Sustainable regeneration of port cities

Despite overall growth in the maritime sector, many European port cities are challenged by the migration of port-related activities from inner-city areas to other locations. The relocation of these economic activities results in the emergence of brownfield sites in strategic urban locations. Reusing these sites in a sustainable manner can contribute to preventing new land take and the regeneration of port cities. The city of Brest (France) is a good example of a port city that rejuvenated its inner-city area in a sustainable way

Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe:#4 Bridging the performance gap: A Performance framework

Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector A new study, 'Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe', by Ramboll, in collaboration with leading researchers from Aalborg University Build and KU Leuven sets out a framework for benchmarking and limiting the embodied carbon of new buildings. The study identifies solutions to measure embodied carbon emissions, define carbon budgets and targets. Importantly it includes recommendations for a baseline of current embodied carbon levels in new buildings, as well as considerations of the available carbon budget for these emissions. This will form the basis of a performance system in the shape of benchmarks for the reduction of embodied carbon. Download the reports #1 Facing the data challenge (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120522) #2 Setting the baseline. A bottom-up approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5895051) #3 Defining budget-based targets. A top-down approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120882) #4 Bridging the embodied carbon performance gap (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120874) Summary report - The important takeaways in short (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6397514) Learn more To learn more about the study and download the reports from the study, go to our Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector website (https://c.ramboll.com/lets-reduce-embodied-carbon

Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe:#3 Defining budget-based targets: A top-down approach

Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector A new study, 'Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe', by Ramboll, in collaboration with leading researchers from Aalborg University Build and KU Leuven sets out a framework for benchmarking and limiting the embodied carbon of new buildings. The study identifies solutions to measure embodied carbon emissions, define carbon budgets and targets. Importantly it includes recommendations for a baseline of current embodied carbon levels in new buildings, as well as considerations of the available carbon budget for these emissions. This will form the basis of a performance system in the shape of benchmarks for the reduction of embodied carbon. Download the reports #1 Facing the data challenge (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120522) #2 Setting the baseline. A bottom-up approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5895051) #3 Defining budget-based targets. A top-down approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120882) #4 Bridging the embodied carbon performance gap (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120874) Summary report - The important takeaways in short (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6397514) Learn more To learn more about the study and download the reports from the study, go to our Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector website (https://c.ramboll.com/lets-reduce-embodied-carbon) Change notes Version 1.1 The originally published version contained an error in "Table 1: Comparison of whole-life embodied emissions (in kgCO2eq/m2) according to empirical baseline and budget-based targets". Values have been corrected in v1.1

Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe:#1 Facing the data challenge

Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector A new study, 'Towards embodied carbon benchmarks for buildings in Europe', by Ramboll, in collaboration with leading researchers from Aalborg University Build and KU Leuven sets out a framework for benchmarking and limiting the embodied carbon of new buildings. The study identifies solutions to measure embodied carbon emissions, define carbon budgets and targets. Importantly it includes recommendations for a baseline of current embodied carbon levels in new buildings, as well as considerations of the available carbon budget for these emissions. This will form the basis of a performance system in the shape of benchmarks for the reduction of embodied carbon. Download the reports #1 Facing the data challenge (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120522) #2 Setting the baseline. A bottom-up approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5895051) #3 Defining budget-based targets. A top-down approach (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120882) #4 Bridging the embodied carbon performance gap (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6120874) Summary report - The important takeaways in short (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6397514) Learn more To learn more about the study and download the reports from the study, go to our Embodied Carbon in the Building Sector website (https://c.ramboll.com/lets-reduce-embodied-carbon

European Sustainable Urbanisation through port city Regeneration - Targeted Analysis Final Report

ENSURE (European Sustainable Urbanisation through port city Regeneration) is a targeted analysis aimed at providing better insights into the potential regional impacts of port city regeneration and a better understanding of the appropriate methods and tools. The research involved a comprehensive literature review, a pan-European desktop analysis of port city regeneration in small and medium-sized cities and in-depth case studies in four stakeholder cities, as well as a series of workshops and conferences. The research shows that a main driver for the development of ports in Europe was the industrial revolution and the continued industrial growth until the mid-20th century. Similarly, a retreat from the waterfront became evident during the last part of the century as the deindustrialisation gathered pace, driven by increased global competition, spatial relocation of industry, and technological changes in both industry and transport. Another key aspect was the collapse of socialism in eastern Europe. Many cities in this part of Europe had active ports that became militarised during the Soviet era and later de-militarised as these states transitioned to a new political-economic structure. The desktop research indicated that about a third of small and medium-sized European port cities (48 of 144) show no evidence of regeneration. Some of these cities may be thriving and have no need for regeneration, but there is likely to be a significant latent potential across the European territory

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

The future sea-level contribution of the Greenland ice sheet: A multi-model ensemble study of ISMIP6

The Greenland ice sheet is one of the largest contributors to global mean sea-level rise today and is expected to continue to lose mass as the Arctic continues to warm. The two predominant mass loss mechanisms are increased surface meltwater run-off and mass loss associated with the retreat of marine-terminating outlet glaciers. In this paper we use a large ensemble of Greenland ice sheet models forced by output from a representative subset of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) global climate models to project ice sheet changes and sea-level rise contributions over the 21st century. The simulations are part of the Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for CMIP6 (ISMIP6).We estimate the sea-level contribution together with uncertainties due to future climate forcing, ice sheet model formulations and ocean forcing for the two greenhouse gas concentration scenarios RCP8.5 and RCP2.6. The results indicate that the Greenland ice sheet will continue to lose mass in both scenarios until 2100, with contributions of 90-50 and 32-17mm to sea-level rise for RCP8.5 and RCP2.6, respectively. The largest mass loss is expected from the south-west of Greenland, which is governed by surface mass balance changes, continuing what is already observed today. Because the contributions are calculated against an unforced control experiment, these numbers do not include any committed mass loss, i.e. mass loss that would occur over the coming century if the climate forcing remained constant. Under RCP8.5 forcing, ice sheet model uncertainty explains an ensemble spread of 40 mm, while climate model uncertainty and ocean forcing uncertainty account for a spread of 36 and 19 mm, respectively. Apart from those formally derived uncertainty ranges, the largest gap in our knowledge is about the physical understanding and implementation of the calving process, i.e. the interaction of the ice sheet with the ocean. © Author(s) 2020

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file