Climate-related risk assessment in water safety plans: the case study of Acque Bresciane (Italy).

Acque Bresciane is a public company that manages the integrated water cycle for more than 580,000 inhabitants in the Province of Brescia, in the north of Italy, providing drinking water, waste water treatment, and sewer systems. Drinking water systems are supplied with different types of groundwater, springs, and surface water sources (from lakes and rivers) whose availability and quality can be affected by climate change events. A multidisciplinary team, in collaboration with the University of Milano Bicocca, developed a specific Water Safety Plan (WSP) risk matrix focusing on the evaluation of climate-related hazardous events and calculation of their likelihood of occurrence, also using thematic maps.

Sulfur Stable Isotope Discrimination in Rice: A Sulfur Isotope Mass Balance Study.

The use of sulfur (S) stable isotopes to study S metabolism in plants is still limited by the relatively small number of studies. It is generally accepted that less S stable isotope discrimination occurs during sulfate (SO ) uptake. However, S metabolism and allocation are expected to produce separations of S stable isotopes among the different plant S pools and organs.

Linking local natural background levels in groundwater to their generating hydrogeochemical processes in Quaternary alluvial aquifers.

Calculating natural background levels (NBLs) in groundwater is vital for supporting a sustainable use of groundwater resources. Although NBLs are often assessed through a unique concentration value per groundwater body, where hydrogeochemical features are highly variable, spatial heterogeneity needs to be accounted for, leading to the calculation of so-called "local" NBLs. Despite much research devoted to the identification of the best performing techniques for local NBLs spatialization, a deep understanding of the link between local NBL values and their generating hydrogeochemical processes is often lacking and so is addressed here for the redox-sensitive species As, NH, Fe and Mn in the groundwater bodies of Lombardy region, N Italy.