The Joint Research Centre has launched a call for expressions of interest in joining a campaign to measure the extent of microplastics in urban wastewater.
While there has been much talk and speculation about the occurrence and risks of microplastics in water resources, including in drinking water, more scientific knowledge is required to understand the size of the problem.
The JRC contributed to the soil component of the State of the World's Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture, the first global assessment of biodiversity for food and agriculture worldwide, recently released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Over the past two decades, approximately 20% of the Earth’s vegetated surface has become less productive and most of the species, genes and microorganisms that are the bedrock of food production are ‘severely under threat’.
The JRC recently launched the European Index of Digital Entrepreneurship Systems. This tool compares the digital entrepreneurial ecosystems in the 28 EU countries, by looking at the conditions important for digital enterprises.
Certified reference materials (CRMs) are important quality assurance tools for precise measurements. Scientists from the JRC and the National Metrology Institute of South Africa elaborated on the principles for the characterisation and value assignment of reference materials according to the new ISO guide 35, aiming to facilitate the interpretation of the new guide.
The 'European Round Table of Industrialists' identified non-tariff barriers as one of the main factors hindering the free movement of goods.
The Joint Research Centre (JRC)'s expertise in Photovoltaics (PV) is based on the work carried out, since more than 35 years, at the European Solar Test Installation (ESTI). This independent European reference laboratory validates electrical performance and lifetime (power and energy generation) of photovoltaic devices. A new technical report supports the EU political objective of increasing the share of renewable energy in the market.
A Clean Planet for all: European strategic long-term vision
The relative temperature dependence of the short-circuit current of photovoltaic (PV) devices has been measured by three methods and six European partner laboratories with unprecedented agreement as part of a new classification scheme of PV devices, which was built within the EURAMET ENG55 PhotoClass project.
According to the March 2019 issue of the JRC MARS Crop monitoring in Europe Bulletin, which was published today, winter crops are advanced and in good shape in most of Europe, following a mild winter.
Cold spells have been rare and have not caused significant damage.
In February and early March, the whole of Europe experienced milder-than-usual conditions, with the strongest anomalies observed in the Baltic countries, eastern Poland, Belarus and western Ukraine.
A groundbreaking web-based platform to monitor global freshwater ecosystems was endorsed at last weekend's United Nations Science-Policy-Business forum in Nairobi, ahead of the Fourth UN Environment Assembly, the world’s highest-level decision-making body on the environment.
In 2015 the operation of the European energy sector required about 74 billion m3 of fresh water, an important natural resource which will become scarcer around the world due to the effects of climate change. A recent JRC report estimates that the European energy industry will considerably decrease its water use in the future, mainly thanks to the increasing share of renewable energy sources – whose water needs are much smaller than those of nuclear and coal power plants.
The European Parliament today voted in a new set of EU rules that will ensure protection of European farmers and small and mid-range suppliers against unfair trading practices in the food supply chain.
The new European law will cover agricultural and food products traded in the food supply chain, banning for the first time up to 16 unfair trading practices imposed unilaterally by one trading partner on another.
