings The conference proceedings consists of papers presented at the 25th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences that was organized by Department of Regional Economics and Administration FEA MU. It contains 57 articles arranged by topic. The individual articles deal with e.g. socioeconomic disparities among regions, regional policy, territory attractiveness, tourism, or regional public administration

Multi-decadal improvements in the ecological quality of European rivers are not consistently reflected in biodiversity metrics

Humans impact terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems, yet many broad-scale studies have found no systematic, negative biodiversity changes (for example, decreasing abundance or taxon richness). Here we show that mixed biodiversity responses may arise because community metrics show variable responses to anthropogenic impacts across broad spatial scales. We first quantified temporal trends in anthropogenic impacts for 1,365 riverine invertebrate communities from 23 European countries, based on similarity to least-impacted reference communities. Reference comparisons provide necessary, but often missing, baselines for evaluating whether communities are negatively impacted or have improved (less or more similar, respectively). We then determined whether changing impacts were consistently reflected in metrics of community abundance, taxon richness, evenness and composition. Invertebrate communities improved, that is, became more similar to reference conditions, from 1992 until the 2010s, after which improvements plateaued. Improvements were generally reflected by higher taxon richness, providing evidence that certain community metrics can broadly indicate anthropogenic impacts. However, richness responses were highly variable among sites, and we found no consistent responses in community abundance, evenness or composition. These findings suggest that, without sufficient data and careful metric selection, many common community metrics cannot reliably reflect anthropogenic impacts, helping explain the prevalence of mixed biodiversity trends.We thank J. England for assistance with calculating ecological quality and the biomonitoring indices in the UK. Funding for authors, data collection and processing was provided by the European Union Horizon 2020 project eLTER PLUS (grant number 871128). F.A. was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant numbers 310030_197410 and 31003A_173074) and the University of Zurich Research Priority Program Global Change and Biodiversity. J.B. and M.A.-C. were funded by the European Commission, under the L‘Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement (LIFE) Nature and Biodiversity program, as part of the project LIFE-DIVAQUA (LIFE18 NAT/ES/000121) and also by the project ‘WATERLANDS’ (PID2019-107085RB-I00) funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIN) and Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI; MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) ‘A way of making Europe’. N.J.B. and V.P. were supported by the Lithuanian Environmental Protection Agency (https://aaa.lrv.lt/) who collected the data and were funded by the Lithuanian Research Council (project number S-PD-22-72). J.H. was supported by the Academy of Finland (grant number 331957). S.C.J. acknowledges funding by the Leibniz Competition project Freshwater Megafauna Futures and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung or BMBF; 033W034A). A.L. acknowledges funding by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2020-115830GB-100). P.P., M.P. and M.S. were supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA23-05268S and P505-20-17305S) and thank the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and the state enterprises Povodí for the data used to calculate ecological quality metrics from the Czech surface water monitoring program. H.T. was supported by the Estonian Research Council (number PRG1266) and by the Estonian national program ‘Humanitarian and natural science collections’. M.J.F. acknowledges the support of Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal, through the projects UIDB/04292/2020 and UIDP/04292/2020 granted to the Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, LA/P/0069/2020 granted to the Associate Laboratory Aquatic Research Network (ARNET), and a Call Estímulo ao Emprego Científico (CEEC) contract.Peer reviewe

XXIV. mezinárodní kolokvium o regionálních vědách

Title in English: 24th International Colloquium on Regional Sciences: Conference proceedings. The conference proceedings consists of papers presented at the 24rd International Colloquium on Regional Sciences that was organized by Department of Regional Economics and Administration FEA MU. It contains 79 articles arranged by topic. The individual articles deal with e.g. socioeconomic disparities among regions, regional policy, territory attractiveness, tourism or regional public administration

Wood impregnation

Wood impregnation is one of the oldest and the most frequently used techniques to protect the wood. This treatment offers a wide range of protection depending on used impregnants (preservatives). Impregnation can make the wood more resistant to decay, less flammable, more dimensionally stable, harder, stronger, more UV stable resistant and many more. Generally, the aims of this thesis is to give a new and modern approaches to already known technologies. The experimental part have been carried out using laboratory vacuum-pressure impregnation plant and many other devices. Almost all treatments and measurement have been done in laboratories of Research centre in Útěchov. The different wood species e.g. European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and hybrid poplar (Populus hybrids) have been studied. The patented solution shows the method of the treatment and colouring of wood containing tannins, characterized by impregnation with a product containing iron oxide nanoparticles, in a concentration of 0.4 g/l to 42 g/l, an average particle size in the range of 1 to 100 nm, and a liquid medium. Impregnation can be performed as pressure impregnation, followed by soaking, or the product can be applied by brushing or spraying. This method is an alternative to wood ammonification. The tests (Paper I) shows following results. Both nanoiron and ammonia treatments tested induced darker colouring of oak wood, more intensive darkening was observed in case of the nano-iron treatment. The native oak showed a steep drop in lightness ca 25-50 hours of exposure followed by gradual re-increase during further exposure to the artificial sunlight. The darker surfaces generated by tannin reacting chemically with iron and ammonia evidently faded in the course of light exposure. In case of chromatic parameters a* and b*, the AT (ammonia treatment) oak more or less copied the colour change progress of native oak. On the contrary, the NIT (nanoiron treatment) wood showed a double increase in both parameters. The colour of NIT wood after light exposure was more or less equivalent to the original colour of the ammonium-treated. Distinct reddening of NIT oak may be caused by oxidation of non-precipitated iron particles. The antifungal effects of copper and silver nanoparticles against two wood-rotting fungi were investigated with following results (Paper II). The highest value of retention was observed for pine sapwood (~ 2 kg/m3) for both nanoparticle solutions. The amount of nanoparticles in the wood did not increase proportionally with an increasing concentration, but only 1.5-2 times increase was reached. An average leaching of 15% to 35% was observed for copper nanoparticles, depending on used wood species and concentration. Significantly lower leaching (max. 15 %) was observed for pine sapwood impregnated by silver nanoparticles with a concentration of 3 g/l. The highest antifungal effect (under 5 % of mass loss) against both tested fungi was found for nano-copper treatment at the concentration of 3 g/l. However, this effect of treatment seems to be almost negligible after the leaching test. Therefore, this study aims to present fundamental material properties of wood treated with copper and silver nanoparticles, and provide groundwork for further research (e.g. fixation of substances in the wood structure, etc.). In this study (Paper III), selected physical and mechanical properties, i.e., density profile, bending strength, hardness and moisture absorption were investigated for Lignamon (i), which was obtained from the Czech industrial production. Selected properties were also investigated using steam-densified beech (ii) and native beech (iii) and compared with each other. Densitometry of Lignamon showed a large variability of the density profile compared to the density profile of only densified beech. It is affected by the degree of densification, temperature and moisture gradients, and their relationship to the glass transition of the wood cell wall. Modulus of elasticity, hardness, moisture exclusion and anti-swelling efficiency of Lignamon are enhanced compared to densified beech. The enhanced dimension stability and lower hygroscopicity of Lignamon are probably caused by heat treatment during the process. Further investigation will be carried out with self-produced Lignamon samples. The paper IV deals with the effect of vacuum-pressure impregnation of poplar wood (Populus alba L.) by aqueous solutions of sucrose and sodium chloride on its physical properties. The most satisfying final properties were achieved in impregnation of sucrose with concentration of 6.25 g/100 ml H2O. The retention was 31 kg/m3 (WPG around 8 %). The values of ASE (anti-swelling efficiency) reached to 36 % and MEE (moisture exclusion efficiency) was reduced by 33 %. In Paper V, MW and conventional acetylation of wood was carried out to determine its efficacy on the material properties. Both MW and conventional heating positively affected the selected material properties. The results showed that no significant differences were found between MW and conventional heating; therefore, MW heating can be used as a valid replacement in the acetylation process. MW power of 2 kW and 0.1 m/min conveyor speed were the optimum conditions for MW acetylation. These process parameters resulted in 39.4 % ASE (T) and 35.2 % ASE (R) for beech and 38.0 % ASE (T) and 16.3 % ASE (R) for poplar samples. This work provides insight into the details of wood acetylation using MW heating. The study (Paper VI) aims to evaluate the antifungal activity of extractive compounds obtained with fexIKA accelerate extraction process. Results showed that the extractive compounds obtained from black locust heartwood were able to increase the native durability of European beech from class 5 (i.e. not durable with an average mass loss of 43.6 %) to class 3 (i.e. moderately durable with an average mass loss of 12.7 %). The final Paper VII shows following results. After impregnation with residual liquids and leaching, high amounts of TT (thermal treatment) and HTC (hydrothermal carbonisation) solution were washed out, whereas Pyrolysis liquids stayed with 25 % to 40 % remaining in the wood. Volumetric swelling in 65 % relative humidity at 20 °C was reduced from 6.5 % in untreated poplar to 5 % in impregnated samples with process residues of thermal treatment using 180 °C or 200 °C. The processes using HTC liquids from Miscanthus sp. (Misc.) or Sawdust showed reduction to 3-3.5 % and Pyrolysis liquid treatment to 2.5 %. After exposure to fungi, the mass loss of untreated Beech (30-35 %) and Poplar (40-50 %) was reduced to 2 % in case of Pyrolysis- and 4 % in case of TT-treatment

Jsou morfologicky degradované úseky toků zdrojem tepelného zněčištění vody?

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