Participative evaluation of Sustainable Urban Drainage systems with ClimateCafé Malmö

Malmö is well known within the field of urban hydrology, as the city was a pioneer in integrated water management (Stahre 2008). In 1998 the Augustenborg neighbourhood was refurbished due to its reoccurring problems with flooding and damage caused by water (Niemczynowicz 1999). The project “Ekostaden” (Eco-city) included many initiatives implementing nature-based solutions (NBS), such as swales and rain gardens for infiltrating surface (storm) water into the ground (Climate Adapt 2016) (Figure 1). International stakeholders want to know if these NBS still function satisfactorily after 20 years and what we can learn from the “Augustenborg strategy” and apply in other parts of the world. To quote the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, “we learn from history that we do not learn from history.” Augustenborg is an ideal location to demonstrate the sustainability of NBS, test the functionality for infiltration of surface water in swales, map the build-up of potential toxic elements (PTE), and test the water quality after 20 years operation. This evaluation is done in 2019 with the international, participatory and multidisciplinary method ‘ClimateCafé and the results are presented at the international seminar Cities, rain and risk, June 2019 in Malmö (Boogaard et al. 2019). ClimateCafé is a field education concept involving different fields of science and practice for capacity building in climate change adaptation. Over 20 ClimateCafés have already been carried out around the globe (Africa, Asia, Europe), where different tools and methods have been demonstrated to evaluate climate adaptation. The 25th edition of ClimateCafé took place in Malmö, Sweden, in June 2019 and focussed on the Eco-city of Augustenborg. The main research question - “Are the NBS in Augustenborg still functioning satisfactorily?”- was answered by interviews, collecting data of water quality, pollution, NBS and heat stress mapping, and measuring infiltration rates (Boogaard et al. 2020)

Inhibition of metal dusting corrosion on Fe-based alloy by combined near surface severe plastic deformation (NS-SPD) and thermochemical treatment

Combined NS-SPD and thermochemical treatment has been used to improve the metal dusting corrosion resistance of Incoloy 800. After testing under infinite carbon activity for 20−100 h, carbon was not found in the NS-SPD region while corrosion products formed in the non-NS-SPD region. The improved resistance is a result of the NS-SPD yielding a high density of defects in the deformation zone that developed into an ultra-fine-grained structure near the surface during the subsequent thermochemical treatment. These microstructural changes increase the effective diffusion coefficient for Cr in the alloy, hence promoting the formation of a highly protective oxide scale.publishedVersio

Risk assessment for areas prone to flooding and subsidence:a case study from Bergen, Western Norway

Bergen city centre is prone to both subsidence and flooding. With a predicted increase in precipitation due to climate change, a higher proportion of rainfall becomes surface runoff, which results in increased peak flood discharges. In addition, it has been predicted that sea-level rise and increasing storm surges will result in coastal flooding. In this study, the dual hazards of flooding and subsidence are analysed to exemplify possible risk assessment maps for areas most prone to the combination of both. Risk assessment maps are a support tool to identify areas where mitigation of subsidence and adaptation for surface water management will be most efficient and measures can be implemented. The results show that dual hazard assessment, like that described in this paper, can be a useful tool for decision-makers when prioritizing areas to implement measures such as Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems

Knowledge exchange on climate adaptation best management practices for sustainable water management in resilient cities

Cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change, and there is an urgent need to make them more resilient. The Climatescan adaptation tool www.climatescan.nl is applied as an interactive tool for knowledge exchange and raising awareness on Nature-Bases Solutions (NBS) targeting young professionals in ClimateCafes. Climatescan is a citizen science tool created through ‘learning by doing’, which is interactive, open source, and provide more detailed information on Best Management Practices (BMPs) as: exact location, website links, free photo and film material. BMPs related to Innovations for Climatic Events (INXCES) as stormwater infiltration by swales, raingardens, water squares, green roofs subsurface infiltration are mapped and published on social media. Climatescan is in continuous development as more data is uploaded by over 250 people around the world, and improvements are made to respond to feedback from users. In an early stage of the international knowledge exchange tool Climatescan, the tool was evaluated by semi-structured interviews in the Climatescan community with the following result: stakeholders demand tools that are interactive, open source, and provide more detailed information (location, free photo and film material). In 2016 Climatescan (first stage of INXCES) was turned into an APP and within two years the tool had over 10,000 users and more than 3,000 international projects. More than 60% of the users are younger than 34 and 51% of users are female, resulting in engagement with an important target group: young professionals. The tool is applied in Climatecafe.nl around the world (The Netherlands, Sweden, Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa) where in a short period of time stakeholders in triple helix context (academia, public and private sector) work on climate related challenges and exchange their knowledge in a café setting. Climatescan has also been used in other water challenges with young professionals such as the Hanseatic Water City Challenge and Wetskills. During the INXCES project over 1000 BMPs related to Innovations for Climatic Events (INXCES) are mapped in all partner countries (figure 1). The points of interest vary from just a location with a short description to a full uploaded project with location, description and summary, photos and videos, presentations, links to websites with more information and scientific papers and books (as Bryggen in Norway: https://www.climatescan.nl/projects/16/detail )

Partial oxidation of methanol to formaldehyde in an annular reactor

A structured reactor with annular configuration was applied for studying methanol oxidation to formaldehyde over silver. By eliminating gas phase reactions, high formaldehyde selectivity (93–97%) was obtained at low methanol and oxygen conversion under practically isothermal reaction conditions. CH2O and CO2 were the only carbon containing products, and both may be claimed as primary products along with H2. It also proves that CO is formed by homogenous decomposition of CH2O and should not be considered a main precursor to CO2, as assumed in several reaction mechanisms. The analysis of H2/CO2 ratio as a function of temperature provides an estimate of contributions from dehydrogenation and partial oxidation of methanol, and clearly suggests presence of a dehydrogenation pathway to CH2O. Extracting kinetic parameters is challenging due to a correlation between activity, oxygen dissolution, and silver restructuring and morphology and its dependence on temperature. Nevertheless, the data indicate 1st order with respect to oxygen. Conditioning by reaction at high temperature followed by a temperature ramp was performed to minimize the impact of a gradually changing Ag catalyst. The resulting Arrhenius analysis implies two distinct regions of activity. The apparent activation energy was estimated to 41 kJ/mol for the high temperature region, a value close to the activation energy for oxygen diffusion in silver at high temperature. The investigation demonstrates benefits of using an annular reactor configuration in bridging lab scale investigations with industrial conditions. Collecting reaction data at low oxygen conversion is enabled, which has not been achievable in conventional lab scale reactors this far.publishedVersio

ClimateCafé: an interdisciplinary educational tool for sustainable climate adaptation and lessons learned

ClimateCafé is a field education concept involving dierent fields of science and practice for capacity building in climate change adaptation. This concept is applied on the eco-city of Augustenborg in Malmö, Sweden, where Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) were implemented in 1998. ClimateCafé Malmö evaluated these NBS with 20 young professionals from nine nationalities and seven disciplines with a variety of practical tools. In two days, 175 NBS were mapped and categorised in Malmö. Results show that the selected green infrastructure have a satisfactory infiltration capacity and low values of potential toxic element pollutants after 20 years in operation. The question “Is capacity building achieved by interdisciplinary field experience related to climate change adaptation?” was answered by interviews, collecting data of water quality, pollution, NBS and heat stress mapping, and measuring infiltration rates, followed by discussion. The interdisciplinary workshops with practical tools provide a tangible value to the participants and are needed to advance sustainability eorts. Long term lessons learnt from Augustenborg will help stormwater managers within planning of NBS. Lessons learned from this ClimateCafé will improve capacity building on climate change adaptation in the future. This paper oers a method and results to prove the German philosopher Friedrich Hegel wrong when he opined that “we learn from history that we do not learn from history