Landscape analysis and assessment for the management of agricultural non point pollution sources
Author(s)
Infascelli, Roberta
Date Issued
February 23, 2010
Type
Doctoral Thesis
Abstract
Considering natural and environmental context, natural variables, landscape features, climate, land use, land cover and all the environmental constraints is a challenge in developing management plans and strategies. Uncertainty and variability are the main features of this big challenge. Furthermore, the rural landscapes are usual heterogeneous. They consist of a mosaic of agricultural fields, linear structures such as hedges, ditches, watercourses, roads, and non-arable land such as forest, wetlands (Durand et al., 2005). In many situation, for example, the fields are sources of diffuse pollutants, the other landscape entities can act either as sources, sinks or transfer media, or will simply help to dilute the concentrations of pollutant. In order to evaluate the groundwater nitrate pollution, for example, and how it might evolve in time, it is essential to develop control systems and to improve knowledge, policies and incentives aimed at controlling the amount of nitrate entering downstream water systems.
To better approach to environmental issues, more specifically to non point pollution issues, geostatistics tools are used to develop Geographical Information Systems that are able to perform estimation and assessment models.
The thesis focuses on studies, analysis and assessments methods of agricultural non point pollution sources in areas characterized by intensive livestock activities, Caserta province (southern Italy- Campania region). Here the buffalo livestock plays a fundamental role in the regional industry. A comparison between manure nitrogen production and nitrate concentration in groundwater was carried out in this area, using statistics and geostatistical tools.
The buffalo species features, even manure content, are commonly compared and assimilated to the bovine species features, determining the consequent legislation’s guide lines and thresholds for production, manure spreading and so on. Further studies about the real nutrients content in buffalo manure were conducted by lab analysis. They showed the differences between the two animal manure contents.
The study and the delineation of some landscape structures, that are able to influence the non point pollutant path, is a prerequisite and the demand for information at the scale of large catchments or basins. Focusing on wetlands, different studies proposed indexes to predict the their extension, based on topographic and climatic information, mainly within small order catchments. The Seiche basin in Brittany (France) was selected as study area to determine the validity of different topographic and clima-topographic indexes for different orders of catchments and to propose an improved index predicting the delineation of wetland for large order catchments.
The results, obtained by developing this thesis, show how complex the landscape and environmental issues are. They need complete and multidisciplinary knowledge (engineering, geostatistics, pedology, animal physiology, agronomy, etc.) to develop assessment and estimation models. Moreover these models are needed to have more sustainable environmental management strategies.
Additional information
Dottorato di ricerca in Scienze e tecnologie per la gestione forestale e ambientale
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