1,721,149 research outputs found
Expert knowledge-based methodology for land degradation risk evaluation
No full textIn the framework of European IMAGE project, a methodology for land degradation risk assessment has been defined in order to evaluate both the current risks and, on the basis of hypothetical scenarios, the expected risks for the year 2020. The methodology has been applied to the Ofanto river basin which has an extension of about 2700 square km, evaluating four main risk typologies: land desertification, soil sealing, water degradation and soil erosion. The pilot area is a representative site for the Mediterranean conditions. In particular, during the last fifty years, the area has undergone relevant land use changes with land abandonment in the marginal areas and agricultural intensifications of plain zones. Taking into account the pressure of agricultural activities and the conflict for water exploitation between the different irrigated districts, the assessment of the main risks affecting the area is particularly valuable; it can represent a starting point for supporting policy makers throughout the decision process both about the allocation of water resources and about conservative land resources management. © 2008, Page Press Publications. All rights reserved
About salience of sustainability assessments. The case of Life Cycle Thinking and food system trasnformation perspective
Full text linkL'ampio riconoscimento di Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) come metodologia scientifica per la valutazione delle performance ambientali dei prodotti ha spianato la strada all’adozione del suo quadro analitico di base, il Life Cycle Thinking (LCT), come quadro metodologico per l'analisi della sostenibilità. Ma LCT è davvero in grado di rappresentare la diversità delle catene e dei sistemi alimentari? Questo documento mette in discussione l'utilità di LCT nella valutazione delle opzioni inquadrate in una prospettiva di trasformazione del sistema alimentare. Seguendo un approccio suggerito dalla scienza dell’informazione, LCT è stato esaminato criticamente per determinare la sua capacità di rappresentare e valutare le opzioni agro-ecologiche che mirano alle trasformazioni più profonde dei sistemi alimentari contemporanei. Nel fare ciò, questo documento propone una nuova interpretazione sistemica dei criteri epistemologici che giustificano la conoscenza prodotta dalle analisi di sostenibilità supportandola con una metodologia per l'analisi della salienza delle valutazioni di sostenibilità basate su LCT. I nostri risultati confermano le ipotesi già espresse in precedenza in letteratura secondo cui LCT non è appropriato per definire le opzioni agro-ecologiche per la trasformazione del sistema alimentare.The broad recognition of Life Cycle Assessment as a science-based methodology for environmental assessment of products has paved the way toward extending its underlying analytical framework, Life Cycle Thinking (LCT) into a methodological framework for sustainability analysis. But is it capable of capturing the diversity of food value chains and systems? This paper questions the utility of LCT in assessing options framed under a perspective of food system transformation. Following an informationbased approach, LCT has been critically examined for its capability in representing and assessing agroecological options aiming at more profound transformations of contemporary food systems. In doing so this paper proposes a new system-theoretic interpretation of the epistemological criteria that justifies knowledge produced by Sustainability Assessments (SA) supporting it by a methodology for analysing salience of LCT-based assessments. Our findings confirm hypotheses expressed earlier in the literature that LCT is not appropriate in framing agroecological options for food system transformation
Caratterizzazione tipologica dei fenomeni di desertificazione nell’Italia meridionale ed insulare
No full textAssessing desertification vulnerability on a local scale: the Castelporziano study case (central Italy)
No full textWith its variety of natural habitats and abundance of plant and animal species, the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano is a coastal area of great interest for the conservation of local biodiversity. However, past reclamation works and drainage systems have altered the original ecological status towards drier conditions, making the ecosystem more sensitive to environmental impacts. Moreover, intense urbanization and over-exploitation of groundwater in the surroundings, and decrease in annual rainfalls and higher average temperatures occurring over the past two decades, are likely to cause seawater intrusion into the groundwater and land degradation. Assessing for the environmental sensitivity of Castelporziano to land degradation and desertification is essential to understand the effectiveness of the current environmental policy. To this aim we adopted the MEDALUS methodology Kosmas et al. (Methodology for mapping Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) to Desertification, 31–47, 1999), widely recognized and applied in different environmental contexts and on different scales (national, regional, sub-regional). This methodology allows the classification of land in critical, fragile and potentially sensitive areas. The results identify 25 % of the area as not affected by desertification and only 3 % under threat, while the majority (72 %) falls within the intermediate classes of potential fragility. Considering the environmental policies and actions of protection applied to the Castelporziano area this widespread situation of potential fragility was not expected. © 2014, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei
Climate change and crop-pest dynamics in the Mediterranean Basin
Full text linkA causa dei cambiamenti climatici valutare e gestire sistemi coltura-parassita nel Bacino del Mediterraneo sarà più difficile che altrove a livello globale. Il Bacino del Mediterraneo è infatti per molti versi un hot spot in termini di cambiamento globale, poiché in quest’area del pianeta i cambiamenti climatici attesi sono più intensi della media e minacciano una diversità biologica e culturale estremamente ricca ed intrecciata, oltre ad incrementare la vulnerabilità nei confronti delle invasioni biologiche. Di conseguenza per affrontare efficacemente i problemi causati da parassiti in questo hot spot sarà sempre più necessario un approccio olistico, tale da consentire un’analisi dettagliata di quelle complesse e spesso sfuggenti interazioni che sono alla base di ogni decisione sensata a livello di campo. Partendo da oltre trent’anni di progresso scientifico multidisciplinare ispirato a studi pionieristici effettuati presso l’Università della California, il progetto ENEA GlobalChangeBiology in collaborazione con CASAS Global sta sviluppando uno strumento interdisciplinare per descrivere in maniera meccanicistica (ossia descrivere processi mediante un modello), analizzare e gestire problemi agro-ecologici basandosi sul paradigma unificante che tutti gli organismi, esseri umani compresi, acquisiscono e allocano risorse mediante processi analoghi. Si tratta del paradigma delle analogie ecologiche che è intrinsecamente olistico. Recenti analisi sviluppate utilizzando questo paradigma mostrano come lo strumento messo a punto abbia fornito e continuerà a fornire alle agenzie governative la base scientifica necessaria per integrare la resilienza eco-sociale ai cambiamenti climatici in sistemi agricoli presenti nel Bacino del Mediterraneo e altrove.Climate change will make assessing and managing crop-pest systems in the Mediterranean Basin more difficult than elsewhere on the globe. The Basin is in many ways a hot spot of global change, as higher than average projected climate change threatens an extremely rich and intertwined biological and cultural diversity, and increases its vulnerability to biological invasions. As a consequence, pest problems in this hot spot will require a holistic approach to deconstruct the elusive complex interactions that are the underpinning basis for sound decision making at the field level. Building on 30+ years of multidisciplinary progress inspired by pioneering work at University of California, the ENEA GlobalChangeBiology project in collaboration with CASAS Global is developing an interdisciplinary tool to mechanistically describe (i.e., model), analyze and manage agro-ecological problems based on the unifying paradigm that all organisms including humans acquire and allocate resources by analogous processes – the paradigm of ecological analogies that is holistic by design. Recent analyses using this approach show how the tool provided and will continue to provide governmental agencies with the scientific basis for building eco-social resilience to climate warming into agricultural systems across the Mediterranean Basin and elsewhere
Development of new lines of brassica carinata for energy production
No full textThe objective of the work is to reduce the cost of bioenergetics crops cultivation. The sustainable supply and use of energy for transportation represents a real challenge. Terrestrial as well as aerial mobility are strong affected by petrol shortage. 84% of all petroleum extracted is processed as fuels, including gasoline, diesel, fuel oils and liquefied petroleum gas [1]. Burning oil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contributing to global warming. Consumption of oil is currently around 30 109barrels per year. The accepted estimation of oil reserves amount to 1200 109barrels [2]. At current consumption levels, world oil supply would be gone in about 40 years, around 2050. The growing social, economical and political interest for the development of alternative fuel sources is not only due to general concerns of sustainability but also related to human development and geopolitical stability. The possibility to obtain internal combustion liquid engine fuels starting from vegetable products represents an attractive challenge. Biodiesel as well as bioethanol can be mixed with fossil fuels in varying percentages, without changing physiochemical properties of the fuel. The manufacture of biofuel requires that suitable quantities of biomass be grown, harvested and transported to the conversion plant site. Many question must be studied in great detail to select the proper species or mixture of species for operation of the system. These questions concern such matters as growth cycle, fertilization, sun availability, temperature, precipitation, propagation and planting procedure, soil and water needs, harvesting methods, diseases resistance, growth area competition with food, feed and fiber, growth area availability, simultaneous or sequential growth of biomass for biofuel and foodstuff or other applications. In the ideal case, biomass chosen for energy application should be high-yield, low-cash-value species that have short growth cycles and that grow well in the area and climate chosen for biomass production. Fertilization requirement should be minimized. The species grown should have low water needs and be able to utilize efficiently available precipitation. For land-based biomass, the requirements should be such that the crops can grow well on low-grade soils and do not need the best classes of agriculture land. © 2008, Page Press Publications. All rights reserved
Agricoltura di qualità e rete natura 2000: “laboratori” del cambiamento
No full textThrough the centuries, rural communities have managed their environment creating a rich landscape diversity. This represents an historical heritage both for the region and for humanity because the "world" itself represents the sum of widespread fragmentation processes following specific laws. The intense socio-economic changes of the last century, the rise of the "global" markets, in particular, have radically changed the landscape configuration and its natural quality across Europe.
Natura 2000 network and the network of protected areas are currently the "open laboratories" to test a model of development that is compatible with the priceless treasure such as: species, habitats, landscape and heritage. Places shaped by man in harmonic forms that need to regain the intrinsic value that kept them alive, for so many centuries, through new interpretations of the "development". Agriculture is the main protagonist: cause of various phenomena, whose diagnosis is increasingly clear to scientists such as to the farmers and citizens. Only if agriculture will assume a role in therapy and will be able to ensure the coexistence of the natural values of the area, a credible future can be designed.
By integrating agricultural and environmental policies in order to design a development of the rural areas as a "harmonious whole", it will be possible a significant impact on the economic level. However, these intentions can be effective only by making each individual in a new position of centrality, awareness and responsibility. The act of eating, for instance, could gain today a powerful political sin, potentailly able to change the prevailing economy that increasingly replaces a silent global (and local) politic
Agricoltura di qualità e rete natura 2000: “laboratori” del cambiamento
No full textThrough the centuries, rural communities have managed their environment creating a rich landscape diversity. This represents an historical heritage both for the region and for humanity because the "world" itself represents the sum of widespread fragmentation processes following specific laws. The intense socio-economic changes of the last century, the rise of the "global" markets, in particular, have radically changed the landscape configuration and its natural quality across Europe.
Natura 2000 network and the network of protected areas are currently the "open laboratories" to test a model of development that is compatible with the priceless treasure such as: species, habitats, landscape and heritage. Places shaped by man in harmonic forms that need to regain the intrinsic value that kept them alive, for so many centuries, through new interpretations of the "development". Agriculture is the main protagonist: cause of various phenomena, whose diagnosis is increasingly clear to scientists such as to the farmers and citizens. Only if agriculture will assume a role in therapy and will be able to ensure the coexistence of the natural values of the area, a credible future can be designed.
By integrating agricultural and environmental policies in order to design a development of the rural areas as a "harmonious whole", it will be possible a significant impact on the economic level. However, these intentions can be effective only by making each individual in a new position of centrality, awareness and responsibility. The act of eating, for instance, could gain today a powerful political sin, potentailly able to change the prevailing economy that increasingly replaces a silent global (and local) politic
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