0000000001136886
AUTHOR
G. L'abate
Factors Influencing Soil Organic Carbon Stock Variations in Italy During the Last Three Decades
Soils contain about three times the amount of carbon globally available in vegetation, and about twice the amount in the atmosphere. However, soil organic carbon (SOC) has been reduced in many areas, while an increase in atmospheric CO2 has been detected. Recent research works have shown that it is likely that past changes in land use history and land management were the main reasons for the loss of carbon rather than higher temperatures and changes of precipitation resulting from climate change. The primary scope of this work was to estimate soil organic carbon stock (CS) variations in Italy during the last three decades and to relate them to land use changes. The study was also aimed at f…
Comparing data mining and deterministic pedology to assess the frequency of WRB reference soil groups in the legend of small scale maps
Abstract The assessment of class frequency in soil map legends is affected by uncertainty, especially at small scales where generalization is greater. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that data mining techniques provide better estimation of class frequency than traditional deterministic pedology in a national soil map. In the 1:5,000,000 map of Italian soil regions, the soil classes are the WRB reference soil groups (RSGs). Different data mining techniques, namely neural networks, random forests, boosted tree, classification and regression tree, and supported vector machine (SVM), were tested and the last one gave the best RSG predictions using selected auxiliary variables a…
Suoli d'Italia: minacce, stato ed efficacia delle risposte
La degradazione del suolo è uno degli aspetti più rilevanti del cambiamento globale e la vulnerabilità dei terreni italiani ai processi di degradazione è certamente superiore ad altri paesi europei, a causa delle caratteristiche specifiche e dell’ alta variabilità delle condizioni ambientali.Oltre alle cause naturali, la degradazione del suolo è spesso causata dall'effetto delle attività umane ed in particolare all'utilizzazione delle terre non corretta. Le informazioni memorizzate nella base di dati nazionale del suolo sono state usate per un primo controllo della qualità dei suoli italiani e degli effetti delle politiche gestionali. La banca dati è costituita da un database, contenente in…
È possibile stimare le variazioni dei crediti di carbonio forniti dai suoli agricoli e forestali italiani
L’Italia ha aderito al Protocollo di Kyoto, ma ha deciso di eleggere solo la gestione forestale nell’ambito delle attività addizionali previste per contabilizzare i crediti di carbonio. Lo scopo principale di questo lavoro è stato quello di dimostrare che è possibile stimare le variazioni del contenuto di carbonio organico dei suoli in Italia durante gli ultimi 3 decenni (dal 1979 al 2008) e contabilizzare i crediti di carbonio originati dalle attività di gestione sia agricola che forestale.
Estimating carbon credits variations supplied from agricultural and forest soils of Italy between 1979 and 2008.
Soils contain approximately three times the world amount of organic carbon in vegetation and approximately the double of that present in the atmosphere. However, soil organic carbon (SOC) has been found lowering in many areas, while atmospheric CO2 was on increase. It is well known that there is a marked inter-dependence between SOC and climate, nevertheless, recent researches have demonstrated that changes of land use and management can cause gains or losses of SOC greater than climatic changes. Italy, which has joined the Kyoto Protocol, has decided to consider only forest management within the additional activities contemplated for the count of carbon credits, and to launch a monitoring …
Climate and Pedoclimate of Italy
In Chap. 2 , the role played by the factors of soil formation in Italy is examined by different authors. Edoardo Costantini, Maria Fantappie´ , and Giovanni L’Abate explore the potential strong influence of climate on soil nature and distribution. In spite of being placed in the middle of the temperate zone of the boreal hemisphere, the elongated shape of the Italian peninsula, stretching along 11 parallels in the middle of the Mediterranean sea, and the presence of two morphological barriers, the Alps and the Apennines, cause great local climatic variations, to an extent that they are much more important than means. In fact, long-term mean annual air temperature for the whole country is 12…
The influence of climate change on the soil organic carbon content in Italy from 1961 to 2008
Abstract Soils are the biggest carbon store in the world (1500 Gt, e.g. 1.5 × 10 21 g). The European Commission indicates the accounting of soil organic carbon (SOC) variations in space and time as the first step in the strategy for soil protection. It is indeed necessary in evaluating the risk of soil organic matter decline and soil biodiversity decline, and when evaluating the role played by soils in global CO 2 accounting. Previous maps of SOC variations in Italy did not consider the direct effect of climate. There is a marked inter-dependence between SOC and climate. SOC increases with the increase in precipitations and decreases with a rise in temperatures. It is also known that land …