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SENSE e-News Summer 2022

Reflection and looking ahead

VENI grant for Jouke Dykstra (WUR) for the electrochemical cleaning of drinking water

With his project on electrochemical ‘water polishing’, ETE assistant professor Jouke Dykstra has been awarded a VENI grant in the NWO talent scheme Veni, Vidi, Vici. This grant is aimed for excellent scientists that have successfully finished their PhD within the last three years. His project, Removal of toxic anthropogenic solutes in drinking water treatment by electrochemical polishing, aims to clean drinking water from low-level contaminants, that are still present after the conventional treatment technologies. The grant offers a personal budget of € 280.00000 for four years of work. Dykstra: ‘We will use the grant to develop the technology as well as a simulation model to further fine tune the knowhow and methodology.’

COVID-19 lockdown cuts CO2 emissions throughout Europe and 40% in Amsterdam

As COVID-19 first hit Europe in the spring of 2020, most countries, including The Netherlands, implemented strict measures to limit the spread of the virus. Human economic activity and transport in cities stopped almost instantly, and many people had to move their work from offices to homes.

The first recently published study in Science of the Total Environment by Giacomo Nicolini et al. shows that urban emissions were reduced by 5% to 87% across 11 cities and 13 measurement sites when compared to the same period in previous years. Measurements as part of the Amsterdam Atmospheric Monitoring Supersite (AAMS) showed the emissions were reduced by 40% during the lockdown and surprisingly, they remained about 30% lower for four months after the lockdown before they started to rise again.

A dam that causes tension: Jonatan Godinez Madrigal (IHE) earns PhD for research on El Zapotillo conflict

Following PhD research at IHE Delft, Mr. Jonatan Godinez Madrigal of Mexico successfully defended his PhD thesis and was awarded with a Doctoral degree on 26 April 2022. Professor Pieter van der Zaag is his promotor and Dr. Nora van Cauwenbergh his co-promotor. Dr. Godinez Madrigal shared a few insights as he embarks on a new chapter of his life.

SENSE e-News April/May 2022

SENSE Symposium on 2 June, and Sciences in times of crises

Immediate acceleration of global climate action needed to meet the 1.5-degree target

The Paris climate agreement's goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees is slipping beyond the horizon unless countries show an increased joint ambition to take urgent action. Thus state the five Dutch climate experts who contributed to the latest IPCC report that was released on 5 April.

Finger on the climate pulse

In the Climate Agreements, countries stated their intention to do everything they can to stop global warming. But what are those promises leading to in practice? Wageningen professor Niklas Höhne is the man behind the Climate Tracker, which shows whether governments are doing what they said they would do for the climate. “Some countries don’t have any plans at all for implementing the measures. This is very worrying.”

Permafrost thawing faster than expected due to extreme summer rainfall

In the past 50 years, the Arctic region has been warming three times faster than the average rate of global warming. This warming thaws the permafrost, the permanently frozen Arctic soil. New research published in Nature Communications has revealed that extreme summer rainfall is accelerating this process. As extreme rainfall events become more frequent thanks to a warmer climate, the permafrost may thaw even faster than under the influence of rising temperatures alone.

Rivers retain plastic for decades

‘Between one and four million plastic items flow through Dutch rivers every year’, says researcher Tim van Emmerik. And not just that: contrary to the general assumption, the plastic is not carried to the sea, it stays in the rivers.