http://hdl.handle.net/2067/1318 2013-05-20T18:29:30Z http://hdl.handle.net/2067/2349 Title: Modeling primary production using a 1 km daily meteorological data set Authors: Maselli, Fabio; Pasqui, Massimiliano; Chirici, Gherardo; Chiesi, Marta; Fibbi, Luca; Salvati, Riccardo; Corona, Piermaria Abstract: The availability of daily meteorological data extended over wide areas is a common requirement for modeling vegetation processes on regional scales. The present paper investigates the applicability of a pan-European data set of daily minimum and maximum temperatures and precipitation, E-OBS, to drive models of ecosystem processes over Italy. Daily meteorological data from a 10 yr period (2000 to 2009) were first downscaled to 1 km spatial resolution by applying locally calibrated regressions to a digital elevation model. The original and downscaled E-OBS maps were compared with meteorological data collected at 10 ground stations representative of different eco-climatic conditions. Additional tests were performed for the same sites to evaluate the effects of driving a model of vegetation processes, BIOME-BGC, with measured and estimated weather data. The tests were carried out using 10 BIOME-BGC versions characteristic for local vegetation types (Holm oak, other oaks, chestnut, beech, plain/hilly conifers, mountain conifers, Mediterranean macchia, olive trees, and C3 and C4 grasses). The experimental results indicate that the applied downscaling performs best for maximum temperatures, which is the most decisive factor for driving BIOME-BGC simulation of vegetation production. The downscaled data set is particularly suitable for the modeling of forest ecosystem processes, which could be further improved by the use of information obtained from remote sensing imagery. Description: L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.int-res.com. Periodo di embargo: 5 anni. 2011-12-31T23:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2067/2348 Title: Landscape-wildfire interactions in southern Europe: implications for landscape management Authors: Moreira, Francisco; Viedma, Olga; Arianoutsou, Margarita; Curt, Thomas; Koutsias, Nikos; Rigolot, Eric; Barbati, Anna; Corona, Piermaria; Vaz, Pedro; Xanthopoulos, Gavriil; Mouillot, Florent; Bilgili, Ertugrul Abstract: Every year approximately half a million hectares of land are burned by wildfires in southern Europe, causing large ecological and socio-economic impacts. Climate and land use changes in the last decades have increased fire risk and danger. In this paper we review the available scientific knowledge on the relationships between landscape and wildfires in the Mediterranean region, with a focus on its application for defining landscape management guidelines and policies that could be adopted in order to promote landscapes with lower fire hazard. The main findings are that (1) socio-economic drivers have favoured land cover changes contributing to increasing fire hazard in the last decades, (2) large wildfires are becoming more frequent, (3) increased fire frequency is promoting homogeneous landscapes covered by fire-prone shrublands; (4) landscape planning to reduce fuel loads may be successful only if fire weather conditions are not extreme. The challenges to address these problems and the policy and landscape management responses that should be adopted are discussed, along with major knowledge gaps. Description: L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.com 2010-12-31T23:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2067/2347 Title: Contribution of large-scale forest inventories to biodiversity assessment and monitoring Authors: Corona, Piermaria; Chirici, Gherardo; McRoberts, Ronald E.; Winter, Susan; Barbati, Anna Abstract: Statistically-designed inventories and biodiversity monitoring programs are gaining relevance for biological conservation and natural resources management. Mandated periodic surveys provide unique opportunities to identify and satisfy natural resources management information needs. However, this is not an end in itself but rather is the beginning of a process that should lead to sound decision-making in biodiversity conservation. Forest inventories are currently evolving towards multipurpose resource surveys and are broadening their scope in several directions: (i) expansion of the target population to include non-traditional attributes such as trees outside the forest and urban forests; (ii) forest carbon pools and carbon sequestration estimation; (iii) assessment of forest health; and (iv) inclusion of additional variables such as biodiversity attributes that are not directly related to timber assessment and wood harvesting. There is an on-going debate regarding the role of forest inventories in biodiversity assessment and monitoring. This paper presents a review on the topic that aims at providing updated knowledge on the current contribution of forest inventories to the assessment and monitoring of forest biodiversity conditions on a large scale. Specific objectives are fourfold: (i) to highlight the types of forest biodiversity indicators that can be estimated from data collected in the framework of standard forest inventories and the implications of different sampling methods on the estimation of the indicators; (ii) to outline current possibilities for harmonized estimation of biodiversity indicators in Europe from National Forest Inventory data; (iii) to show the added value for forest biodiversity monitoring of framing biodiversity indicators into ecologically meaningful forest type units; and (iv) to examine the potential of forest inventory sample data for estimating landscape biodiversity metrics Description: L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.elsevier.com 2010-12-31T23:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/2067/2346 Title: Land use inventory as framework for environmental accounting: an application in Italy Authors: Corona, Piermaria; Barbati, Anna; Tomao, Antonio; Bertani, Remo; Valentini, Riccardo; Marchetti, Marco; Fattorini, Lorenzo; Perugini, Lucia Abstract: Land use inventories are sound measures to provide information on the area occupied by different land use or land cover types and their changes, although less widespread than traditional mapping; as such, they are distinctively wellestablished tools for generating statistics on the state and the dynamics of land use in the European Union. Italy has recently set up a land use inventory system (IUTI) as a key instrument for accounting removals and emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) associated to land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities elected by Italy under the Kyoto Protocol. IUTI adopts a statistical sampling procedure to estimate the area covered by LULUCF land use categories in Italy, and associated uncertainty estimates. Estimates of land use have been so far processed for the period 1990-2008 and highlight three interlinked land use change patterns in Italy: (i) increase in forest land for a total uptake of 1.7% of the Italian territory; forest cover estimates, with a standard error of 0.1%, indicate an annual increase of forestland higher over the period 1990-2000 (32 901 ha year-1) than in 2000-2008 (22 857 ha year-1); surprisingly, also a significant deforestation rate is observed (-7000 ha year-1), due to forest land conversion mainly into artificial areas; (ii) consumption of arable land (-4.2% of the Italian territory) primarily due to land uptake by urban areas and to conversions to permanent crops (mainly orchards and vineyards); (iii) urban sprawl uptakes 1.6% of the Italian territory in this period, with a total coverage of settlements reaching 7.1% of total land surface in Italy in 2008. Overall, land use dynamic results in land uptake by forest land is of the same magnitude of land uptake by urban areas, but the effects of these processes on GHG removals (by forest sinks) and emissions (by urban areas) is expected to be significantly different. In a broader perspective, IUTI methodology, by providing reliable estimates and well-defined levels of statistical uncertainty for assessing stocks and flows of land use at national level, can be further implemented to frame other key questions for sustainable development policies, like the set up of environmental-economic accounting systems. Description: L'articolo è disponibile sul sito dell'editore www.sisef.it 2011-12-31T23:00:00Z