The environment around us is an essential part of human survival. At out faculty we understand how important the environment is to all of us.
Our university is again the most environmentally – friendly university in the Czech Republic.
A year of hard work has paid off. CZU ranked 31st in the Green Metric World University Rankings, and is thus one of the world leaders in terms of consideration for the environment.
Water management, education and waste management are the categories in which CZU received the highest ranking. As a result, according to a newly published ranking, the university jumped 15 places up from the previous year. “We had great success last year. The fact that we managed to move forward so much in a year is clear evidence that a year of our hard work has paid off. But we definitely want to keep moving forward,” says CZU Rector Petr Sklenička.
The ranking focused on 6 categories, including infrastructure, energy and climate change, waste, water, transport and teaching. Among the highly rated subcategories at CZU were, for example, the number of green areas on the campus, smart technologies implemented in buildings, the waste recycling program, water retention on the campus and the proportion of items focused on sustainability. “Our activities are constantly expanding in these areas. For example, we recently opened a new High-tech technology-learning pavilion, where an energy recovery system is used and, among other things, rainwater is drained into seepage wells,” explained the Rector.
More information you can find HERE.
New High-tech pavilion
Smaller study groups and state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities. All this can be found in the newly opened High-tech Educational Pavilion of the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences CULS in Prague. In addition to the innovative technological background, the building made of cast concrete, wood and glass also has a number of sustainable technologies, such as a green roof and a recuperation system for heating and cooling.
The roof is green and allows monitoring of trees and soil using sensors located in the soil and planted trees in the online mode. Heating and cooling is solved by an energy recovery system. The green roof also captures rainwater, which is not drained into the sewer but is returned to the ground at a depth of about 10 m by means of infiltration wells. "We place great emphasis on sustainability, especially when constructing new buildings. This applies in the case of the High-tech Pavilion, as well as the Pavilion of Tropical Agriculture, which is currently under construction,“ added CZU Rector, Professor Petr Sklenička. The entire Pavilion also meets the requirements for students with special needs and has complete barrier-free access.
More information about pavillion you can find HERE.
Forest risk invasion centre - hive
The project aims to establish HIVE: The Centre for Biological Invasions in Forests around globally prominent scientist, Dr. Andrew M. Liebhold, team of excellent researchers, and through adopting an innovative work model of Socio-Ecological Synthesis Centres (SESC). This model has recently had much success in generating innovative high-impact research, yet there has been only a very limited uptake in Widening countries. Contrary to the traditional hierarchical system of research organisation, SESC research is organised around Working Groups (WG), which are formed of a diverse collection of researchers and innovators from mostly outside host institutions. Adopting this work model in HIVE will deliver a considerable increase in mobility level across disciplines and sectors and facilitate a new level of cooperation between researchers and innovators. Involving EU and national decision and policymakers, nature conservation and biosecurity experts in WG and fostering an active bi-directional interaction, will profoundly contribute to the knowledge-based economy and society and strengthen the human capital base in Widening countries. To maximise the efficiency and impact of HIVE, a system of institutional reforms will be adopted at Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, involving administrative changes facilitating the work model of SESC, fostering HIVE’s sustainability in the post-EU funded period, and increasing Faculty of Forestry and Wood Science‘s capacity to attract talent and contribute to reverting the progressive brain drain in Widening countries. Reforms will be adopted to increase the capacity to compete for prestigious research grants, ultimately contributing to HIVE‘s sustainability. A dissemination and communication strategy is proposed to maximise the spill-over effect on Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and Widening Countries.
More information about project on this WEBSITE.
Extemit-k
The team is focused on solving current/future challenges triggered by climate change in forest ecosystems of the Czech Rep., and on looking for scientific solutions for protection of forests as carbon sinks. The project emphasizes the most disturbing aspects (bark beetle and related abiotic factors – mainly the climatic extremes) on three levels:
- Gene (level of study G),
- Tree (T) and
- Landscape (L).
Forests are critical biotic elements that may act as vital carbon sinks but could become carbon sources if disrupted or improperly managed. The challenge is most acute for northern conifer forests and maybe most critical in the Central Europe regions. At the same time, the science of biology is undergoing what may be its largest revolution since Darwin; the many facets of molecular biology now emerging. Our proposal endeavours to use these new methods in harmony with the applied science needed to manage forests. We will study genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics together with proven genetics and metabolomics (chemical ecology) and theory of plant-insect interactions, mainly for two bark beetles. We work on the conifer tree-beetle interactions at three levels of scale: Gene, Tree, and Landscape. Among studies, we will first sequence the genome of the Ips typographus, which will be first used for functional analysis of olfactory receptor proteins (de Fouchier et al., 2016; Andersson et al., 2013). Factors for tree resistence (Schiebe et al., 2012) will be observed directly and by remote sensing and physio-chemically manipulated, while landscape polycultures’ resilience will be modelled and improved by increased semiochemical diversity. These and the in total 18 tasks in the project, will allow testing the Semiochemical Diversity Hypothesis (Raffa et al., 2016; Zhang Schlyter, 2003).
More information about the project HERE.
EVA 4.0
The aim of the project is to build a Center of Excellent Research within the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences (FFWS) of the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague (CZU), which will be led by excellent scientists from the USA, Europe and the Czech Republic. It will examine the scientific issues at the global level. EVA 4.0 consists of a 50-member team and budget of the project is 14 mil. €. Project is supported by European Regional Development fund.
The main output of the project will be a new research center dealing with issues of forestry and timber industry related to global change and the 4th industrial revolution. The project is coordinated by the dean of the faculty prof. Marek Turčáni.
The research activities are based on the experiences of the faculty and its scientific staff acquired during realization of former projects. The existing scientific and research teams are complemented by foreign excellent scientists conducting major research programs of the project. Number of foreign postdocs create important part of project research teams. The scientific coordinator is Andrew Liebhold, the specialist in invasive dynamics and the spread of invasive species to new territories.
Important project feature is foreign supervision. Foreign Experts on project themes visit EVA research center regularly. Their consultation influence the project's research direction. Most important experts are part External Advisory Board. The body that influences the overall running of the project. Project themes or programs are:
- Programme 1: Organisms in relation to Global Change (GC);
- Programme 2: Production and disturbation regimes of forest ecosystems under GC and Industry 4.0;
- Programme 3: New bio-based materials and technologies with respect to GC trends and the fourth industrial revolution.
More information is availible on EVA 4.0.
Project SUSTREE - Conservation and sustainable utilization of forest tree diversity in climate change
The promotion of climate change adaptation and the protection of the environment are central challenges of the CE region. With its manifold ecosystem services, CE forests are not only valuable reserves of biodiversity and pristine landscapes for recreation, but also provide renewable resources, bioenergy and offer employment in rural areas. In climate change, many forests are highly endangered, because the high velocity of change makes a natural adjustment of ecosystems impossible. Planting alternative tree species and utilizing the tree species’ intrinsic adaptive capacity are considered to be the most promising adaptation strategy. In CE approximately 900 million seedlings of the major tree species are being planted annually and would offer a unique opportunity to promote CC adaptation. However, the utilization of forest seeds and seedlings is mainly regulated on the national level without considering CC and certain CE countries even prohibit transnational seed transfer. Thus, present policy and regeneration practise prevent CC adaptation resulting in lower stability and productivity of future forests. Because all countries in CE are too restricted in size to handle the expected shift of climate and the necessary transfer of seed material, transnational cooperation is urgently required. Main objective of SUSTREE is the promotion of CC adaptation of forest ecosystems by fostering and enabling transnational adaptive management of forest genetic resources. Based on only nationally available knowledge of the tree species distribution and adaptive capacity, SUSTREE results in harmonized maps and guidelines for transnational seed transfer in CC and a common access to the national registers of forest reproductive material. Pilot applications in state forest enterprises will document the usability of the introduced tools for forest and natural resource managers as well as for policy makers and public bodies responsible for restoration and forest reforestation schemes.
A movie was made as a part of the project. You can find the movie HERE.
More information about project you can find HERE.
Remote Primary Forests
The REMOTE (REsearch on MOuntain TEmperate) Primary Forests project is a long-term international collaboration based on a network of permanent sample plots in the forests of central, eastern, and southeastern Europe. Since 2010, our international team has developed a system for monitoring select remaining primary forests in the region. These primary forests play a key role in providing habitat for many rare species and other important ecosystem functions. From our network of systematic permanent inventory plots, we collect extensive data on forest structure and long-term dynamics of individual trees. Dendroecological analyses, that is analyses of past tree growth based on tree rings from individual trees across tree, stand, and landscape levels, are a key part of our work. We have built one of the largest dendroecological databases in the world including thousands of individual trees. Our overall goal is to contribute to the long-term scientific understanding of those unique remaining primary forests. At the same time, we hope to contribute to the protection of those remaining primary forests because they are threatened from many sides.
More information you can find HERE.