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Abstract: The management of water resources always requires more and diverse approaches in which multiple skills and capacities are nested together, especially when critical situations are taken into account, such as climate change scenarios. The SimBaT software is a Decision Support Systems for water resource allocation and management. In this study, SimBaT is applied to the Montedoglio reservoir in the Tiber River Basin (Central Italy). The case study highlights how this methodology can be applied for a proactive management of critical scenarios in periods of drought due to climate change hypothesis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Lake Trasimeno is the largest lake of the Italian Peninsula. Because of the small extent of its watershed, meteorological conditions have caused dramatic floods and droughts over the centuries. Although numerous attempts have been made to regulate the lake level since Etruscan or Roman times, the problems related to water level changes remain unsolved, and the recently adaptive management strategies seem to be ineffective in the current climatic conditions. This study evaluates past and future management scenarios with the aim of identifying effective strategies to limit the lake level fluctuations. A lumped hydrological model, which incorporates climate forcing and water regulation policies adopted currently and in the past, is calibrated and validated using a fifty-year data series. Future scenarios (present–2090) of water level change are simulated on the basis of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) regional projections for precipitation and temperature. Possible mitigation measures, such as those involving the enlargement of the catchment basin, the water diversion from nearby dams and the adoption of more restrictive rules on abstractions are also considered. The model indicates that critical prospects emerge if the intermediate or the maximum rates of change estimated by global climate models are assumed. Under these circumstances, currently feasible mitigation measures seem effective in preventing severe water shortage in the next decades, but ineffective in preventing the drainage of the lake in the second half of the century. We recommend that plans for water resource management should be put in place as a matter of urgency to ensure the conservation of the hydrologically vulnerable Lake Trasimeno. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European transport sector was responsible for more than 25% of the EU total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2017. 53% of these emissions came from the passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles segments. Biofuels are seen as one of the options to limit these emissions in Europe. To understand the recent evolution of biofuels and their future, this review gives an overview on the production, use, legislation, and environmental impacts of biofuels in Europe for light-duty vehicles. In 2017, biofuels made up 4.5% of the energy consumption in the road transport and non-road mobile machinery. Biodiesel in 2018 accounted for 62% of the biofuels consumed in the EU, followed by bioethanol (17.5%), HVO (16.6%), upgraded biogas (1.7%) and bio-ETBE (1.1%). A review of 86 LCA studies published between 2013 and 2020 indicated that the climate change impact of biofuels is generally lower than diesel and petrol, with average emission savings depending on the type of biofuel: 70% for biohydrogen, 63% for upgraded biogas, 41% for pure biodiesel, between 54% and 7% for bioethanol (depending on the blend percentage, between 100% and 10%). An important issue identified is the limited consideration of the land use change effects, which are rarely assessed and are of paramount importance, as the values found in this review were as high as 231 g CO 2 eq /MJ in some cases and thus non-negligible. Biofuels perform generally similarly or worse than fossil fuels for most of the non-GHG-related impact categories, except for ozone, fossil resource and abiotic depletion. Currently, it is highly recommended to move towards non-edible feedstocks, waste and by-products which guarantee a lower risk of land use change. The European legislation, through the Directive 2018/2001 and the regulation 2019/807, is pushing in that direction. • The EU is encouraging advanced feedstock for biofuels. • The range of types of promising advanced biofuels is very broad and evolving. • Regarding the climate change, biofuels have generally a better conduct than diesel and petrol. • The land use change effects are rarely included in life cycle assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]