The climate change challenges call for innovative and sustainable policies and governance models, capable of achieving adaptation and mitigation goals working on a necessary behavioural societal change, both at individual and collective levels. Cities and their public spaces represent an ideal ground for the implementation of innovative strategies, which combine participatory and engagement practices to physical transformations of urban areas in a regenerative perspective. Co-design and participatory paths can trigger reactivation and re-appropriation of underused spaces, generate new dynamics in the public space use and provide effective solutions to tackle climate change, improving outdoor microclimatic comfort conditions. The implementation of demonstrative and temporary interventions – based on greening actions co-created with local administrations, stakeholders and citizens and supported by technologies – represents a viable and effective practice in order to experiment, test, monitor and evaluate shared pathways to more liveable, resilient and sustainable cities. This combined approach was experimented in the Bologna University area by the EU Horizon 2020 project ROCK – Regeneration and Optimisation of Cultural Heritage in Creative and Knowledge Cities (GA 730280) – through a series of pilot actions aimed at public open space utilization and potential enhancement in particular in the historical city centres, generating new resilient processes in terms of environmental sustainability and social inclusion.

The use of low-cost devices for air quality monitoring is rapidly growing, and the reason behind the growth might (at least partially) be the real-time monitoring at a lower fixed and operating cost, ease of use and portability. nevertheless, the poor data reliability of low-cost sensors (LCS) remains a considerable challenge, especially when deployed in real-world conditions. This study aimed to evaluate and improve the performance of two commercially available indoor air quality monitoring LCS devices: AirVisual Pro and uRAD Monitor A3 (uRAD), which were used to monitor CO2 via non-dispersive infrared technology. The analysis took place from June to July 2019 in several classrooms of an urban school in Porto city. Machine learning techniques such as multivariate linear, support vector, gradient boosting and XGBoost regression models were used to perform an on-field calibration for improving the data accuracy of the devices. The results showed that although both the devices showed a strong linear correlation (r > 0.9) with the reference device, they might indicate deviated CO2 concentrations if used in their advertised plug and play format. Specifically, uRAD showed a steady offset compared to the reference values, while AirVisual Pro showed lower deviations than uRAD. The on-field calibration models improved the reliability and showed low root mean square error values (around 30 mg/m3) and a high coefficient of determination (0.99).

Urban areas around the world are attracting more a more people due to increased economic, educational, health, social and cultural opportunities. With the growing urban population, there is a need for undertaking creative measures to strengthen food production and distribution systems, and cities as major consumers can contribute more to this matter. Food production in cities has been a long tradition and a mainstream activity in many countries around the world, and it is experiencing a comeback. While Kosovo has been supporting agricultural development, especially in rural areas, urban areas continue to experience agricultural land loss (specifically, conversion to construction land), degradation beyond repair, and contamination. Institutional support (technical capacities, grant schemes and other investments) is contributing towards increased agricultural productivity in general, but tailored policies and programmes supporting the needs of the urban population (especially the poor) should be undertaken as well. While the extent of urban agriculture in Kosovo is unknown, this research aims to review the current policy environment for urban agriculture development, including agricultural and spatial planning-related legal framework, strategies, and key related reports, studies and official related data. It tries to identify the extent and development trend of small-scale agriculture in Kosovo, barriers hindering its expansion to urban areas, and based on the findings, the paper provides potential policy interventions to utilize the role of urban agriculture on sustainable urban development, as a source of fresh food but also a mechanism for alleviating urban poverty and inequalities, increasing community well-being, environmental performance and climate resilience.

Green infrastructures inside cities represent an effective strategy to face with the increasingly urgent environmental problems. Green systems applied to building envelope are among the most applicable and useful solutions. These provide many significant advantages at different scales. Green façades (GF) are a typology of vertical green systems, applied to the vertical components of the building envelope. GF allow to save energy for air conditioning, by improving the envelope thermal performances. Energy behaviour of GF has been more deeply studied in warm periods, than in cold ones. This paper aims to analyse wintertime energy performances of GF. Evaluations were carried out based on the experimental data collected on two GF, in Bari (Italy), under mediterranean climatic conditions. The experimental set-up included also a bare wall (BW), used as control. The heating effect provided by the greenery was pointed out through statistical and energy analyses. At night-time, the covered walls (CW) were warmer than the bare one up to 3.5°c. The dependence of night-time heating effect on microclimate parameters, as external air temperature, relative humidity and wind speed, was studied. External air temperature was found to be the most influencing factor: as it dropped, the heating effect increased. Overall energy transfer through the CW was lower than through the BW at night-time. The long-wave infrared energy radiative losses were reduced thanks to the green layer, which acted as a thermal barrier. These findings proved that GF improve winter night-time thermal performance by reducing energy losses.

The magnitude of the Amazon basin, associated with geological, geomorphological and hydrological factors, as well as the distribution of rainfall, contribute to the existence of large rivers, both in extension and flow, such as the Negro and Solimões rivers, which are selected to be evaluated in this study. Manaus city is bathed by the Negro river, near the confluence of the two rivers, in which the water level of Negro river is controlled by Solimões river level. This study proposes to analyse a project named Negro River Flood Warning System that presents a river level or stage forecast about Negro river by the Geological Survey of Brazil in Manaus since 1989, where the annual flood and ebb monitoring process is performed in the Solimões, Negro and Amazonas hydrological system. Flood forecasting models are important for the composition of extreme events alerts, as well as for the knowledge of decision-makers, representatives of public agencies and affected communities. Many factors contribute to the flooding event: how the various tributaries are integrated down the river main stem and how the basin behaves during the six months of flooding in the rainy season. For the forecast, it is important to monitor the evolution of the level of rivers such as Negro and Solimões, understanding the dynamics of the basin and also the events associated with major floods that have already occurred, as recorded in the historical series of the port of Manaus, all this combined with a statistical methodological approach. In the Manaus alert system, linear regression analysis is used. According to results obtained for the past 15 years, the flood forecast interval reveals that the forecast in 87% of cases has fulfilled the objective of presenting a stage very close to the water level peak. Furthermore, it was noticed that a height of 27m in Negro river turned to be an alert quota with a return period of 10 years. Once the river water level reaches a height of 29m, it can be considered a ‘severe flood water level’ with a return period of 17 years.

Oil contributes to about 25% of GDP, 95% of annual foreign revenue and 65% of Nigeria’s annual budgetary projections. Nigerian territorial waters and exclusive economic zone harbor over 30 offshore oil fields, 620 deepwater and offshore oil wells, leading to widespread oil exploration, exploitation and production activities. The recent widespread offshore and deepwater oil activities expose the marine waters and their ecosystems to potential risks of diverse degrees of oil spills which degrade the marine ecosystem services and function, as well as huge socio-economic loss to the nation. For instance, in 2011, a well blowout at the Shell Nigeria Petroleum Company Bonga Oilfield spilled about 40,000 barrels of oil into the Atlantic Ocean, which impacted coastal settlements, ground and surface water, fish- ing grounds and farmlands. This paper reports on the theoretical basis for Offshore Oil Spill Response Base in the context of published literature (secondary sources), conventions and conference/workshop resolutions, as well as reflecting on the inadequacies of the existing regulations to sufficiently address pollution in Nigerian marine waters and the Gulf of Guinea. Our study reveals the dominance of studies on causes, impacts, risks, vulnerability, prevention and remediation of oil spills, especially in onshore areas, with paucity of research on offshore oil spill preparedness, prevention, control and response, especially in developing contexts like Nigeria. This paper also outlines the basis for integrating Offshore Oil Spill Response Base into the management strategies for deepwater oil development to significantly minimize/respond to offshore oil spills, which will contribute to environmental sustainability of the Niger-Delta and the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem towards realizing sustainable development goals 14 targets.

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have to treat sewage 24 h/365 days a year. Uncontrolled toxic spills can affect the microbial community in activated sludge and thus the biological treatment performance. Water below the quality requirements, established in the legislation could be, therefore released to the receiving environment, contributing to the loss of biological diversity, degradation of water resources and generating public health threats.

This study aims to analyse the community changes that occurred in an activated sludge as conse- quence of an insecticide spill in a laboratory-scale reactor. Next-generation sequencing was applied to identify genera that could serve as key indicators of a negative biological process affection.

The bench-scale system consisted of a 10-litre biological reactor with intermittent aeration cycles to remove organic matter and nutrients, which was fed with primary settled sewage, follow by a secondary clarifier with manual purging and an external recirculation to the biological reactor. Both settled sewage and mixed liquor were obtained from the same WWTP.

The effect of an artificial spill of insecticide containing D-tetramethrin, cyphenothrin and pyriproxy- fen on the activated sludge biomass was studied through both, respirometry and microbiome analysis.

The toxic effect on the activated sludge community demonstrated to be significant, completely inhibiting nitrifying activity and changing the distribution of the microbiome. Results show that relative abundance of certain groups increased after the spill, being then the new conditions favourable for the development of these groups. By contrast, others groups are shown to be extremely sensitive to the toxic effect, such that their disappearance can act as a key indicator of an insecticide spill occurrence in a WWTP. however, the abundance of nitrifying bacteria was not affected.