Search results for "Pedologia"

You are earth, you feed on earth and you’ll return to earth

2007

Spatio-Temporal Effects of Land Use Change on the Anthropogenic Soils Diffusion: A Case Study in a Mediterranean Vineyard Area

2008

Anthropogenic soils created ex novo by land-use change in large scale farming are, from a pedogenetic point of view, catastrophic events that bring the soils to time zero and change the natural pattern of the soilscape, remarkably, in some cases. The quantitative aspects of pedodiversity of a soilscape in South-East Sicily, where some types of soils, in recent decades, have suffered a consistent reduction due to the transformations by large scale farming, are considered. The evolution of pedodiversity over a 53-year period (1955 to 2008) is examined using a dedicated statistical method and a space–time model based on Markov analysis and cellular automata in order to predict the evolution of…

Soil interpretation in the context of anthropedogenic transformations and pedotechniques application

2018

Abstract Following a long and vigorous study carried out by the International Committee on Anthropogenic Soils (ICOMANTH), the Soil Taxonomy (ST) classification system recently incorporated a number of changes to include Human-Altered and Human-Transported soils, generally called anthropogenic soils. These changes underwent careful scrutiny as they affect the current classification of existing soil series, and as the proposals and logics are as yet untested against existing data and descriptions. Particular attention was given to the diagnostic characteristics of the anthropogenic soils and to the Subgroups for Human-Altered and Human-Transported soils. In this study, we consider a frequent…

Il suolo dentro e intorno alle città

2020

Quando una città occupa un suolo tutto cambia: cambia il funzionamento, cambiano le funzioni del suolo. Il ruolo principale diventa quello di sorreggere gli edifici e le infrastrutture e, in questo, il suolo riesce solitamente bene. Così bene che ci si comincia a chiedere se l’espansione urbana non sia dannosa in termini ecologici cioè se non sottragga una parte troppo rilevante alle altre funzioni del suolo. Il problema del consumo di suolo si delinea dunque come un danno ecologico complessivo, una perdita quasi irrimediabile di servizi ecosistemici. Naturalmente la lotta al consumo di suolo deve essere condotta anche con strumenti normativi ed economici che incentivino ristrutturazioni e …

Monitoring soil organic carbon variations in organic farming by proximal sensing

2014

It has been widely It has been widely recognized the crucial role of soil monitoring in assessing the effectiveness of the soil measures and agro-environment schemes passed by Regional and local administration in complying the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy to soil protection. The costs of soil monitoring however are substantial and the reliability of the results often questionable. A reason is that the monitoring activity commonly consists of a network of sampling points which are then spatialized through different inference models. This methodology does not often enable a reliable estimation at the fi eld scale, that is the scale where the measures are foreseen and fi nanced. The organic…

Soils, Past Landscapes and Cultural Heritage: Phytoliths as Indicators of Ancient Crops

2016

Soils, Past Landscapes and Cultural Heritage: Phytoliths as Indicators of Ancient Crops

The scent of Mare Nostrum: medicinal and aromatic plants in Mediterranean soils

2012

In the Mediterranean area, the simultaneous occurrence of pedological, climatic and economic constraints often sets a limit on the profitability of agriculture, and farmers are forced to grow a reduced number of species, dealing with a secure – albeit low – market income. The introduction of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) inside the current farming systems could represent a useful means to meet the multifunctional role of agriculture: producing safe food, in respect of the environment, and contributing to the development of rural areas. The study of the relationships between MAPs and the soils in which they may be grown may have two approaches: (1) the evaluation of yield and qualitat…

Soil is brown gold in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy

2014

Soil is a natural resource essential to human welfare by virtue of its numerous crucial functions. In the past, soil has been taken for granted because of its widespread, albeit finite, availability. However, now that world's population is projected to exceed ten billion before the end of this century, soil is increasingly perceived as a precious commodity. Consequently, soil is increasingly under pressure by rich private investors and governments within the poorest countries to satisfy appetites for food production and biofuel. A case study is used to explore the plausibility of soil being considered as ‘brown gold’. Based on the comparison of land use maps, we estimated the value in terms…

Economic aspects of pedotechnique applications in large scale farming: a case study

2016

Conference of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation

How much can regional agri-environmental measures contribute to SOC stocking in the soils of Sicily?

2014

Soils have a great potential in stocking soil organic carbon SOC, but how much can human activities, and particularly agricultural ones, contribute to increase (or decrease) the SOC content? Which kind of agricultural practices are the most effective? From the soil database of Sicily we have selected 52 profiles, whose first 40 cm from the soil surface were analyzed for the SOC, of which 15 analyzed also for nitrogen N content, localized in the clayey hills and limestone marine terraces of the western Sicily, cultivated with grain crops and orchards (mainly olive groves and vineyards), surveyed and analyzed in a period from 1995 to 2008. By interviews to the farmers owners of those parcels,…