Assessment of Socio-Economic and Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources in Four European Lagoon Catchments

This study demonstrates the importance of considering potential land use and management changes in climate impact research. By taking into account possible trends of economic development and environmental awareness, we assess effects of global warming on water availability and quality in the catchments of four European lagoons: Ria de Aveiro (Portugal), Mar Menor (Spain), Vistula Lagoon (Poland and Russia), and Tyligulskyi Liman (Ukraine). Different setups of the process-based soil and water integrated model (SWIM), representing one reference and four socio-economic scenarios for each study area: the “business as usual”, “crisis”, “managed horizons”, and “set-aside” scenarios are driven by sets of 15 climate scenarios for a reference (1971–2000) and near future (2011–2040) scenario period. Modeling results suggest a large spatial variability of potential impacts across the study areas, due to differences in the projected precipitation trends and the current environmental and socio-economic conditions. While climate change may reduce water and nutrients input to the Ria de Aveiro and Tyligulsyi Liman and increase water inflow to the Vistula Lagoon the socio-economic scenarios and their implications may balance out or reverse these trends. In the intensely managed Mar Menor catchment, climate change has no notable direct impact on water resources, but changes in land use and water management may certainly aggravate the current environmental problems. The great heterogeneity among results does not allow formulating adaptation or mitigation measures at pan-European level, as initially intended by this study. It rather implies the need of a regional approach in coastal zone management. © 2019, The Author(s)

The semantic classification of adjectives in the Bulgarian Wordnet: Towards a multiclass approach

The semantic classification of adjectives in the Bulgarian Wordnet: Towards a multiclass approach The paper presents an attempt at semantic classification of adjectives in the Bulgarian wordnet. Although designed for the Bulgarian wordnet, the classification can be applied to other wordnets which are developed in parallel to the Princeton WordNet. The classification relies on information that is already available in WordNet from other synsets (noun, verb, and other adjective synsets) that are linked to the adjective synsets via lexico-semantic relations - including their semantic classes, as well as definitions and usage examples. The first stage of the work was already presented at the workshop "Challenges for WordNets" within the conference "Language, Data and Knowledge 2017". The continuation of the effort as described in this article, covers a proposal for introducing additional semantic classes to the adjective synsets (if applicable).   Semantyczna klasyfikacja przymiotników w bułgarskim Wordnecie: w kierunku podejścia wielopłaszczyznowego W pracy przedstawiono próbę semantycznej klasyfikacji przymiotników w bułgarskim wordnecie. Chociaż została ona zaprojektowana dla wordnetu bułgarskiego, klasyfikacja może być zastosowana w innych wordnetach, które są rozwijane równolegle do Princeton WordNet. Klasyfikacja opiera się na informacjach, które są już dostępne w bułgarskim wordnecie pozyskanych z innych synsetów (rzeczownikowych, czasownikowych i innych przymiotnikowych), powiązanych z synsetami przymiotnikowymi poprzez relacje leksykalno-semantyczne, w tym ich klasy semantyczne, a także definicje i przykłady użycia. Pierwszy etap pracy został już przedstawiony, a kolejny obejmuje propozycję wprowadzenia dodatkowych klas semantycznych w synsetach przymiotnikowych (w stosownych przypadkach)

Marine Strategy Framework Directive - Descriptor 2, Non-Indigenous Species, Delivering solid recommendations for setting threshold values for non-indigenous species pressure on European seas

Marine Non-Indigenous Species (NIS) are animals and plants introduced accidently or deliberately into the European seas, originating from other seas of the globe. About 800 marine non-indigenous species (NIS) currently occur in the European Union national marine waters, several of which have negative impacts on marine ecosystem services and biodiversity. Under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) Descriptor 2 (D2), EU Member States (MSs) need to consider NIS in their marine management strategies. The Descriptor D2 includes one primary criterion (D2C1: new NIS introductions), and two secondary criteria (D2C2 and D2C3). The D2 implementation is characterized by a number of issues and uncertainties which can be applicable to the Descriptor level (e.g. geographical unit of assessment, assessment period, phytoplanktonic, parasitic, oligohaline NIS, etc.), to the primary criterion D2C1 level (e.g. threshold values, cryptogenic, questionable species, etc), and to the secondary criteria D2C2 and D2C3. The current report tackles these issues and provides practical recommendations aiming at a smoother and more efficient implementation of D2 and its criteria at EU level. They constitute a solid operational output which can result in more comparable D2 assessments among MSs and MSFD regions/subregions. When it comes to the policy-side, the current report calls for a number of different categories of NIS to be reported in D2 assessments, pointing the need for the species to be labelled/categorised appropriately in the MSFD reporting by the MSs. These suggestions are proposed to be communicated to the MSFD Working Group of Good Environmental Status (GES) and subsequently to the Marine Strategy Coordination Group (MSCG) of MSFD. Moreover, they can serve as an input for revising the Art. 8 Guidelines

A MSFD complementary approach for the assessment of pressures, knowledge and data gaps in Southern European Seas : the PERSEUS experience

PERSEUS project aims to identify the most relevant pressures exerted on the ecosystems of the Southern European Seas (SES), highlighting knowledge and data gaps that endanger the achievement of SES Good Environmental Status (GES) as mandated by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). A complementary approach has been adopted, by a meta-analysis of existing literature on pressure/impact/knowledge gaps summarized in tables related to the MSFD descriptors, discriminating open waters from coastal areas. A comparative assessment of the Initial Assessments (IAs) for five SES countries has been also independently performed. The comparison between meta-analysis results and IAs shows similarities for coastal areas only. Major knowledge gaps have been detected for the biodiversity, marine food web, marine litter and underwater noise descriptors. The meta-analysis also allowed the identification of additional research themes targeting research topics that are requested to the achievement of GES. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.peer-reviewe

Combined Impacts of Medium Term Socio-Economic Changes and Climate Change on Water Resources in a Managed Mediterranean Catchment

Climate projections agree on a dryer and warmer future for the Mediterranean. Consequently, the region is likely to face serious problems regarding water availability and quality in the future. We investigated potential climate change impacts, alone (for three scenario periods) and in combination with four socio-economic scenarios (for the near future) on water resources in a Mediterranean catchment, whose economy relies on irrigated agriculture and tourism. For that, the Soil and Water Integrated Model (SWIM) was applied to the drainage area of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon, using a set of 15 climate scenarios and different land use maps and management settings. We assessed the long-term average seasonal and annual changes in generated runoff, groundwater recharge and actual evapotranspiration in the catchment, as well as on water inflow and nutrients input to the lagoon. The projected average annual changes in precipitation are small for the first scenario period, and so are the simulated impacts on all investigated components, on average. The negative trend of potential climate change impacts on water resources (i.e., decrease in all analyzed components) becomes pronounced in the second and third scenario periods. The applied socio-economic scenarios intensify, reduce or even reverse the climate-induced impacts, depending on the assumed land use and management changes

Comparison of Water Flows in Four European Lagoon Catchments under a Set of Future Climate Scenarios

Climate change is supposed to remarkably affect the water resources of coastal lagoons as they are highly vulnerable to changes occurring at their catchment and/or ocean or sea boundaries. Probable impacts of projected climate changes on catchment hydrology and freshwater input were assessed using the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model) for the drainage areas of four European lagoons: Ria de Aveiro (Portugal), Mar Menor (Spain), Tyligulskyi Liman (Ukraine) and Vistula Lagoon (Poland/Russia) under a set of 15 climate scenarios covering the time period until the year 2100. Climate change signals for all regions show continuously increasing trends in temperature, but various trends in precipitation. Precipitation is projected to decrease in two catchments on the Iberian Peninsula and increase in the Baltic region catchment, and does not show a clear trend in the catchment located near the Black Sea. The average projected changes in freshwater inputs reflect these changes in climate conditions, but often show variability between the scenarios, in future periods, and within the catchments. According to the individual degrees of water management influences in the four drainage basins, the climate sensitivity of river inflows is differently pronounced in each

SCREENING OF ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES AMONG BULGARIAN LACTOBACILLI STRAINS

Forty-six strains of genus Lactobacillus from the collection of the National Bank for Industrial Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (NBIMCC) were screened by the use of the agar drop diffusion test, for antibacterial activity against nine test-microorganisms. Lactobacillus casei 300 exhibited activity against eight lactic acid bacteria and one yeast strains. The substance with antibacterial activity, produced by the NBIMCC 300 strain, was inactivated by proteolytic enzymes and possessed thermostability when heated to 80°C. This gave us a reason to conclude that this substance belonged to the bacteriocins' group

SCREENING OF ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITIES AMONG BULGARIAN LACTOBACILLI STRAINS

Forty-six strains of genus Lactobacillus from the collection of the National Bank for Industrial Microorganisms and Cell Cultures (NBIMCC) were screened by the use of the agar drop diffusion test, for antibacterial activity against nine test-microorganisms. Lactobacillus casei 300 exhibited activity against eight lactic acid bacteria and one yeast strains. The substance with antibacterial activity, produced by the NBIMCC 300 strain, was inactivated by proteolytic enzymes and possessed thermostability when heated to 80\ub0C. This gave us a reason to conclude that this substance belonged to the bacteriocins' group

Assessment of the decreased productivity of patients with diabetes type 2 in the Clinical Endocrynological Center Sofia, Bulgaria.

This study aims to assess the influence of type 2 diabetes on the patients¿ productivity and quality of life. The WHO¿s methodology ¿ HLQ (Health and Labor Questionnaire) is applied. Subjects were 38 patients with type 2 diabetes, diagnosed and treated at the Clinical center on endocrinology at the MU-Specialized hospital center for active treatment-Sofia. Control consisted of 100 patients without diabetes. The results from the study proofs the fact that the patients with type 2 diabetes manage with their day-to-day activities like their colleagues and even better, but they absent from work because of: their illness, experiencing fatigue and insomnia, pain in hands, legs, joints and muscles. They receive hospital treatment because of the insufficient control on their treatment and the advanced diabetes complications. The application of the Osterhaus method establishes that type 2 diabetes is connected with the excess illness-related work loss and with more often ¿medically related absences¿. These do not lead to significant indirect productivity costs because these patients are with lower income. The cumulative costs from the sporadic work loss during their whole life are even greater, because of the increased spread of the disease, suboptimum treatment, and many complications and prolonged life duration thanks to the contemporary medicine