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WATERAGRI - Water retention and nutrient recycling in soils and streams for improved agricultural production is a new H2020 Research & Innovation project starting in May 2020 and lasting for 4 years. The WATERAGRI consortium consists of 23 partners from 12 European countries under the lead of Lund University (Sweden) among which is the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. WATERAGRI is taking up the challenge of solving the problems of water management and fertilization in agriculture in a sustainable way in order to secure food production in Europe in the 21st century.

The level of environmental contamination can vary according to different types of land use. The aim of the present study was to determine the relations among Cd, Pb, Ni and Cr content in plants (Taraxacum officinale) and soils for 10 types of land use in the urban areas of representative cities for central Europe region (Warsaw, Poznan and Wroclaw in Poland). Descriptive statistical analysis, as well as cluster analysis and principal component analysis, heatmaps and Andrews curves, was performed to identify relations between HMs and land use, as well as differences between particular cities. The investigations revealed variation among sites, plant organs and cities. The content (mg kg−1 DW) in soils, roots and leaves for Cd varied between 0.4 and 3.6, 0.4–2.8 and 0.5–3.9, Cr ranged between 23.2 and 40.6, 14.0–26.1 and 15.8–24.8, Ni varied between 2.1 and 13.2, 0.2–42.1 and 0.0–3.9, while Pb varied between 27.0 and 231.5, 4.3–34.2 and 3.0–9.5, respectively. It was possible to note some tendencies. Nickel was the element with the highest content in the roots (up to 42.1 mg kg−1 DW) in comparison to leaves and soils and the highest bioaccumulation factor (up to 15.0). This means that the main source of Ni might be contamination of the soil. The cluster analysis of standardized HM levels in leaves revealed that cadmium is a different from the other three elements, which might be related to the translocation factor, for which this element was found to have the highest levels at many sites.

The paper presents an innovative approach to probabilistic modelling of the amount of biomass of fast-growing bushes on the example of basket willow ( Salix viminalis ). The model was developed on the basis of results of biometric measurements of randomly selected shoots of basket willow, cut periodically from bushes at least 0.5 m tall, cultivated on an experimental plot. The description of the random variation of willow shoot and bush was made with the use of a two-dimensional gamma distribution describing the shoot mass and volume, as well as the Pascal distribution characterising the number of shoots in a plant. The result was an estimation of the variation of plant mass under the conditions of observation of one or more shoots. The very good fit of the model to the experimental data indicates that it is justified to accept the model as a basic tool for the estimation of the amount of biomass on a plantation.

The overview of developed so far methods for biometric measurements showed a lack of application of the uniform standards, confirmed by the appropriate statistical tools. As a consequence, biomass’ productivity models built on their basis are incomparable between each other, and their use is limited. The paper presents an innovative method of probabilistic description of biometric features of basket willow (Salix viminalis). It concerns the descriptive statistics regarding the characteristics of that plant with which it is possible to relate the diameter and length of the shoots of basket willow with its mass, introducing the concept of shoot volume index. For this purpose the results of biometric measurements, consisting in cutting randomly selected shoots in the period of vegetation and measuring their length, diameter in the middle of the length and their mass, were used. The measurements were conducted in 2011–2013, a period covering the second, third, and fourth years of extensive cultivation of basket willow. Those years were evidently distinctive as regards the weather (thermal and water) conditions. Two features of basket willow shoots were suggested for analysis: their volume index and their mass. They are statistically correctly described by a mixture of two gamma distributions, independent of plantation age and of the moment when the measurement was conducted in the period of vegetation. The number of shoots in a bush was described by shifted Pascal distribution. In each year of cultivation, this distribution statistically correctly described their number.

The objective of this study was the estimation of the effect of droplet structure of diurnal precipitation totals, measured with Thies Clima disdrometer, on the value of surface runoff from three kinds of surface used in urban areas, i.e. a roof surface covered with small-grain roofing paper, a car park surface of openwork concrete slabs, and a tarmac surface, and the resultant reduction of infiltration from atmospheric precipitation. The detailed comparative analysis of diurnal precipitation totals in the aspect of droplet structure, structure of increasing influx of precipitation water to the surface, and changes of air temperature-humidity conditions, allowed preliminary elucidation of the effect of those factors on the values of the runoff indices for the different hardened surfaces. The analysis of reduction of infiltration presents the level of supply losses resulting from the use of surface covering systems with various degrees of permeability to precipitation water. A solution that can minimise the indicated losses can be an approach to precipitation water management assuming interception of possibly the largest amounts of non-productive surface runoff waters, and then using that water.

The aim of the experiment presented in this paper is to assess the relationship between the height and diameter increase rate and the thermal conditions and precipitation during its growth. The experiment was carried out in the Agro- and Hydrometeorology Observatory of the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences in 2013–2015. The height and diameter measurement was made each time on the same 43 plants, randomly selected at the stage of setting up the experiment in 2012 and specially marked. Plants included in further analyses were divided into 5 classes and the classification criterion was their height in the 3rd year of cultivation. Initially, an analysis of relationships of selected morphological parameters of Scots pine was carried out, i.e. of the heights and diameters against the changing weather conditions, i.e. precipitations and air temperatures. Subsequently, an effect of the thermal conditions and the amount of precipitation on growth of Scots pine was assessed with the use of the two meteorological parameters mentioned above. These parameters were used as their accumulated sums, calculated as of the dates of biometric measurements, made at the end of each month (the last ten days of a month) in the summer half-year period. Multiple regression analysis was applied to evaluate the effect of thermal conditions and precipitation on the growth of Scots pine in both variants and the significance of the relationships under study was examined with the use of an adjusted coefficient of determination R2. The analyses and calculations indicate a close significant relationship between the height of pine trees and their diameter at the base on any measurement date. Analyses of different measurement periods indicated a decrease in significance of the relationships between the height of pine trees and their diameter at the base. A decrease in these relationships is becoming more and more pronounced with the age of the trees. Of the two weather parameters, i.e. total air temperature and total precipitation, the precipitation dominates in the relationship with the trees height and air temperature – with the trees diameter.

Evaluation of methods of comparative analysis of sums of atmospheric precipitation measured with the classical method and with a contact-less laser rain gauge. The paper concerns on the evaluation of a preliminary method of comparing data on diurnal sums of atmospheric precipitation acquired with the classic method and by means of Thies Clima laser precipitation monitor - disdrometer. The objective of the study was realized with the use of results of measurements of diurnal sum of precipitation conducted from 1 July to 31 August 2012, in the area of the Faculty Agro and Hydrometeorology Observatory of the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences. Information about precipitation measured by means of disdrometer and processed by the authors’ software DisPre led to the development of three variants of precipitation totals counting (1 - data processed by means of the program supplied as standard by the manufacturer of the disdrometer, 2 - totals calculated from the volume of particular hydrometeors - 11 classes, and 3 - totals calculated basing on droplets’ diameters - 22 classes). The tests showed that the totals processed by the program supplied by the manufacturer proved to be the closest to the measurements taken with the Hellmann rain gauge as the method of precipitation calculation during a 24-hour period. The reason for the divergences of the observed values should be certainly sought in the method of measurement itself. Due to the high sensitivity of disdrometer on the external factors, it is absolutely necessary to conduct daily checks of cleanliness of the instrument - especially in the summer period.

The objective of the study was the estimation of decade variation of water content in layers with thickness of 0–10, 0–20, 0–40 and 0–60 cm of a bare light brown soil in the summer half-year (May–October) in the 10-year period of 2003–2012 against the background of agro-meteorological conditions. The study was based on results of measurement of the moisture of a bare soil with the use of the TDR method, sums of atmospheric precipitations and ground water levels, conducted in the area of the Agro- and Hydrometeorology Observatory of the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, situated in Wrocław-Swojec. The analyses revealed slight variation of mean decade values of water content in the bare soil in the summer half-year during the ten-year period under analysis. Irrespective of the thickness of the soil layer, precipitation in the 10-year period of 2003–2012 had a highly significant effect on the water content in the 2nd decade of July. In the case of soil layers with thickness down to 0–20 cm a statistically significant relation between soil water content and ground water levels was noted for the 3rd decade of May, July, and in the 3rd decade of September. In the layer with thickness of 0–60 cm the relations were statistically significant almost throughout the summer half-year, with the exception of the 1st and 2nd decades of May. Analysis of trends of mean water content of the bare soil over the 10-year period of 2003–2012 indicated their statistically significant increase in the case of most of the decades of the summer half-year only in soil layers with thickness of 0–10 and 0–20 cm.

The paper presents the evaluation of the relation between meteorological elements and air pollutants’ concentrations. The analysis includes daily concentrations of pollutants and variation of meteorological elements such as wind speed, air temperature and relative humidity, precipitation and total radiation at four monitoring stations located in the province of Lower Silesia in individual months of the winter half-year (November–April, according to hydrological year classification) of 2005–2009. Data on air quality and meteorological elements came from the results of research conducted in the automatic net of air pollution monitoring conducted in the range of the State Environment Monitoring. The effect of meteorological elements on analysed pollutant concentration was determined using the correlation and regression analysis at significance level α < 0.05. The occurrence of maximum concentration of NO, NO2, NOX, SO2 and PM10 occurred in the coldest months during winter season (January, February and December) confirmed the strong influence of “low emission” on air quality. Among the meteorological factors assessed wind speed was most often selected component in step wise regression procedure, then air temperature, less air relative humidity and solar radiation. In the case of a larger number of variables describing the pollution in the atmosphere, in all analyzed winter seasons the most common set of meteorological elements were wind speed and air temperature.

The colour of fruits is considered to be an important quality indicator. Sale ability greatly depends on how well covered the colour is of the specific type of fruits. We used a visual colour scale (0-100 percent) for evaluation of colorization. We distinguished the yellow, green and red cultivars. In the following studies we show those results which consider the red type apples only. Cover colour is one of the phenometric variables and it is a well-known fact that significant differences can be experienced year by year. The experienced oscillation can be the cause of inappropriate water- and nutriment supply; however it can be the result of some kind of plant disease, extremely high or low temperature, setting rate above the average and outstanding fruit density. In the present examination it is postulated that the degree of cover colour is mostly influenced by day and night temperature. Therefore, our study aims to find out whether it is true or not. Cover colour belongs to those phenometric characteristic features, only the final value of which is taken into consideration; due to their nature of establishment or forming time it seems useless to follow closely the change in the time of vegetation. We analysed the ripening groups of apple varieties separately. We have found that at winter ripening cultivars has bigger importance of genetic properties whilst at summer and autumnal ripening ones the weather effects have bigger importance. The research results shows that the day and night temperature has an important role on fruit quality parameters as sugar content, vitamin C content and on acidity also. Because we can modify the canopy temperature by using evaporative cooling system we have a chance to set up an optimal value of day and night temperature difference in the orchards.

The developed model MoDrY is designed for the estimation of the level of spring wheat yields on the basis of dry periods occurring during the particular periods between the phenological phases of the crop plant. A characteristic feature of this model, unlike most existing weather-yield models, is that the principle of its operation is based only on information on the occurrence of precipitation. In the study the authors used research material from 27 years and diurnal sums of atmospheric precipitation. Five measures were adopted to characterise the error of approximation: coefficient of correlation, mean relative error, RRMSE, EF, and CRM. The coefficient of correlation obtained was at the level of 0.91, and the mean relative error at the level of 9.79%. Validation was performed by means of the Cross Validation test (CV), version LOO. For the approximation and validation, the values of CRM and RRMSE indicated a very good fit of the model, also supported by the value of EF obtained for calibration. Additional result of developed MoDrY model is the information that could be helpful to assess the impact of rainless periods occurring during particular interphase periods on the spring wheat yielding.

The paper presents a weather-yield model developed for the purpose of estimating spring barley yield on the basis of dry spells occurring in individual periods between the phenological phases of that plant. For that purpose research material on spring barley, originating from the years 1976–1997, was used as well as diurnal sums of precipitation. Five periods were considered in the analysis: sowing–emergence, emergence–tillering, tillering–heading, heading–milk ripeness and milk ripeness–full ripeness. In the study a model of changes in the amount of water available for plant during rainless periods was used. Five measures were adopted for characterisation of the approximation error: correlation coefficient, mean relative error, relative root mean square error, model efficiency and coefficient of residual mass. The analyses performed demonstrated that yield reduction is significantly influenced by rainless periods that occur in the sowing–emergence and tillering–heading inter-phase periods. The adopted criteria for yield reduction estimation show considerable similarity for the emergence–tillering and heading–milk ripeness inter-phase periods. At the same time, their influence on yield reduction is three-fold lower than during the sowing–emergence and tillering–heading inter-phase periods. Analyses performed with the use of the developed model indicate that yield size is affected by rainless periods of duration longer than 30% of the inter-phase period.

The aim of the paper was to elaborate a novel calculator BasWilCalc, that allows to estimate the actual amount of biomass on the basket willow plantations. The proposed method is based on the results of field experiment conducted during years 2011-2013 on basket willow plantation in the south-western part of Poland. As input data the results of destructive measurements of the diameter, length and weight of willow stems and non-destructive biometric measurements of diameter in the middle of stems and their length during the growing season performed at weekly intervals were used. Performed analysis enabled to develop the algorithm which, due to the fact that energy plantations are of known and constant planting structure, allows to estimate the actual amount of willow basket biomass on the plantation with a given probability and accuracy specified by the model, based on the number of stems measured and the age of the plantation., {"references":["J. Van Dam, A. Faaij, I. Lewandowski, and G. Fischer, \"Biomass production potentials in central and eastern Europe under different scenarious,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 31, pp. 345–366, 2007.","K. Ericsson, H. Rosenqvist, E. Ganko, M. Pisarek, and L. Nilsson, \"An agro-economic analysis of willow cultivation in Poland,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 30, pp. 16–27, 2006.","F. Hellmann and P. Verburg, \"Spatially explicit modeling of biofuel crops in Europe,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 35, pp. 2411–2424, 2011.","M. Hoogwijk, A. Faaij, B. Eickhout, B. de Vries, and W. Turkenburg, \"Potential of biomass energy out to 2100, for four IPCC SRES land-use scenarios,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 29, pp. 225–257, 2005.","E. Krasuska and H. Rosenqvist, \"Economics of energy crops in Poland today and in the future,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 38, pp. 23–33, 2012.","G. Tuck, M. Glending, P. Smith, J. House, and M. Wattenbach, \"The potential distribution of bioenergy crops in Europe under present and future climate,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 30, 2006.","M. de Wit and A. Faaij, \"European biomass resource potential and costs,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 34, pp. 188–202, 2010.","D. Voivontas, D. Assimacopoulos, and E. Koukios, \"Assessment of biomass potential for power production: a GIS based method,\" Biomass Bioenergy, vol. 20, pp. 101–112, 2001.","S. Surrendran Nair, S. Kang, X. Zhang, F. Miguez, R. Izaurralde, W. Post, M. Dietze, L. Lynd, and S. Wullschleger, Bioenergy crop models: descriptions, data requirements and future challenges. GCB Bioenergy, 2012, vol. 4.\n[10] W. Szulczewski, A. ̇ Zyromski, and M. Biniak-Pierog, \"Modelling of the effect of dry periods on yielding of spring barley,\" Agricultural Water Management, vol. 97(5), pp. 587–595, 2010.\n[11] A.̇ Zyromski, W. Szulczewski, and M. Biniak-Pier ́og, \"Application of the modry model for the estimation of potato yielding,\" International Journal of Plant Production, vol. 7(3), pp. 505–516, 2013.\n[12] P. Bernardoff, \"Which multivariate gamma distributions are infinitely divisible?\" Bernoulli, vol. 12(1), pp. 169–189, 2006.\n[13] F. Chatelain, J. Tourneret, J. Inglada, and A. Ferrari, \"Bivariate gamma distributions for image registration and change detection,\" IEEE Trans. on Image Proc., vol. 16(7), pp. 1796–1806, 2007.\n[14] W. Jakubowski, W. Szulczewski, A. ̇ Zyromski, and Biniak-Pierog, \"The estimation of basket willow (Salix viminalis) yield based on biometric observations - new approach,\" submitted for publication in Environ Ecol Stat, 2014.\n[15] A. ̇ Zyromski, W. Jakubowski, W. Szulczewski, M. Biniak-Pier ́og, and O. H., \"Evaluation method for increase of energy crop biomass during their growing season,\" in Proceedings of the 21th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, Copenhagen, Denmark, pp. 243-248, 2013."]}