Search Results (9,241)

Coastal dune fields provide important ecological and geomorphic functions, while their evolution is strongly influenced by groundwater-controlled surface moisture. However, the effects of seasonal groundwater-level fluctuations and moisture-affected sand on long-term dune development remain insufficiently represented in numerical models. In this paper, a time-varying groundwater-level field and moisture-dependent entrainment thresholds are incorporated into a real-space cellular automaton model to investigate the coupled evolution of coastal dunes and interdune lakes. The results show that rising groundwater levels reduce the wind-erodible surface area, inundate interdune depressions, and delay the growth of peak dune height. Periodic water-level fluctuations also produce a sediment storage–release cycle, in which sand is temporarily stored on inundated interdune surfaces during high-water stages and is progressively remobilized during subsequent low-water stages, while newly exposed moisture-affected sand remains subject to an elevated entrainment threshold. In addition, increasing the critical threshold shear stress within the groundwater-controlled moisture-affected layer suppresses dune development and reduces final peak dune height by approximately 8–17%. Comparison with the observed wet-season water-pond area further shows that incorporating the moisture-affected layer brings the simulated relative water-pond area closer to the observed value in the Lençóis Maranhenses dune field. Overall, the results demonstrate that groundwater regulates dune evolution through both direct inundation and an enhanced entrainment resistance of moisture-affected sand above the water table. Full article

Listeria spp. can persist in livestock-production environments and may be introduced through animal feed, fecal contamination, or unhygienic milk-production practices. This cross-sectional study assessed the occurrence and distribution of Listeria spp. in animal feed, fecal material, and raw milk collected from cattle, sheep, and goat farms across the seven geographical regions of Kosovo. Between December 2021 and April 2022, 189 samples were collected from 60 distinct farms representing 63 farm-species units. One animal-feed sample, one pooled fecal sample, and one pooled raw-milk sample were obtained from each unit. The samples were analyzed according to ISO 11290-1:2017, and presumptive isolates were evaluated by phenotypic and biochemical tests and confirmed to species level using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Water activity was also measured in all 63 feed samples. Listeria spp. was detected in 3/189 matrix-level samples analyzed (1.6%). This value represents a descriptive sample-level detection proportion across the three matrices rather than a conventional prevalence estimate. All isolates were identified as Listeria innocua. Two positive samples were hay samples from separate farms in the Gjilan region, representing 2/63 feed samples (3.2%) and 2/24 hay samples (8.3%). The third positive sample was a fecal sample collected from a goat farm in the Gjakova region, representing 1/63 fecal samples (1.6%). Listeria spp. was not detected in any of the raw-milk samples (0/63; 0%) under the conditions of this cross-sectional study. No farm-level co-occurrence among feed, fecal material, and raw milk was observed. These findings indicate a low number of Listeria spp. detections among the samples analyzed, with positive samples limited to two hay samples and one fecal sample. Given the small number of positive samples, no conclusions can be drawn regarding differences among feed categories, animal species, sample matrices, or geographical regions. Continued attention to feed storage, farm hygiene, and milk production practices remains important for limiting the persistence and dissemination of Listeria within ruminant-production environments. Full article

Quantifying groundwater storage in karst aquifers remains challenging because of their heterogeneous structure and the scarcity of direct observations. This study proposes a pragmatic approach for characterizing storage and water availability in karst systems at the regional scale using long-term hydrographs from 16 Swiss karst springs and rivers. We distinguish between seasonal storage, associated with recharge events, and low-water storage, which sustains discharge during periods without significant recharge. Seasonal storage was estimated at approximately 30–70 mm for most investigated systems, while total storage reached up to about 140 to 180 mm at some sites, based on recharge–discharge modelling. Low-water storage was estimated to be on the order of 200 mm across most investigated systems, despite differences in hydrogeological settings. Analysis of low-water recession curves showed that most natural springs analyzed in this study followed a similar master recession curve, with low-water conditions defined as beginning at a specific transition discharge of 11.25 L s⁻¹ km⁻². This similarity provides the basis for a regional drought index that estimates the volume of remaining groundwater storage and forecasts discharge several weeks in advance. The results also support a conceptual model in which epikarstic, epiphreatic, and deeper storage compartments attenuate short-term discharge variability while sustaining low-water discharge over prolonged periods. Comparison with non-karst catchments shows that karst hydrogeological systems dampen peak flows but sustain baseflow through distinct storage reservoirs. This approach delivers quantitative indicators to assess drought, manage groundwater, and foresee water shortages in karst regions. Future work will test its validity outside the Swiss dataset. Despite discussed uncertainties in discharge measurements and catchment delineation, results demonstrate that dedicated hydrograph-based analyses can yield robust and transferable insights into karst groundwater storage at regional scales. Full article

Data centers are large and rapidly growing electricity consumers, and cooling systems account for a substantial share of their energy demand. A key contribution of this study is a climate-sensitive, hourly techno-economic comparison of three data-center cooling configurations under consistent operating assumptions: a conventional water-cooled centrifugal chiller baseline, a magnetic bearing chiller (MBC) system, and an MBC system integrated with aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES). The comparison is performed for Phoenix, Arizona, and Fairbanks, Alaska, which represent substantially different cooling climates in the U.S. Hourly simulations use identical information technology (IT) load profiles, identical aggregate installed chiller capacity represented by two 4058 kW chiller units, common water-side economizer controls, and site-specific weather and electricity tariffs. Results show that the MBC system reduces annual cooling-system electricity consumption from 1169.4 to 957.4 MWh in Phoenix (18.1%) and from 361.6 to 319.4 MWh in Fairbanks (11.7%). Peak cooling-system electrical demand decreases by 119.4 kW in Phoenix and 71.6 kW in Fairbanks. Relative to the centrifugal baseline, the MBC case gives a 5.8-year simple payback in Phoenix but is not economically attractive in Fairbanks under the assumed tariff. The MBC-only case gives the lowest annual cooling electricity use in both climates. The MBC+ATES case is treated only as a screening-level, discharge-assisted cold-storage scenario rather than a full techno-economic assessment of seasonal ATES, and no site-specific hydrogeological feasibility assessment is performed. Under the assumed O&M cost structure, MBC+ATES gives a higher discounted value of savings than MBC-only, but this economic result is not caused by additional cooling-electricity savings relative to MBC-only. The MBC+ATES case also has a longer payback period because of its higher capital cost. These results show that the value of advanced cooling configurations depends on climate, free-cooling availability, electricity pricing, storage assumptions, and economic assumptions within the modeling framework considered in this study. Full article

Photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) collectors coupled to thermochemical energy storage (TCES) can turn intermittent low-grade solar heat into a dispatchable service, but solar intermittency poses a closed-loop control problem. A companion study established the feedback-only lower bound: a 937 kJ accumulated exergy-delivery-deficit benchmark under optimally tuned proportional–integral–derivative (PID) flow control. The corresponding upper bound is quantified here by means of a deliberately idealised search-based predictive controller that, at each 10 s step, enumerates 51 candidate pump rates, predicts the reactor-inlet temperature by a single forward-Euler step, and is granted perfect future irradiance. On the experimentally validated shared plant (matched to the companion baseline), against an optimally tuned PID, the perfect-foresight advantage is marginal: +0.96% daily exergy on synthetic days and +0.07–0.24% on two measured Walailak University monsoon days, all controllers tracking within 6–13 K on the measured days. Under tropical-monsoon irradiance, the 95 °C desorption setpoint is rarely sustained, so the delivered exergy is nearly controller-independent: the perfect-foresight upper bound lies just above the feedback-only lower bound, and together the two results bracket the exergy envelope available to any flow-rate controller of this system. A horizon sweep localises the bottleneck to internal-model fidelity, not anticipation depth. The eight-node plant is validated against measured module temperature (root-mean-square error 3.5 °C, coefficient of determination R² = 0.89) and a copper-tube PVT prototype (1.5 °C; peak hot water up to 79 °C). The central contribution is therefore a rigorously defined, experimentally grounded upper bound showing that, at this scale and latitude, deployability rather than anticipation is the effective design lever. Full article

Hyaluronic acid (HA)-based hydrogels are widely used as wound-healing materials and topical delivery systems because of their excellent biocompatibility, water retention capacity, and ability to promote cell migration. However, HA is prone to oxidative chain scission, which reduces molecular weight and compromises formulation stability and functional performance. This study evaluated the feasibility of ergothioneine (EGT) as a candidate antioxidant stabilizing excipient in a model HA-based wound-healing material. CCK-8 assays assessed the biocompatibility of EGT in L929 mouse fibroblasts after 24 h of exposure, and a stress-screening framework including Fenton oxidation, high-temperature/high-humidity treatment, light exposure, and quiescent storage at 4 °C was established. The results showed that Fenton oxidation markedly induced HA degradation, whereas EGT incorporation effectively protected HA structural integrity under oxidative stress. Cell scratch assays further demonstrated that EGT did not interfere with the ability of HA to promote cell migration. EGT may serve as a candidate antioxidant stabilizing excipient for HA-based wound-healing materials, improving HA structural and material stability under oxidative challenge while preserving HA-associated cell-migration function. Full article

Raw Chinese lacquer, tapped from the sap of Toxicodendron vernicifluum, is a natural water-in-oil microemulsion containing urushiol, polysaccharides, proteins, and laccase. Because this reactive system continues to oxidize and polymerize after harvesting, handling conditions directly determine water content, viscosity, and later film-forming performance. This review analyzes potential in situ stabilization routes that couple purification, low-temperature vacuum dehydration, and quality conditioning at, or near, the collection site. Emphasis is placed on how laccase retention, oxygen exposure, and urushiol polymerization are controlled together to limit transport losses and premature crusting. Portable filtration devices, reported centrifugal filtration systems, and proposed vacuum dehydration strategies are compared in terms of throughput, field compatibility, and process control. Physical and bio-based conditioning strategies, including shear adjustment, oxygen management, and natural film-forming aids, are further considered for on-site regulation. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) and portable spectroscopic devices are examined as feedback tools for parameter adjustment under field temperatures, humidity, and storage variation; however, these signals are treated as decision-support indicators that still require lacquer-specific calibration after tapping. The central task is to define a field-compatible process window for water removal, laccase retention, viscosity control, drying behavior, and storage stability before downstream coating preparation. The remaining challenges involve miniaturized equipment, standardized evaluation, evidence-level classification, and dynamic control of coupled variables. Full article

The decline in groundwater storage (GWS) poses a critical threat to water security in semi-arid regions where increasing agricultural water demand and climate variability are increasing pressure on aquifers. This study presents a novel hybrid modeling framework integrating multi-source satellite and climate data (GRACE, GLDAS, TerraClimate, and MODIS) with machine learning and explanatory artificial intelligence techniques for the long-term assessment and interpretation of GWS anomalies in the data-poor Iğdır Basin. Three different modeling approaches were developed: XGBoost, Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, and their combined model, and interpreted using the Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP) method. The results showed a significant long-term decreasing trend in groundwater storage anomalies at a rate of −0.87 mm per month during the 2002–2016 period, indicating continuous depletion. The LSTM model demonstrated the best performance with R² of 0.59, RMSE of 19.5 mm, and MAE of 15.1 mm, revealing the dominant role of temporal dependencies in groundwater systems. SHAP analysis identified lagged groundwater anomalies (especially GWS_lag3) as the most effective predictors; this may reflect the memory effect and lagged response specific to semi-arid aquifer systems, but this interpretation needs to be validated in different study areas. Snow water equivalent and total water storage anomalies also emerged as significant determinants, while the direct effect of instantaneous precipitation was found to be limited. This study addresses significant gaps in the literature by combining sequence-based modeling with model interpretability in a semi-arid closed basin. The findings highlight the necessity of using system memory and explainable artificial intelligence together for reliable groundwater prediction. While the proposed hybrid approach has the potential for application in other semi-arid regions, its broader usability needs to be supported by independent validation studies under different hydrogeological and climatic conditions. Full article

The imperative to mitigate climate change has accelerated the development of Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) technologies, particularly CO₂ hydrogenation into high-value chemicals and alternative fuels. This work evaluates the fundamental thermodynamic limitations and the primary directions of CO₂ conversion, with a primary focus on methanation, alongside related pathways such as methanol synthesis and the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction. To overcome the high kinetic barriers of CO₂ activation, various catalytic systems are analyzed. While noble metal catalysts exhibit high catalytic performance, nickel-based catalysts serve as a viable and cost-effective alternative. To overcome nickel’s susceptibility to thermal sintering and coking, advanced bimetallic and multimetallic formulations are being developed to enhance structural stability and selectivity. These advancements are crucial for producing Synthetic Natural Gas (SNG) and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Ultimately, the objective of this comprehensive review is to systematically summarize recent advancements in catalyst design, critically analyze the advantages and fundamental bottlenecks of distinct catalytic systems, and outline prospective paths for the efficient industrial-scale production of sustainable alternative fuels. Full article

Land-use change directly and indirectly affects regional carbon storage by reshaping the composition and function of terrestrial ecosystems, and understanding this process is important for guiding land-use strategies toward carbon neutrality. This study used wilderness mapping to assess wilderness quality in Pu’er City and integrated the FLUS–InVEST model to analyze spatiotemporal changes in land use and carbon storage from 2000 to 2020 and to simulate land-use and carbon-storage outcomes for 2030. Based on the wilderness-mapping results, the study area was divided into four wilderness-quality classes, and four scenarios were established: No Protection, Limited Protection, Moderate Protection, and Strict Protection. From 2000 to 2020, cropland and forestland decreased, whereas grassland, water bodies, and built-up land increased. Carbon storage first increased slightly and then declined, with an overall decrease of approximately 1.87 × 10⁶ Mg C. Relative to the harmonized five-class 2020 FLUS baseline, the 2030 simulations showed a decline of approximately 1.46 × 10⁶ Mg C under the No Protection scenario, whereas the Moderate Protection scenario produced an increase of approximately 0.21 × 10⁶ Mg C. Under the baseline carbon-density parameters, the Moderate Protection scenario yielded the highest estimated total carbon storage among the four scenarios and resulted in a larger simulated built-up land area than the Strict Protection scenario. However, the relatively small difference in estimated total carbon storage between the Moderate and Strict Protection scenarios should be interpreted with consideration of carbon-density uncertainty. Full article

Since the implementation of the Grain-for-Green Program (GGP), vegetation across the Loess Plateau (LP) has substantially recovered. However, whether the associated increase in ecosystem carbon gain was accompanied by a proportional increase in water consumption and whether groundwater storage changed synchronously remain unclear. This study integrated multi-source remote sensing products, GLDAS-Noah land-surface assimilation data, GRACE/GRACE-FO satellite gravimetry, irrigation water-use data, provincial water-use statistics, and coal-resource information to examine long-term changes in gross primary productivity (GPP), evapotranspiration (ET), water-use efficiency (WUE), soil moisture (SM), and groundwater storage anomaly (GWSA) during 2002–2023. GPP increased significantly by 10.67 g C m⁻² yr⁻¹ ($p<0.01$), whereas ET increased more modestly by 1.97 mm yr⁻¹ ($p<0.05$). The relative growth rate of GPP (1.66%) was approximately 3.5 times that of ET (0.47%), and WUE increased by 0.018 g C m⁻² mm⁻¹ yr⁻¹ ($p<0.01$). In the XGBoost–SHAP models for 2004–2019, LAI showed the strongest model-based association with GPP and WUE, whereas ET was associated more broadly with LAI, air temperature, and precipitation. SM declined during 2002–2015 but showed an increasing tendency during 2016–2023, particularly in the middle and deep layers. The long-term GWSA slopes derived from CSR and JPL were −8.707 and −9.505 mm yr⁻¹, respectively, and the averaged CSR–JPL GWSA series showed a Sen’s slope of −9.131 mm yr⁻¹. GWSA declined during 2002–2020 and showed only a short-term, nonsignificant increase during 2020–2023 (4.110 mm yr⁻¹, $p>0.05$). These contrasting trajectories indicate that increases in surface carbon uptake and improvements in soil-water conditions were not accompanied by synchronous regional groundwater recovery. Overall, the ecological-restoration period was accompanied by increased carbon gain and WUE without a proportional increase in regional ET, while groundwater storage followed a distinct trajectory. These findings provide regional-scale evidence and a quantitative basis for coordinating sustainable water-resource management with ecological-restoration optimization on the LP. Full article

This study aimed to systematically evaluate the effects of the Zein/poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) blend ratio on the formation, structure, and performance of electrospun nanofiber membranes and to further assess the feasibility of incorporating bromothymol blue (BTB) into the optimized matrix as a pH-responsive functional component for intelligent food-packaging applications. Increasing PVDF content reduced the conductivity but increased the viscosity of the spinning solutions, and all formulations exhibited shear-thinning behavior. Pure Zein failed to form continuous fibers, whereas PVDF incorporation promoted uniform fibrous networks, with average fiber diameters increasing from 113.02 ± 27.06 nm to 530.68 ± 113.33 nm. FTIR and TGA/DTG analyses confirmed the coexistence of Zein and PVDF and the improved thermal stability associated with increasing PVDF content. Surface hydrophobicity and water resistance increased with PVDF content, whereas water vapor permeability (WVP) and water solubility (WS) increased with the Zein proportion. Considering spinnability, morphology, mechanical behavior, barrier performance, and water stability, the Zein/PVDF = 5:5 formulation provided a comparatively balanced performance and was selected as the functional carrier matrix. Incorporation of BTB into this matrix produced a distinct pH-responsive color change, and the color difference (ΔE) showed a strong correlation with shrimp pH during storage (R² = 0.997), demonstrating the feasibility of the optimized membrane as a freshness-responsive functional carrier. Full article

Full-field water saturation is central to waterflood surveillance but cannot be observed continuously across a reservoir, whereas well histories provide sparse dynamic evidence. We formulate target-time saturation reconstruction as a mapping from static geology, well locations, scheduled controls, simulated multi-well production responses, and development time to a two-dimensional saturation field. The water-balance-guided saturation network (WB-SatNet) combines a U-Net spatial pathway, a fixed-order gated recurrent unit (GRU) history encoder, explicit time conditioning, and a closed-boundary water-storage consistency term. Experiments used 400 geological realizations, 800 simulation runs, six target times, realization-wise train/validation/test splitting, and three random seeds. On the held-out test set, WB-SatNet achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.01175, a coefficient of determination (${\mathrm{R}}^2$) of 0.98145, a structural similarity index measure (SSIM) of 0.99177, a flooded-area intersection over union (IoU) of 0.95523, and a global storage-consistency error of 0.00944. Its mean MAE was 6.31% lower than that of TCN-U-Net, the strongest temporal convolutional network baseline. Target-time, component-ablation, flooded-area, storage-consistency, history-window, noise, and operating-regime analyses support a monitoring-oriented interpretation. These results indicate that WB-SatNet provides an effective framework for production-history-conditioned water-saturation reconstruction and waterflood state monitoring in the investigated setting. Full article

Contemporary approaches to urban water management increasingly rely on concepts such as Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs), Green Infrastructure, and Blue-Green Infrastructure. Although these frameworks have gained broad acceptance, their typological character provides limited guidance for project-oriented decision-making, as they primarily describe infrastructure types rather than their functions within integrated hydrological systems. To address this gap, this study proposes a complementary functional-operational framework for interpreting ecological infrastructures in urban flood mitigation. Employing a qualitative comparative case study methodology, we analysed four diverse international models—the Dutch Water Squares (Rotterdam), Tokyo’s underground flood control system, Copenhagen’s Cloudburst Management Plan, and Singapore’s ABC Waters Programme—to examine the systemic interaction between grey, green, and blue infrastructures at different watershed scales. The results indicate that flood mitigation effectiveness depends less on the predominance of a single infrastructure type and more on the functional coupling among them. Specifically, three primary functions were identified: rapid conveyance (grey infrastructure), infiltration and thermal regulation (green infrastructure), and dynamic storage and biodiversity support (blue infrastructure). Despite the contextual limitations and varying scales of the selected cases, blue infrastructure universally emerges as a systemic buffer that enhances urban resilience by regulating excess volumetric flows. Ultimately, the proposed framework introduces an actionable interpretative layer that complements existing typological classifications, providing planners and urban designers with a robust, scalable basis for implementing integrated ecological infrastructures. Full article

Atlantic bonito (Sarda sarda) is a commercially important fish species with high nutritional value that is widely harvested along the Portuguese coast; however, it is highly susceptible to lipid oxidation and microbial deterioration during refrigerated storage. This study investigated the effectiveness of oregano oil (OO) emulsion coatings, with and without fish gelatin, to preserve quality and increase shelf life of Atlantic bonito fillets stored at 5 °C for 10 days. Emulsions were produced by high-intensity ultrasound treatment and subsequently, applied as surface coatings. Physicochemical, microbiological, and quality-related parameters, including pH, water activity, lipid oxidation, protein oxidation, color, and texture, were evaluated throughout storage. Water activity of the coated fillets remained stable (p > 0.05), whereas pH values remained below 6.0 until day 7. Coated fillets exhibited reduced oxidative deterioration and delayed microbial growth compared with uncoated fillets, with the 10% OO emulsion coating (OO₁₀) showing the higher effectiveness in maintaining color stability and limiting oxidation. The OO₁₀ emulsion coating with fish gelatin (FO₁₀) improved antimicrobial performance, although the gelatin matrix appeared to modulate the release of bioactive compounds from OO. Overall, OO emulsion coatings represent a promising natural preservation approach for extending the shelf life and maintaining the quality attributes of refrigerated fish products. Full article