Delineating the Intrinsic, Long-Term Path of Land Degradation: A Spatially Explicit Transition Matrix for Italy, 1960-2010.

Vulnerability to land degradation in southern Europe has increased substantially in the last decades because of climate and land-use change, soil deterioration, and rising human pressure. The present work focuses on a quantitative evaluation of changes over time in the level of vulnerability to land degradation of a Mediterranean country (Italy) using a composite indicator, the environmentally sensitive area index (ESAI), which is the final outcome of a complex model conceived to assess land vulnerability on the basis of climate, soil, vegetation, and human pressure. Considering four different levels of vulnerability to land degradation (not affected, potentially affected, fragile, and critical), the main trajectories of this index were highlighted in a long-time perspective (1960-2010), discriminating dynamics over two sub-periods (1960-1990 and 1990-2010).

A method for the integration of satellite vegetation activities observations and magnetic susceptibility measurements for monitoring heavy metals in soil.

We present a procedure for monitoring heavy metals in soil based on the integration of satellite and ground-based techniques, tested in an area affected by high anthropogenic pressure. High resolution multispectral satellite data were elaborated to obtain information on vegetation status. Magnetic susceptibility measurements of soils were collected as proxy variable for monitoring heavy metal presence.

Watershed influence on fluvial ecosystems: an integrated methodology for river water quality management.

The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60 (Integrated River Basin Management for Europe) establishes the importance of preserving water quality through policies applied at watershed level given the strong links existing among ecological, hydrological, and hydrogeological systems. Therefore, monitoring campaigns of river water quality should be planned with multidisciplinary approaches starting from a landscape perspective. In this paper, the effects of the basin hydrology on the river water quality and, in particular, the impacts caused by the runoff production coming from agricultural areas are investigated.