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Bioretention systems are designed for quality treatment of stormwater. Particulate contaminants are commonly treated efficiently and accumulate mainly in the surface layer of the bioretention filter material. However, concerns exist that microplastic particles may not show equal accumulation behavior as other sediment particles. So far only two field and two laboratory studies are available on the fate of microplastics in few relatively newly built bioretention systems. Therefore, this study investigated the abundance and distribution of microplastics in nine 7–12 years old stormwater bioretention systems. It was found that microplastics generally accumulate on the surface of bioretention systems. Microplastic median particle concentrations decreased significantly from the surface layer (0–5 cm) of the filter material to the 10–15 cm depth layer from 448 to 136 particles/100 g, respectively. The distance to the inlet did not significantly affect the surface accumulation of microplastic particles, suggesting modest spatial variability in microplastics accumulation in older bioretention systems. Further, this study investigated the polymer composition in bioretention systems. It was shown that PP, EVA, PS and EPDM rubber are the most abundant polymer types in bioretention systems. Also, it was found that large percentages of microplastic particles are black particles (median percentage of black particles: 39%) which were found in 28 of the 33 investigated samples. This underlines the importance of including black particles in microplastic studies on stormwater, which has been overlooked in most previous studies., Validerad;2023;Nivå 2;2023-02-21 (joosat);Funder: Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (208-0182-18)Licens fulltext: CC BY License

This paper presents the main outcomes of a joint research project conducted at ZMO Berlin between March 2018 and July 2021 with funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project analyzed how Syrians remembered their "normal lives" through daily interactions with each other, in neighbourhoods, institutions, or families, as well as routine encounters with the state through the interface of infrastructural provision and bureaucratic practices. Describing three distinct modalities of connection through which incomers of Syrian origin continue to engage with their distant homeland, the paper demonstrates that 'crisis' and 'normality' are not mutually exclusive states of reality, but can be experienced as overlapping states of being that may shape a given life alternately or simultaneously. Secondly, engaging with efforts to communicate the research findings to a wider public, this paper discusses the communicative "balancing acts" that arise when presenting and discussing the project findings with members of the public in Germany. It is suggested that social and political hierarchies inherent to "integration" contexts may complicate or hinder communication. Thus, opportunities to learn about life in Syria, but also Germany, from the perspective of new citizens, may be obscured and even lost. In conclusion, this paper argues for a perspective that does not essentialize (and generically flatten) people as "refugees" despite the distinct and specific legal and political regimes that shape their condition and set them apart from other categories of migrants. Rather, their experiences must be seen in the context of longer-term trajectories that encompass Syrian and German realities as intertwined and linked in many, often unexpected, ways.

(1) Land use intensification has led to serious declines in biodiversity, including in forage production systems for dairy cows. Agri-environmental schemes, such as enriching grasslands in floral species, were shown to be an effective tool to promote biodiversity in higher trophic levels. Here, we studied an innovative pasture-based dairy production system with floral-species-en-hanced temporary grasslands, with respect to the effect on wild bee abundance and species richness. (2) We studied three grass–clover mixtures with perennial ryegrass and clover species with different levels of plant diversity for flower cover and wild bees. The grass-clover pastures were rotationally stocked with cattle and parts of the pastures were excluded from grazing. Intensively managed conventional permanent grasslands were studied as the common land use type. Wild bees were caught by sweep netting. Wild bee diversity was analysed with a general linear mixed model. For species richness, an incidence-based coverage estimator was calculated. (3) In total, 541 wild bees from 10 species were found. No wild bees were caught on the conventional grasslands. Wild bee abundance and species richness did not differ among the three grass-clover mixtures, but with in-creasing flower cover of white clover (Trifolium repens), wild bee abundance increased. Except for one solitary wild bee individual, the recorded community exclusively consisted of bumblebees. While generalist species that are commonly found on farmland dominated, rare long-tongued bumblebees made up 10% on the grazed sites of the multispecies mixture and made up 20% on the ungrazed strips of the binary mixture and multispecies mixture. (4) We conclude that multispecies mixtures can provide resources for generalist bumblebee species, especially when compared with conventional grasslands that offer no resources. Considering that the multispecies mixture has been also shown to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and nitrate leaching, while