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The Italian National Forest Inventory aims to quantify and describe the forest resources of the Country, as well as the ecosystem services which they provide and particularly their contribution to climate change mitigation. The field survey of the third inventory (Inventario Nazionale delle Foreste e dei serbatoi forestali di Carbonio - INFC2015) was carried out by the Arma dei Carabinieri with the scientific supervision of the research Centre for Forestry and Wood of CREA, and it was completed during the first months of the year 2020. To conduct the field surveys, specific procedures for the data collection were developed, as well as the necessary services on a WebGIS platform and a dedicated mobile app. The paper describes in detail the whole architecture of the system and the operational solutions adopted to manage different aspects of the project, including the training of the personnel and the remote assistance of the field crews.

Il riscaldamento climatico rappresenta un tema di rilevanza crescente nel dibattito pubblico nazionale ed internazionale. Il settore dei trasporti gioca un ruolo rilevante nella produzione dei gas ad effetto serra. Il trasporto aereo, in particolare, presenta tassi di crescita allarmanti dovuti anche alla crescente offerta delle compagnie “low cost” ed all’aumento della domanda espressa dai mercati emergenti. Il lavoro illustra i costi sociali del cambiamento climatico e le soluzioni proposte dalla teoria economica per mitigarne l’impatto con un focus particolare sul settore avionico. The global warming debate is growing both nationally and internationally. The transport sector plays an important role in the production of greenhouse gases. Air transport, in particular, is characterized by alarming growth rates due to the growing supply of low-cost airlines and the increased demand of emerging markets. The paper illustrates the social costs of climate change and the solutions proposed by the economic theory to mitigate its impacts with a particular focus on the avionics sector.

Tutti i rapporti internazionali confermano che l’Africa è il continente che subirà gli effetti più drammatici dei cambiamenti climatici, nonostante il suo limitato contributo, sia passato sia presente, all’emissione di gas serra. Secondo il Quinto Assessment Report dell’IPCC, pubblicato nel 2014 (Niang, 2014), tali impatti dipenderanno dall’aumento delle temperature medie ben al di sopra dei 2° C entro i due ultimi decenni di questo secolo, ma presenteranno situazioni molto diversificate, con ampie aree del continente che soffriranno significative riduzioni delle precipitazioni mentre altre dovranno fare i conti con eventi climatici più estremi quali inondazioni causate da piogge molto violente e frequenti. Si stima che tutti questi fenomeni colpiranno duramente gli ecosistemi africani e la vita delle popolazioni che li abitano, e che questi eventi climatici interagiranno con altri fattori di stress territoriale, andando così ad esacerbare la vulnerabilità dell’agricoltura, dell’allevamento e della pesca. Secondo i dati forniti dal White Paper of the AAA Initiative, l’Africa presenta il più alto numero di paesi (27) esposti a rischi estremi per quanto riguarda il Climate Change Vulnerability Index, con circa il 65% della popolazione dell’intero continente direttamente colpita dagli impatti dei cambiamenti climatici . Molti di questi impatti territoriali – quali siccità estrema o piogge severe, perdita di terra fertile, foreste e biodiversità, crescita di parassiti, insetti nocivi e malattie, solo per citarne alcuni – condizioneranno anche lo sviluppo turistico sia costiero sia terrestre del continente.

Extreme climatic events, such as droughts and heat stress, influence terrestrial ecosystem physiology and phenology. These impacts induce anomalies in ecosystem-atmosphere CO2 fluxes, such as gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (Reco), and can change the net ecosystem carbon balance. However, despite our increasing understanding of the underlying mechanisms, the magnitudes of the impacts of different types of extremes on GPP and Reco within and between ecosystems remain poorly predicted. Stand structure, species composition, ecosystem history, and the timing and duration of the extremes may influence the ecosystem's response in different ways. Here we aim to identify the major factors controlling the amplitude of extreme event impacts on GPP, Reco, and the resulting net ecosystem production (NEP) from observational data. We focus on the impacts of heat and drought and their combination. Wealso investigate the effects of event duration and how impacts differ between ecosystem types.We identified hydrometeorological extreme events in consistently downscaled water availability and temperature measurements over a 30 year time period. We then used FLUXNET eddy-covariance CO2 flux measurements to estimate the C flux anomalies during these extreme events across dominant vegetation types and climate zones. Overall, our results indicate that short-term heat extremes increased respiration more strongly than they down-regulated GPP, resulting in a moderate reduction of the ecosystem's carbon sink potential. In the absence of heat stress, droughts tended to have smaller and similarly dampening effects on GPP and Reco, which often resulted in neutral NEP responses. The combination of drought and high temperatures typically led to a strong decrease in GPP, whereas heat and drought impacts on respiration partially offset each other. Taken together, compound heat and drought events led to the strongest C sink reduction compared to any single-factor extreme. A key insight of this paper, however, is that duration matters most: for heat stress during droughts, the magnitude of impacts systematically increased with duration, whereas under heat stress without drought, the response of Reco over time was qualitatively contrasting: an initial increase for about two to three weeks was followed by a down-regulation of Reco for long-term heat events. This confirms earlier theories that not only the magnitude but also the duration of an extreme event determines its impact. Our study corroborates the results of several local site-level case studies on the different responses of primary production and respiration, but as a novelty generalizes these findings at the global scale. Specifically, we find that the different response functions of the two antipodal land-atmosphere fluxes GPP and Reco can also result in increasing NEP during certain extreme conditions. Apparently counterintuitive findings of this kind bear great potential for scrutinizing the mechanisms implemented in state-of-the-art terrestrial biosphere models and provide a benchmark for future model development and testing.

This paper describes emerging issue related to cyanobacterial dynamics and toxicity and human health risks. Data show an increasing cyanobacteria expansion and dominance in many environments. However there are still few information on the toxic species fitness, or on the effects of specific drivers on toxin production. Open research fields are related to new exposure scenario (cyanotoxins in water used for haemodialysis and in food supplements); to new patterns of co-exposure between cyanotoxins and algal toxins and/or anthropogenic chemicals; to dynamics affecting toxicity and production of different cyanotoxin variants under environmental stress; to the accumulation of cyanotoxins in the food web. In addition, many data gaps exist in the characterization of the toxicological profiles, especially about long term effects.

International audience; Paris 7-Paris 12, CNRS UMR7583, 61 av. du G en eral de Gaulle, Abstract The Geostationary Fourier Imaging Spectrometer (GeoFIS) is proposed as part of the European Geostationary Tropospheric Pollution Explorer (GeoTroPE) mission. For this mission, two instruments are considered: one covering the thermal infrared region (GeoFIS) and one covering the ultraviolet-visible and near-infrared regions (GeoSCIA). The geostationary orbit (GEO) provides indeed a unique opportunity of monitoring tropospheric pollution and photochemistry on the regional and continental scales. In this paper, the scientific goals and requirements of GeoFIS are described.

La città è una struttura antropica che sembra avviarsi verso una sempre maggiore complessità e che si caratterizza come un insieme sistematico di attività il cui funzionamento necessita di tecnologie avanzate a larga diffusione, del web come ambiente di comunicazione e di rilevanti quantità di energia per il suo movimento e il suo benessere. Ciò porta ad un sistema altamente impattante in termini di consumi e di emissioni e fa sì che le città siano le strutture artificiali che danno il massimo apporto all’aggravarsi dei processi di cambiamento climatico. La città è, tra le strutture antropiche organizzate, quella in cui qualsiasi fenomeno territoriale (dai processi di sviluppo economico alle relazioni tra classi o tra gruppi etnici, dall’intervento pubblico all’accumulazione di capitale, al consumo di risorse) assume la sua maggiore forza (Castell 1983); d’altro canto proprio nell’“arena urbana” si concentrano le maggiori polarizzazioni nelle trasformazioni territoriali (Kirby 1995). Le città europee sono state e sono al centro di processi continui che ne mutano la forma pur mantenendone i caratteri fondamentali. Esse sono posizionate in uno spazio territoriale dalle caratteristiche ben definite: pianificato, ad alto reddito, democratico e con diritti civili ben tutelati. Le città ne hanno beneficiato assorbendo ed applicando al loro interno le innovazioni che si sono accumulate nel tempo senza che ciò ne stravolgesse eccessivamente i caratteri fondamentali. L’ultima sfida che esse si trovano a dover affrontare è l’applicazione effettiva di modelli di pianificazione e di tecnologie sostenibili ai processi economici e sociali in modo da ottenere un controllo maggiore (nello spirito del termine “mitigazione”) dei fenomeni estremi che possono avvenire in ambito urbano a seguito dei processi di cambiamento climatico. Questa sfida da obbligo morale può trasformarsi in ulteriore occasione di crescita economica e le città che maggiormente puntano su questo nuovo modo di fare economia possono oggettivamente pensare di ottenere ricadute positive, non solo in termini economici ma anche in termini di immagine e di vantaggio competitivo. Il paper approfondisce questo aspetto analizzando alcuni casi studio e mettendo in luce come il processo, fondato sull’attenzione costante all’ambiente come risorsa e all’economia come occasione di sviluppo, può considerarsi irreversibile.

Mediterranean basin supports characteristic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub vegetation, highly adapted to the mild, rainy winters and hot, dry summers that characterize the Mediterranean climate. Never less the Mediterranean region has been identified as one of the hot spots of climate change. This study aims to understand what are the conditions of coexistence, thus biodiversity, of Mediterranean tree species in humid areas under future scenarios of altered hydrological regimes. The core of the work is a quantitative, dynamic model exploring the coexistence of different mediterranean tree species, typical of the arid or semi-arid wetland where ecological overlaps exist between mesic communities and those dominated by wetland specialists. The original idea of the paper is to address this topic from a deterministic approach using a dynamical model which is validated by existing data on species abundance. The dynamic of the population is broadly-defined according to the distinct adaptive strategies of trees for water stress of summer drought and winter flooding while climate change are explored as external forcing by means of a bifurcation analysis and compared with the major regional climate scenarios. I argue that at intermediate levels of water supply, which do not benefit either of the two species, the dual role of water (resource and stress) results in the coexistence of two kind of species, namely Hygrophilous and Non-hygrophilous. In order to support the validity of the ideas contained in the present study I applied the model to a Mediterranean coastal forested wetlands of Central Italy located into Castelporziano Estate and Circeo National Park. The results obtained show that there are distinct rainfall thresholds on the ability of Mediterranean wetlands to maintain species coexistence and hence to sustain biodiversity, calling for an urgent adaptation and mitigation response to prevent human pressure on water resources in proximity of wetland forested areas. Come è noto, il bacino del mediterraneo ospita una vegetazione fortemente adattata alle particolari condizioni climatiche che ne caratterizzano l’area. Inoltre la regione mediterranea è ricca di zone umide naturali ad elevata valenza ecologica. L’equilibrio di questi complessi sistemi naturali corre il rischio di essere alterato a causa dei cambiamenti climatici globali che, secondo i maggiori scenari climatici, mostrano un hot spot proprio nella regione mediterranea. Alla luce di questi fatti, la presente tesi mira ad individuare le condizioni climatiche per le quali la coesistenza, intesa quale sinonimo di biodiversità, di diverse specie arboree delle zone umide del mediterraneo è preservata. A tal fine è stato sviluppato un modello dinamico di competizione idrica per descrivere la coesistenza di due distinti gruppi di specie arboree (i.e. specie denominate igrofile e non-igrofile) che mostrano diverse strategie adattative allo stress idrico che caratterizza le zone umide del mediterraneo: drought estivo e flooding invernale. Al fine di verificarne la validità, il modello è stato validato sulle foreste umide planinziali della costa tirrenica integrando le informazioni rinvenute per i siti del Parco Nazionale del Circeo e della Tenuta Presidenziale di Castelporziano. I risultati ottenuti mostrano che per un regime idrico intermedio, rappresentato da quello attuale, in cui nessuna delle due specie è avvantaggiata, il duplice ruolo dell’acqua, risorsa-stress, garantisce la coesistenza delle due specie. Tuttavia, il trend con cui la precipitazione sta diminuendo è destinato a destabilizzare tale l’equilibrio nell’arco di qualche decennio, spostando il regime di vegetazione attuale da uno stato di coesistenza ad uno dominato dalle sole specie sclerofille. In generale, il modello è in grado di descrivere la dinamica delle popolazioni delle zone umide delle regioni aride o semi-aride in cui è facile rilevare sovrapposizioni ecologiche tra popolazioni relativamente più xeriche e quelle tipicamente più igrofile. Dottorato di ricerca in Ecologia forestale

The paper presents a review of the far infrared (FIR) properties of the Earth's atmosphere, and the role of these properties in climate. These properties have been relatively poorly understood, and it is one of the purposes of this review to demonstrate that, in recent years, we have made great strides in improving this understanding. Seen from space, the Earth is a cool object, with an effective emitting temperature of about 255 K. This contrasts with a global mean surface temperature of ~288 K, and is due primarily to strong absorption of outgoing longwave energy by water vapour, carbon dioxide and clouds (especially ice). A large fraction of this absorption occurs in the FIR, and so the Earth is effectively a FIR planet. The FIR is important in a number of key climate processes, for example the water vapour and cloud feedbacks (especially ice clouds). The FIR is also a spectral region which can be used to remotely sense and retrieve atmospheric composition in the presence of ice clouds. Recent developments in instrumentation have allowed progress in each of these areas, which are described, and proposals for a spaceborne FIR instrument are being formulated. It is timely to review the FIR properties of the clear and cloudy atmosphere, the role of FIR processes in climate, and its use in observing our planet from space.

Changes in rainfall patterns in Mediterranean ecosystems: the MIND project. Will Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems be affected by the expected changes in precipitation regimes? If so, by how much and in which direction? These questions are at the basis of the research performed in context of the EU MIND project, whose key objectives were: i) to investigate the potential effects of increasing drought on Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems at the process, ecosystem and regional scales and ii) to assess ecosystem vulnerability to changes in rainfall patterns. A network of experimental study sites has been created in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, where field manipulations alter the amount of water available to the ecosystem. The most up-to-date methods of ecophysiology, micrometeorology, soil ecology and remote sensing have been used to elucidate the mechanisms that regulate the response of vegetation and soil to changes in water availability. This information is providing the basis for the implementation and validation of simulation models capable of predicting the drought response of Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems, and their vulnerability to future climate change, on a larger scale. The out-coming results are elucidating how water availability affects plant ecophysiological processes, the dynamics of soil carbon and the overall exchange of mass and energy between the land and the atmosphere. This paper focuses on some of the important, yet preliminary, results on C and energy fluxes that have been obtained at the large scale troughfall manipulation experiment (Tolfa, Italy), in a forest dominated by Arbutus unedo L.

The paper provides information on the recent fulfillment of the conditions required for the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The special situations of the European Community and the United States are also considered

In the last decades, the international scientific literature has focused on the assessment and quantification of trends in average temperature and rainfall, underlining changes in time and space sometimes relevant. The changes concern the yearly average values, the seasonal distribution, the daily values, with marked differences both at a continental and national scale. In this paper, with reference to a database containing the records of about 8000 thermometric stations and 12000 rainfall stations for the period 1895-1997 for the USA, available on the website of the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences ( http://www.image.ucar.edu/Data/US.monthly.met/ ), an analysis on the spatial correlation between the yearly average rainfall hc and the mean of the yearly average ground temperature T was performed. In particular, with the aid of the copula distribution function, a stochastic model to define the conditional probability distribut *ion P(hc(mm)|T(°C)) was developed, analyzing the dependence of the yearly average rainfall on the thermometric changes.