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In the Mediterranean basin wildfires are becoming increasingly important in scientific and operative context, due to the extent of the burned areas in the last decades, and to the resulting large ecological and socio-economic impacts. Damages assessment, interventions planning to restore burned areas and future fire risks prevention, are some of the implications that affect post-fire landscape management. Vesuvius is known all around the world for its volcanic nature, cultural geological and landscape heritage. In summer 2017, a large wildfire burned about 3.200 ha of forest stands along the volcano slopes. Very-high and high fires severity effects were observed on 374 and 2147 ha, respectively; in both cases tree mortality exceeded 80%. The present work provides results of wildfire impacts assessment, in order to support landscape restoration planning. The framework entails the identification of intervention priority areas with respect to fire severity, safety, and ecosystem services. Moreover, an assessment of environmental damages during the early post-fire stages was conducted in terms of Ecosystem services (ESs) loss. Spatial MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (ILWIS module) with support of panel of experts allowed the identification of priority restoration. These areas were overlapped with the fire severity map in order to identify the most critical areas i.e., land surfaces with high degree of change between pre- and post-fire conditions. Intervention priority areas have been identified by overlapping fire severity map with ESs map. Finally, the ESs monetary value loss was assessed by means of GIS-based approach. About 400 ha, 5% of Vesuvius National Park total area, have been classified as priority intervention areas. For all these areas, the loss of about 50% of the ecosystem services monetary value has been calculated. This work, carried out in cooperation with agro-forestry landscape planners, foresters, agronomists, botanists and ecologists, highlights the importance of an interdisciplinary approach in landscape management and restoration. Indeed, the definition of priority intervention areas becomes strategic in allocating monetary resources to restore burned areas.

Livestock and agricultural activities contribute significantly to atmospheric ammonia emission in Europe. The volatilization process depends on many factors especially the wind speed and rainfall. The most important methods to evaluate ammonia volatilization are the dynamic flux chamber and micrometeorological method. The chambers are more flexible and simple to use in every situation. Few studies have been carried out to determine, which conditions are established inside the tunnel and how they could influence the measurements. For that purpose, in this paper an assessment of the effects of the wind tunnel configuration and flow rate was performed with CFD simulations and wind speed measurements in order to verify that airflow is completely developed. The wind tunnel consists in a mixing chamber situated between a divergent and a convergent duct, on which is possible to mount an axial fan. Each part of the tunnel is equipped with sampling points and measurements were performed with a portable anemometer. During the test the tunnel is flushed with incoming air, for simulating the wind action on the soil surface. Two conditions were accomplished: air blowing and air suction. The vertical profiles of the air velocity in three cross sections were then investigate with more measurements made in the vicinity of the emitting surface. Results of velocity profiles demonstrate that the wind tunnel works better in the air suction conditions, for which there is less influence of the geometry of wind tunnel on the air flux.

A key factor influencing the farmer's cultivation choices in the greenhouses sector is the thermal energy demand. In particular, the high cost for heating is one of the major restrictive factor for greenhouse cultivation. Thus the potential access to low-cost heat supply could drive farmer's choices towards more profitable crops even if with stringent cultivation requirements. In this paper a techno-economic assessment is proposed to evaluate the competitiveness of local sustainable biomass supply pathways to serve greenhouses heat demand and thus propose alternative and more profitable cultivation options to farmers. In the first part of the paper the biomass supply chain is assessed, investigating a number of Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) cultivars, on field chipping, logistics of transport and seasonal storage, in order to derive wood chips supply cost at the premises of a greenhouse. In the second part, starting from input data from a direct survey, a number of thermal energy demand patterns are estimated for a typical greenhouse considering three different type of crops (low-medium-high thermal energy demand). In the third section, the thermal energy supply costs are calculated, assuming the innovative business model of a biomass-ESCO in charge of the biofuel production, biomass plant operation and thermal energy supply to the greenhouse. The results of the study allow comparing the total energy costs of different cultivation scenarios and biomass supply chains with the maximum values compatible with the farmer's profitability and derive relevant considerations about the heating costs and crops selection for greenhouses farmers.

The need to provide clean and reliable energy for cooking that is compatible with socio-economic status of the population, technologically appropriate and environmentally friendly is a major challenge to sustainable development in developing countries. Efforts to simultaneously fulfil the social, economic, environmental and technological objectives of systems are hampered by conflicting nature of the objectives. The multi-criteria decision methods are suitable for solving such conflicting decisions. In this study, we proposed a multi-criteria decision analysis method that attempts to incorporate all these conflicting objectives to make more sustainable choices of cooking energy systems in a developing country. The method involves selection and quantification social, economic, environmental and technological criteria and incorporating them in a decision making framework using Preference Ranking and Organisational Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and Graphical Analysis for Interactive Aid (GAIA) methods. The framework was used in a case study to aid the decision choice between domestic biogas system and traditional charcoal system in Uganda. Impacts on human health and climate change impacts were used as environmental criteria and determined using Life Cycle Analysis (LCA). Efficiency and maintainability of combustion appliances were used as technical criteria, while economic criteria were based on capital and operating costs. Job creation and acceptability comprised the social criteria. Results showed that the biogas system is more competitive than charcoal under both the PROMETHEE I partial ranking and the PROMETHEE II complete ranking. However, the major challenges of biogas systems were the high capital costs and impact on human health attributed to use of chemical fertilizers in grass feed production. In an alternative scenario with increased recycling of slurry as substitute to chemical fertilizers, the performance of the biogas systems showed improvement. In both scenarios, the main challenges of the charcoal system were the high operating costs, climate change impacts and inability to create formal jobs. The study therefore suggests that biogas is a more sustainable household cooking energy than charcoal in Uganda, but still faces the challenge of high capital costs

The paper discusses a field study on the topics of the Land Use Change (LUC) applied to the Ecosystem services (ES). Specially, the study focuses on the assessment of the value of ES through different option in LUC according to progressive findings of the European Project LIFE/ENV/IT/275 Ecoremed that has implemented a protocol for the bioremediation of contaminated soils in Campania region. The cultivation of no food crops (Poplar and Giant reed) is proposed as buffer crops waiting for the characterization of the areas. This facilitates the uptake of the mineral contaminants and the biodegradation of organic compounds reducing the risk for leaching and the run off of harmful contaminants that would occur on bare soils. The study aims at testing a proposal in approaching Land Use Change (LUC) adding socio-economic factors to the environmental topics. The research experience evaluated ES economic value through GIS tool and decision support software (ArcGIS/ILWIS), using literature data to assess the current value of the ES provided for such crops (€/ha/year) as benefits that people obtained from ecosystems. Some key scenarios have sorted out and compared through multicriteria analysis. Those scenarios are based on a large data set produced within the Life project activity. Moving from the deep knowledge of the environmental condition of the territory the study shows the alternative ES values of the Land Use Change starting from no-change scenario (Poplar and Giant reed), to abandonment. The discussion gives evidence that is possible to asses an increase of the ES value, both in case of a private and public action.