Project

MetVed is a long-standing project that began in 2017 with the development the MedVed model, a methodology to estimate Residential Wood Burning emissions at high spatial resolution in Norway.

In 2020, the project entered its second phase, during which the MetVed model was significantly updated and improved. These updates included the incorporation of new emission factors and additional species, such as greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O), as well as improvement to the model’s functionality. Among the key improvements are:

• New parameters to describe the emission altitude,
• Improved temporal variation of emissions,
• Inclusion of a holiday cabin emission module to better account for the distinct characteristics of emissions from cabins compared to residential buildings. For instance, cabins are more dispersed and often located in rural areas. The model distinguishes between alpine and coastal cabins, which have distinctive seasonal variations.

The MetVed model uses diverse datasets, including wood consumption for heating at county level, official emission factors, building and property type data at 250-meter resolution, meteorological data from observation, location of wood burning installation and other heating technologies from the fire and rescue agencies and the housing market, and energy consumption in residential buildings.

The MetVed model provides emissions at 250 meters resolution for Norway, covering both air pollutants (PM_2.5, PM₁₀, BC, OC, CO, PAH, Nox, PCBs, dioxins, NMVOC and SO₂) and greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O).

These outputs are delivered with updated residential emissions to the Norwegian Environment Agency for use in the climate gas accounting at municipality level and air quality services, including air quality forecast.

Project

Project

The Partnership for European Environmental Research (PEER) as a network excels in the research on the biophysical and socio-ecological impacts linked to the implementation of the SDGs and the associated risks.

The pathways toward SDGs may lead to negative, unintended side-effects such as environmental impacts of green consumption patterns or over-use of water or chemicals for the intensified food-production. Although SDGs are implicitly about reducing or controlling risks (e.g., they deal with acting on climate change, tackling sustainability questions in cities and communities as well as responsible consumption and production patterns), there is no specific SDG for risks, and both the SDGs and the associated 169 targets address risks in an incoherent fashion.

The project PEER-TRISD aims to:

• Create a common understanding on what SDG-related risks exist, should be monitored, anticipated, and governed in the public and private sectors
• Analyse the monitoring, anticipation and governance needs, the existing UN, EU and national level systems and specific SDG systems
• Co-create recommendations that can support risk management in the implementation of SDGs in the policy field but also among the practitioners
• Identify needs for future research efforts and policy measures

 The following key tasks are planned:

• Co-creation workshops for actor and activity scanning
• System mapping through literature review
• Multi-level analysis of monitoring systems, indicators, and statistics
• Case studies of existing systems with SDGs to analyse of interlinkage and risk (e.g., cities, life on land, water)

Coordinating institutes:

UFZ - Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and SYKE - Finnish Environment Institute

Project

The ‘sensEURcity’ project was launched because measurements from cheaper (low cost) air quality sensors are still too unreliable and data quality is insufficiently known. With this project, the Directorate-General of the European Joint Research Centre (DG JRC), with funding from the Directorate-General for Environment, aims to help evaluate the performance and potential of low-cost sensor systems for air quality and make comparisons with conventional measurement methods.

Project

The main goal of the project is to modify and enhance NILUs existing atmospheric models to allow for improved simulation of traditional air pollutants (e.g., NO₂, PM_2.5, PM₁₀) at very high spatial resolution in urban areas.

Project

The DECIAS project is aimed at developing a modelling toolbox for environmental sustainability assessment based upon Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), dynamic Material Flow Analysis (MFA), and multiregional Input Output Analysis (MRIO).

The production, trade, and consumption of goods and services leads to significant impacts on the climate, environment and human health. The adoption of technological innovations or policies and measures targeting sustainable development can be aided by a systemic sustainability assessment that checks that actions are economically sound and do not come at increased environmental and social cost compared to the present situation. In fact, for many actions it is often possible to identify co-benefits across a range of economic, environmental and social indicators.

The DECIAS project aims to develop a multidisciplinary modeling framework and toolbox to better understand environmental impacts driven by economic activity and consumption. The framework will be based on Material Flow Analysis (MFA), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and multiregional Input-Output (MRIO) assessment. It captures the release of pollutants from human activities through the entire life cycle of materials, and leverages NILU’s experience in modelling pollutant transport through the environment.

Results will enable the comparative assessment of innovations, policies and measures for a transition to a green and circular economy, by estimating the associated social, environmental and climate costs and benefits.

The framework and tools will be developed through a series of case studies to test and demonstrate proof-of-concept. The project will focus on identifying impacts related to the cross-cutting topic climate-energy-land-water signified by UN SDGs 6, 7, 13, 14, 15 and relate to SDGs 3 on health and 12 on sustainable consumption and production.

[caption id="attachment_14339" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Life cycle[/caption]

Project

This SIS-project is designed in a close collaboration between NILU and NIVA with an overall objective to develop a methodological framework which can help with structure thinking and provide a systematic approach to the analysis of urban environmental sustainability.

The methodological framework will be developed based on the EEA’s urban sustainability conceptual framework and linking to UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), e.g., including the city context, key enabling factors, urban lenses and building blocks for urban sustainable development.

The following key specific thematic topics and research questions will be addressed in the project:

Nature-based solutions

• How to support cities towards more effective mitigation and adaptation to climate change?

Assessment of environmental contaminants in the urban environment

• How does the composition of environmental contaminants in the urban environments change, e.g., as a result of urbanization, climate change and sustainable measures?

Behavioral change and citizen engagement

• How to improve human behavior to minimize emissions and pollution exposure?

Well-being and health

• How to improve health and well-being by innovative solutions in urban sustainable transitions?

The SIS-project has been broken down into the following three working groups (WG).

• WG1 – Environmental contaminants
• WG2 – Operationalization of UN SDGs & measurement of urban sustainability
• WG3 – Assessment of municipal needs

The project results are expected to

• facilitate different forms of analysis and assessment of urban environmental sustainability that will help decision-makers to identify policy options and priorities; and
• underpin and support a transition to urban environmental sustainability.

Project

The iFLINK project shall facilitate for monitoring AQ at many different places at low costs. Scientists working in the project will develop and use new calibration and visualization methods based on machine learning and data fusion techniques to correct and improve data quality from the cheaper sensors. They shall also develop an open technology solution to obtain and quality secure data from different AQ sensors, so that municipalities and other users can obtain AQ data in satisfying quality.

Many municipalities in Norway would like to measure air quality (AQ) in their local environment and share this information with their citizens.

However, official monitoring stations are quite expensive in acquisition and maintenance, therefore only a limited number of these stations are set up in Norwegian municipalities.

As alternative, more simple and cheap air quality sensors could be used that are easier to buy from a range of manufacturers. The challenge for these kind of sensors is the relative high uncertainty around the quality of their data. In addition, they require good solutions for data communication and storage to be able to set together AQ information from a range of different sensors and thus get a good overview of the AQ situation in real time.

The iFLINK project shall facilitate for monitoring AQ at many different places at low costs. Scientists working in the project will develop and use new calibration and visualization methods based on machine learning and data fusion techniques to correct and improve data quality from the cheaper sensors. They shall also develop an open technology solution to obtain and quality secure data from different AQ sensors, so that municipalities and other users can obtain AQ data in satisfying quality.

The project idea is that anyone can use iFLINK results and technology to develop real time services connected to AQ, climate change and noise pollution. Municipalities are most important supporters and partners in the project, first pilots will be carried out in the participating municipalities Oslo (project lead), Bergen, Bærum, Drammen and Kristiansand.