Search results for "Soils."

Charcoal and stable soil organic matter indicate fire frequency, past vegetation and climate in volcanic soils (Mt. Etna, Sicily)

2011

LA VULNERABILITÀ DEI SUOLI ITALIANI

2012

Negli ultimi decenni la pressione esercitata sul paesaggio dalla popolazione italiana – al pari di quella europea – è cresciuta in maniera più intensa e veloce che nel passato. Questa pressione antropica ha avuto un così elevato impatto sull’ambiente che ha causato un notevole intervento dei processi di degradazione del suolo. In particolare: i) vaste aree del paesaggio italiano sono e rimangono esposte alla erosione del suolo che ancora rappresenta uno dei più gravi problemi per la scarsa addozione di misure e pratiche di conservazione del suolo; ii) Il consumo di suolo è ancora molto più evidente nelle principali aree metropolitane e costiere, spinto anche dalla diffusione degli impianti …

Effect of climate on carbon storage, humus fractions, allophanes, imogolite and poorly cristalline and crystalline oxy-hydroxides in volcanic soils o…

2006

Soil and pedomesofauna relationships under different forests on a western slope of Etna Volcano

2015

Although the pedofauna influences the processes of pedogenesis and has an important role in the main functional properties of the soil, it has rarely been used as a key-element in defining soil quality. As has been stressed, this is due to the fact that the utility of pedofauna as a soil quality indicator is a function of the definition of soil quality which, in turn, depends on different functions, both biotic and abiotic, performed by the soil. If we consider the biological functions of vegetal, animal and microbiotic activity, the usefulness of the pedofauna, as a diagnostic element of soil quality, reaches its maximum since it is one of the indicators of the biodiversity. Previous work …

Anthropogenic Soils and Soil Security: environmetal and economic consideration.

2017

Since ancient times Man and Soil have experienced interwoven links. Nowadays soil scientists continue to stress such links highlighting the importance of soil to provide man’s growing demand for food, water and energy, and also the soil’s importance in providing ecosystem services that affect climate change, human health and biodiversity. In soil management for agricultural purposes, pedotechniques to tailor soils suitable for table grapes cultivation in large-scale farming are used to get substantial financial returns. However farmers, in tailoring soils for high income crops, frequently do not take into account the fundamental objective of the pedotechnique, i. e. to meet the needs of man…

Ecological risk assessment of agricultural soils for the definition of soil screening values: A comparison between substance-based and matrix-based a…

2017

The Italian legislation on contaminated soils does not include the Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) and this deficiency has important consequences for the sustainable management of agricultural soils. The present research compares the results of two ERA procedures applied to agriculture (i) one based on the “substance-based” approach and (ii) a second based on the “matrix-based” approach. In the former the soil screening values (SVs) for individual substances were derived according to institutional foreign guidelines. In the latter, the SVs characterizing the whole-matrix were derived originally by the authors by means of experimental activity.\ud \ud \ud The results indicate that the “matr…

Life cycle environmental assessment of retaining walls in unsaturated soils

2022

Abstract Retaining structures above groundwater level support soils that are usually in a state of partial saturation and subject to the actions of atmospheric agents. The current design approach considers the possible extremes of soil conditions – either totally dry or totally saturated – but it neglects matric suction’s contribution to soil shear strength. This work aims to describe how unsaturated-soil mechanics of can positively influence the sustainability of retaining structures through a holistic, multidisciplinary, geotechnical, and environmental analysis. The geotechnical analysis allows to estimate the lateral earth pressure of a geostructure in both unsaturated and extreme soil c…

Cárcavas y regueros generados en suelos sódicos : Petrer (Alicante, España)

2013

Este articulo pretende mostrar las interacciones entre los procesos de piping y la formacion de carcavas y regueros en diferentes sub-sistemas (laderas y rellenos de fondo de valle) de una pequena cuenca del SE espanol. Se analiza la influencia de diversas propiedades del los suelos y regolitos en el desarrollo de formas asociadas al piping. Los sistemas reguero-tunel de las laderas de badlands estan principalmente relacionados con la ratio de absorcion de sodio (SAR) y la conductividad electrica (CE) de los suelos. En contraste, en los rellenos de fondo de valle estas propiedades quimicas interactuan con las discontinuidades en el gradiente hidraulico introducidas por las terrazas de culti…

The “Soil Genetic Erosion”: a new threat for soils?

2015

During the 1990’s the concept of pedodiversity started to be diffused in the scientific literature and the decrement of the soil diversity in space and time - particularly due to human activity - has been seen as a sort of underhand problem affecting soil ecosystems, considering that different soil types face gradual or drastic reduction or complete loss of their unique “genetic features”. Pedodiversity has received considerable recent interest, especially as peculiar aspect of biodiversity and has been assessed by several authors by applying diversity indices used in ecology. This paper takes into consideration the influence of human activities on the loss of pedodiversity in a Mediterrane…

Long-term effects of metal-containing farmyard manure and sewage sludge on soil organic matter in a fluvisol

2005

Abstract Our aim was to establish the long-term effects of repeated applications after 20 y of organic amendments (farmyard manure at 10 t ha −1  y −1 , and urban sewage sludge at two different rates, 10 t ha −1  y −1 and 100 t ha −1 every 2 y) on the quality of a sandy and poorly buffered soil (Fluvisol, pH 6). Chemical characteristics and biodegradability of the labile organic matter, which is mainly derived from microbial biomass and biodegradation products of organic residues, were chosen as indicators for soil quality. The organic C content had reached a maximal value (30.6 g C kg −1 in the 100 t sludge-treated soil), i.e. about 2.5 times that in the control. Six years after the last a…