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Background: The nexus of agri-food and sustainability in economic development has recently attracted the interest of policymakers, as global challenges like climate change and food security are revisited and reassessed. The critical role of food production in economic development has been emphasized through targeted agricultural quality policies. Many developed countries worldwide, including EU member states, have introduced food quality policies that could support sustainability.Scope and approach: This paper combines knowledge obtained by several groups in a broad EU study and the reflections on policy-related results by EU-stakeholders, streamlined by a Delphi analysis.Current work presents research-based policy recommendations and statements on various quality schemes, introductory inferred from expert opinions throughout Europe, gauged through a modified policy Delphi framework.Key findings and conclusions: A roadmap of policy and practical proposals have been identified for all key stakeholders involved in these initiatives, implying the need to reshape the supply chain dynamics to continuously improve producers, processors, retailers, and consumers within the EU and definitively worldwide. Furthermore, implementing a holistic approach considering environmental and socio-economic features can improve the effectiveness of EU food quality policies.

Abstract Ecosystem modelling constitutes a useful tool for the ecosystem approach to fisheries management, which demands a shift to more complex models that include multi-species trophic interactions, environmental and anthropogenic forcing. The Thermaikos Gulf is a shallow gulf in the northwestern Aegean Sea (Greece) and one of the major fishing grounds of the northeastern Mediterranean concentrating high fishing effort of trawlers and purse-seiners and producing more than 20% of the total Greek catches. In the present work, we developed an Ecopath base model and ran Ecosim simulations for 26 years (2000–2025), including the calibration period (2000–2016), aiming to describe the food web structure and function of the Thermaikos Gulf, identify main components and interactions among the 33 functional groups, assess the ecosystem impacts of fishing over time and compare ecosystem properties with other Mediterranean areas. Overall ecosystem degradation with biomass and catch decline was observed at the end of the calibration period due to the impact of environmental factors and fishing activities. The ecosystem seemed to stabilize in an intermediate state by the end of the projection years, but with an overall biomass and catch decline. Fishing effort reduction after 2016 resulted in higher biomass and catches compared to 2014–2015, that could not however reach the 2000 levels in most cases. The examined fishing effort reduction scenarios clearly showed that the more the fishing effort is reduced, the higher the biomass in the ecosystem and the lower the catches obtained compared to the baseline scenario. In a nutshell, since environmental drivers may be harder to predict or control, lowering the exploitation levels is an important step towards the rebuilding of overfished marine resources and more resilient ecosystems.

To identify whether EU certified food – here organic and geographical indications – is more sustainable than a conventional reference, we developed 25 indicators covering the three sustainability pillars. Original data was collected on 52 products at farm, processing and retail levels, allowing the estimation of circa 2000 indicator values. Most strikingly, we show that, in our sample, certified food outperforms its non-certified reference on most economic and social indicators. On major environmental indicators – carbon and water footprint – their performance is similar. Although certified food is 61% more expensive, the extra-performance per euro is similar to classical policy interventions to improve diet sustainability such as subsidies or taxes. Cumulatively, our findings legitimate the recent initiatives by standards to cover broader sustainability aspects. International audience

The demand for energy and chemicals is constantly growing, leading to an increase of the amounts of contaminants discharged to the environment. Among these, pharmaceutical molecules are frequently found in treated wastewater that is discharged into superficial waters. Indeed, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are designed to remove organic pollution from urban effluents but are not specific, especially toward contaminants of emerging concern (CECs), which finally reach the natural environment. In this context, it is important to study the fate of micropollutants, especially in a soil aquifer treatment (SAT) context for water from WWTPs, and for the most persistent molecules such as benzodiazepines. In the present study, soils sampled in a reed bed frequently flooded by water from a WWTP were spiked with diazepam and oxazepam in microcosms, and their concentrations were monitored for 97 days. It appeared that the two molecules were completely degraded after 15 days of incubation. Samples were collected during the experiment in order to follow the dynamics of the microbial communities, based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing for Archaea and Bacteria, and ITS2 gene for Fungi. The evolution of diversity and of specific operating taxonomic units (OTUs) highlighted an impact of the addition of benzodiazepines, a rapid resilience of the fungal community and an evolution of the bacterial community. It appeared that OTUs from the Brevibacillus genus were more abundant at the beginning of the biodegradation process, for diazepam and oxazepam conditions. Additionally, Tax4Fun tool was applied to 16S rRNA gene sequencing data to infer on the evolution of specific metabolic functions during biodegradation. It finally appeared that the microbial community in soils frequently exposed to water from WWTP, potentially containing CECs such as diazepam and oxazepam, may be adapted to the degradation of persistent contaminants.

Abstract Climate change (CC) can alter the configuration of marine ecosystems; however, ecosystem response and resilience to change are usually case‐specific. The effect of CC on the demersal resources of the Aegean Sea (east Mediterranean Sea) was investigated during the past six decades applying a combination of multivariate analysis, non‐additive modeling and the Integrated Resilience Assessment (IRA) framework. We focused on the study of: (i) the biological “system” complex, using proxies of biomass (landings per unit of capacity) for 12 demersal taxa, and (ii) the environmental “stressor” complex, described by 12 abiotic variables. Pronounced changes have occurred in both the environmental and biological system over the studied period. The majority of the environmental stressors exhibited strikingly increasing trends (temperature, salinity, primary production indices) with values started exceeding the global historical means during late 1980s‐early 1990s. It is suggested that the biological system exhibited a discontinuous response to CC, with two apparently climate‐induced regime shifts occurring in the past 25 years. There is evidence for two‐fold bifurcations and four tipping points in the system, forming a folded stability landscape with three basins of attraction. The shape of the stability landscape for the Aegean Sea's biological system suggests that while the initial state (1966–1991) was rather resilient to CC, absorbing two environmental step‐changes, this was not the case for the two subsequent ones (intermediate: 1992–2002; recent: 2003–2016). Given the current trajectory of environmental change, it is highly unlikely that the biological system will ever return to its pre‐1990s state, as it is entering areas of unprecedented climatic conditions and there is some evidence that the system may be even shifting toward a new state. Our approach and findings may be relevant to other marine areas of the Mediterranean and beyond, undergoing climate‐driven regime shifts, and can assist to their adaptive management. Applying a combination of multivariate analysis, non‐additive modelling and the Integrated Resilience Assessment (IRA) framework, we provide evidence that after the 1990s, the Aegean Sea has most likely entered areas of unprecedented climatic conditions, altering the biological system and making it highly unlikely to return to its pre‐1990s state.

Use of a multi-sensor approach can provide citizens with holistic insights into the air quality of their immediate surroundings and their personal exposure to urban stressors. Our work, as part of the ICARUS H2020 project, which included over 600 participants from seven European cities, discusses the data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams to provide a comprehensive and understandable report for participants. Harmonizing the data streams identified issues with the sensor devices and protocols, such as non-uniform timestamps, data gaps, difficult data retrieval from commercial devices, and coarse activity data logging. Our process of data fusion and harmonization allowed us to automate visualizations and reports, and consequently provide each participant with a detailed individualized report. Results showed that a key solution was to streamline the code and speed up the process, which necessitated certain compromises in visualizing the data. A thought-out process of data fusion and harmonization of a diverse set of multi-sensor data streams considerably improved the quality and quantity of distilled data that a research participant received. Though automation considerably accelerated the production of the reports, manual and structured double checks are strongly recommended. This work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme for Research, Technological Development, and Demonstration, under grant agreement No. 690105 (Integrated Climate forcing and Air Pollution Reduction in Urban Systems (ICARUS)). This work reflects only the authors’ views, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. Funding was received from the Young Researchers Program and the P1-0143 program “Cycling of substances in the environment, mass balances, modelling of environmental processes and risk assessment“, both funded by the Slovenian Research Agency. The authors thank RECETOX Research Infrastructure (No. LM2018121) and ACTRIS-CZ Research Infrastructure (No. LM2018122) financed by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Operational Programme Research, Development and Innovation (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001315 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001761), as well as the CETOCOEN Excellence Project, supported by the Teaming Action of the EU Horizon 2020 programme (857560) and the Operational Programme Research, Development and Innovation (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_043/0009632). Sí

Derivatives of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as nitrated- and oxygenated-PAHs (NPAHs and OPAHs) could be even more toxic and harmful for the environment and humans than PAHs. We assessed the spatial and seasonal variations of NPAHs and OPAHs atmospheric levels, their cancer risks and their gas-to-particle partitioning. To this end, about 250 samples of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and 50 gaseous samples were collected in 2017 in central Europe in the cities of Brno and Ljubljana (two traffic and two urban background sites) as well as one rural site. The average particulate concentrations were ranging from below limit of quantification to 593 pg m-3 for Σ9NPAHs and from 1.64 to 4330 pg m-3 for Σ11OPAHs, with significantly higher concentrations in winter compared to summer. In winter, the particulate levels of NPAHs and OPAHs were higher at the traffic site compared to the urban background site in Brno while the opposite was found in Ljubljana. NPAHs and OPAHs particulate levels were influenced by the meteorological parameters and co-varied with several air pollutants. The significance of secondary formation on the occurrence of some NPAHs and OPAHs is indicated. In winter, 27-47% of samples collected at all sites were above the acceptable lifetime carcinogenic risk. The gas-particle partitioning of NPAHs and OPAHs was influenced by their physico-chemical properties, the season and the site-specific aerosol composition. Three NPAHs and five OPAHs had higher particulate mass fractions at the traffic site, suggesting they could be primarily emitted as particles from vehicle traffic and subsequently partitioning to the gas phase along air transport. This study underlines the importance of inclusion of the gas phase in addition to the particulate phase when assessing the atmospheric fate of polycyclic aromatic compounds and also when assessing the related health risk. This project was supported by the European Union's H2020 Framework Programme (ICARUS project) under grant agreement No – 690105, by the Czech Science Foundation (#P503 20-07117S) and by the RECETOX (LM2018121) and ACTRIS-CZ (LM2018122) research infrastructures funded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic and the European Structural and Investment Funds (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001761 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001315). Funding of the Slovenian Agency of research through a programme P1-0143 is acknowledged. H2020 ERA-PLANET (No. 689443) iGOSP project is also acknowledged. Sí