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Reductions in industrial pollutant loads and the introduction and modernization of wastewater treatment facilities have improved the quality of inland waters in Europe and elsewhere, but climatic change, changes in runoff and the legacy of mine wastes may increase pressures on many aquatic environments. In the present study, data obtained by monitoring the French–German river are collated to visualize long-term trends in the pollution, river discharges and temperatures of Moselle waters. While air temperatures and accumulated heat sums in the catchment area showed an upward trend, precipitation and discharge levels as well as river temperatures were less affected by the ongoing climatic change. At the same time, the electric conductivity, i.e., the total suspended solids, did not show the anticipated reductions, while oxygen levels and pH values have showed upward trends since the 1990s. Despite the improvements in classical water quality parameters, the flooding of abandoned mines, increased water abstraction for cooling and agriculture and untreated old and emerging pollutants may aggravate environmental problems in the future. Climatic change will probably modify the runoff of pollutant loads by increasing the severity of flash floods and by concentrating water pollutants in drought spells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Previous experiments have not considered in situ evaluations of CO2 enrichment on oilseed rape (OSR) under European climates with regard to energetic value and seed quality. Therefore, Brassica napus cv. Campino was grown in a free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) field experiment at Stuttgart-Hohenheim (Germany) under ambient (388±9μll−1) and elevated (494±16μll−1) CO2 concentrations. Aboveground biomass production and energy yields of both straw and seeds increased, while energy contents per dry weight were identical in both CO2 treatments. Among the mineral concentrations in seeds, sulphur, boron and cadmium were significantly reduced and zinc and manganese tended to decrease (0.1≥ P >0.05) under elevated CO2. Total protein concentration declined significantly by 4.6% with CO2 enrichment, although increased seed yield (+18.4%) compensated for the change on a production basis. Accordingly, several proteinogenic amino acids per unit meal weight were significantly reduced (asparagine/aspartic acid, glycine, alanine, cysteine, valine, isoleucine, and leucine) or tended to decrease (glutamine/glutamic acid, methionine) in the high-CO2 treatment, resulting in higher carbon/nitrogen ratios. Amino acids on a per protein basis and total oil concentrations were unaffected, while oil yield per unit ground area tended to increase by 19.8%. Elevated CO2 slightly changed the composition of fatty acids on a per dry weight basis, which was more pronounced for unsaturated fatty acids. The concentration of major unsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid increased significantly, while linolenic acid, nervonic acid and the group of essential fatty acids were decreased. There was also a negative trend for cis-11-eicosenic acid. The same holds true for the composition of fatty acids on a per oil basis. Among glucosinolates, only progoitrin tended to decrease under CO2 enrichment. The results indicate that elevated CO2 levels may have implications for food and feed quality and use for industrial processing of OSR in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]