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Abstract Background The aim of this paper was to map consumers’ food hygiene practices from 10 European countries and evaluate which demographic groups are more likely to be exposed to foodborne pathogens and establish a ranking of adherence to food hygiene practices in 10 European countries. Methods The research design consisted of a cross-national quantitative consumer survey regarding food safety and hygiene practices during meal preparation (SafeConsume project) and was conducted in ten European countries (France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain and UK). The survey questions were based on recommended hand hygiene practices and on observed practices from a field study performed in 90 European households from six of the countries covered by the survey (France, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, and UK). SPSS Statistics 26 (IBM Software Group, Chicago, IL) was used for the descriptive and regression analyses of the data. Regression analyses were used to check the relation between demographic characteristics, country of origin and self-reported hand hygiene practices. Results According to the regression models, families with elderly members aged over 65 showed a higher tendency to follow proper hand washing practices compared to families without elderly members. Meanwhile, families with children under the age of 6 reported being up to twice as likely to wash their hands at critical moments compared to families without children. Overall, taking into consideration the likelihood of washing hands after touching raw chicken and the percentages scores for proper hand cleaning methods and key moments for hand washing, the rank of the countries regarding proper hand hygiene practices was the following: Denmark, Greece, Norway, Romania, Hungary, Germany, UK, Portugal, France, and Spain. Conclusions Information and education should point both at the key moments as suggested by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) and safe practices. Public health burden generated by improper hand washing may be significantly reduced if education is targeted on consumers’ behaviour and practices.

The present study aims to generalize cultivar-specific tree phenology responses to winter and spring temperatures and assess the effectiveness of the Tabuenca test and various chill and heat accumulation models in predicting bloom dates for a wide range of climatic conditions and years. To this end, we estimated the dates of rest completion and blooming and correlated them with observed bloom dates for 14 peach and nectarine cultivars that were evaluated in 11 locations across Europe (Greece, France, Italy, Romania and Spain), within the EUFRIN cultivar testing trial network. Chill accumulation varied considerably among the studied sites, ranging from 45 Chill Portions (CP) in Murcia-Torre Pacheco (Spain) to 97–98 CP in Cuneo (Italy) and Bucharest (Romania). Rest completion occurred latest or was not achieved at all for some cultivars in the southern sites in Murcia. Dormancy release happened earliest in Bucharest and Cuneo, sites where heat accumulation had a strong influence on the regulation of bloom time. Blooming occurred earliest in the moderately cold regions of Lleida (Spain) and Bellegarde (France), and 7–11 days later in the warmer locations of Rome (Italy) and Naoussa (Greece), suggesting that bloom timing is strongly influenced by delayed rest completion in these locations. The Dynamic Model resulted in both more homogeneous chill accumulation across years and better predictions of bloom dates, compared with the Utah, Positive Utah and Chilling Hours models. Prediction of bloom dates was less successful for low-chill cultivars than for medium- and high-chill cultivars. Further climatic and experimental data are needed to make estimates of the climatic needs of peach cultivars more robust and to generate reliable advice for enhancing the resilience of peach production under varying and changing climatic conditions. PD and GP were co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH—CREATE—INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK-05438). EL received funding from the Partnership for Research and Innovation in the Mediterranean Area (PRIMA), a program supported under H2020, the European Union’s Framework program for research and innovation, within the AdaMedOr project (grant number 01DH20012 of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research). 13 pags.- 6 Figs.- 2 Tabls. © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Peer reviewed

This chapter investigates the enabling conditions and policy settings that are more conducive to the uptake of NAS and discusses how to effectively engage with the insurance sector as part of that process. It covers frequently cited issues that limit NBS implementation that also directly relate to NAS and offers insights on how to address them. It highlights opportunities and challenges to further support the mobilization of green infrastructure as part of NAS schemes by building on the relevant learnings and resources from the NAIAD project. International audience

This study assessed the growth of Listeria monocytogenes in ready‐to‐eat (RTE) ham during storage under conditions simulating domestic practices with the intention to offer support in the elaboration of food safety policies that should better protect consumers against food poisoning at home. RTE ham, artificially contaminated at either medium (102 –103 CFU/g) or high (104 –105 CFU/g) concentration, was stored at both isothermal (4℃ in a refrigerator able to maintain a relatively constant temperature and 5℃ and 7℃ in a refrigerator with fluctuating temperature) and dynamic (5℃ and 7℃ with intermittent exposure to ambient temperature, e.g. 25℃) conditions. Under isothermal conditions, the increasing storage temperature determined a significantly increased (p < 0.05) capacity of L. monocytogenes to grow. The kinetic growth parameters were derived by fitting the Baranyi and Roberts model to the experimental data and, based on the maximum specific growth rates, it was estimated the temperature dependence of L. monocytogenes growth in RTE ham. At medium contamination level, sanitary risk time calculation revealed that, unlike storage at 5℃ and 7℃, storage at 4℃ of the RTE ham extends the time period during which the product is safe for consumption by ∼40 and 52%, respectively. However, the real temperature fluctuations included in the Monte Carlo simulations at low L. monocytogenes counts (1, 5 and 10 CFU/g) have shortened the safety margins. Stochastic models also proved to be useful tools for describing the pathogen’s behavior when refrigeration of the RTE ham alternates with periods of ham being kept at room temperature, considered dynamic conditions of growth.

One of the major challenges of animal husbandry, in addition to those related to the economic situation and the current energy crisis, is the major contribution of this sector to atmospheric pollution. Awareness of pollution sources and their permanent monitoring in order to ensure efficient management of the farm, with the aim of reducing emissions, is a mandatory issue, both at the macro level of the economic sector and at the micro level, specifically at the level of each individual farm. In this context, the acquisition of consistent environmental data from the level of each farm will constitute a beneficial action both for the decision-making system of the farm and for the elaboration or adjustment of strategies at the national level. The current paper proposes a case study of air pollutants in a cattle farm for different seasons (winter and summer) and the correlation between their variation and microclimate parameters. A further comparison is made between values estimated using the EMEP (European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme, 2019) methodology for air pollutant emission and values measured by sensors in a hybrid decision support platform for farms. Results show that interactions between microclimate and pollutant emissions exist and they can provide a model for the farm’s activities that the farmer can manage according to the results of the measurements.

This study aims to evaluate the potential impact of climate and land use change on seasonal dynamics of surface runoff within the Upper Tarlung watershed of 71.62 km2. Using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), we simulated the surface runoff under the projections from four global and regional combination models for two representative concentration pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and three land use change scenarios. In addition, short (2020–2039), mid (2040–2069), and long-term model simulations (2070–2100) were analyzed compared with a ten-year baseline period (1979–1988). Ensemble SWAT outputs showed that, in spring, surface runoff could decrease by up to 28% or increase by up to 86%, in summer can decrease by up to 69%, while in autumn and winter, increases of approximately two to five times fold are expected. The decreasing tendency is more pronounced under climate conditions, while the sharpest increases are estimated in the comprehensive scenario of climate and land use change by 50%. Those results serve as a support for local water, forest, and land managers in anticipating possible threats and conceiving adaptive strategies to manage the studied watershed efficiently.

Salmonellosis is the second most common zoonosis in humans after campylobacteriosis. Eggs and egg products are the foods most commonly associated with Salmonella outbreaks. Also, inadequate hygiene practices performed by consumers at home contribute to the prevalence of foodborne diseases. The elderly, children, and pregnant women are the most vulnerable individuals. Thus, the objective of this study was to analyse Romanian and Portuguese consumers' self-reported consumption of raw-egg based-foods, food and hand hygiene practices, and to check if vulnerable consumer groups mediate the relationship between consumption of raw-egg based-foods and hygiene practices since they have weak immune systems. Significant correlations were found between the number of foodborne events and the number of Romanian and Portuguese consumers who did not report proper raw-egg handling and hand hygiene practices. An ordinary regression model indicated an increased consumption frequency of raw-egg based-foods reported by Romanian and Portuguese men, consumers aged <55 years, and from the category of vulnerable consumers, families with pregnant women, and families with children thus exposing themselves to a higher risk of foodborne diseases when compared with Romanian and Portuguese women and consumers aged >55 years. Structural equation modelling (SEM) indicated that there is a negative link between consumption frequency of raw-egg based-foods and food and hand hygiene practices for both Romanian and Portuguese consumers. Vulnerable consumers mediate the relationship between consumption frequency and hygiene practices, suggesting that Romanian families with elderly members and families with children dampened the negative relationship between consumption of raw-egg based-foods and self-reported hygiene practices, the contrary being observed Portuguese families with children and families from both countries with pregnant women. Recommendations for multi-faceted approaches regarding educational campaigns are made in order to improve consumers’ knowledge and food handling practices.