Managing and Planning Water Resources for Irrigation: Smart-Irrigation Systems for Providing Sustainable Agriculture and Maintaining Ecosystem Services

Smart-irrigation systems are a hot topic in irrigation management. Satellite imaging, sensors and controls, communication technologies and irrigation decision models are readily available. The price of the required technology is being reduced year after year, and its implementation in agriculture gives real-time information that allows for more accurate management of water resources. Even so, the adaptation of existing technologies to particular situations that the irrigation management is facing in different agro-environmental contexts is needed. This Special Issue addresses the application of different smart-irrigation technologies in four different research areas: (1) remote sensing-based estimates of crop evapotranspiration, (2) Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for smart-irrigation, (3) precision irrigation models and controls, and (4) the price of natural resources. The nine papers presented in this special issue cover a wide range of practical applications, and this editorial summarizes each of them

A reliable rainfall–runoff model for flood forecasting: review and application to a semi-urbanized watershed at high flood risk in Italy

Many rainfall–runoff (RR) models are available in the scientific literature. Selecting the best structure and parameterization for a model is not straightforward and depends on a broad number of factors, including climatic conditions, catchment characteristics, temporal/spatial resolution and model objectives. In this study, the RR model 'Modello Idrologico Semi-Distribuito in continuo' (MISDc), mainly developed for flood simulation in Mediterranean basins, was tested on the Seveso basin, which is stressed several times a year by flooding events mainly caused by excessive urbanization. The work summarizes a compendium of the MISDc applications over a wide range of catchments in European countries and then it analyses the performances over the Seveso basin. The results show a good fit behaviour during both the calibration and the validation periods with a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient index larger than 0.9. Moreover, the median volume and peak discharge errors calculated on several flood events were less than 25%. In conclusion, we can be assured that the reliability and computational speed could make the MISDc model suitable for flood estimation in many catchments of different geographical contexts and land use characteristics. Moreover, MISDc will also be useful for future support of real-time decision-making for flood risk management in the Seveso basin

Home range dynamics of mountain hares (Lepus timidus) in the Swiss Alps.

Little is known on the ecology and behaviour of the alpine mountain hare (Lepus timidus). Between 1996 and 1997, we analysed by radiotracking the pattern of space use of 8 mountain hares from the Swiss Alps. We estimated home range size using both the kernel density estimator and the minimum convex polygon. We found smaller ranges (38 ha) compared to those reported for the species in boreal or arctic habitats, but similar to ranges in Scotland. Hares did not use a centre of major activity (core area) and showed high home range overlap, confirming their non-territorial behaviour. Smaller ranges were used during winter compared to the other seasons, whilst no difference in size was found between sexes

Open Source evaluation of kilometric indexes of abundance.

Kilometric Abundance Index (KAI) is a common measure used in wildlife studies because it allows a straightforward comparison of species abundance in different sites or at different times. KAI expresses the ratio of the total number of individuals (or of signs of presence) observed along a transect by the total transect length covered at each site. v.transect.kia is a new tool for GRASS GIS, developed for automating the evaluation of KAI, reducing the risk of manual errors especially when handling large datasets. It can also split the transects according to one environmental variable (typically habitat type) and evaluate true 3D transect length. It calculates KAI using a point map of sightings and saves the results in the attribute table, the output can be displayed in any GIS or used for further statistical analysis. The tool has been tested on field data from Northern Italy for mountain hare (Lepus timidus), allowing a first wide-area estimate

Evaluating economic sustainability of the first automatic system for paddy irrigation in Europe

Italy is the leading rice producer in Europe, accounting for more than half of the total high-quality production of this crop. Rice is traditionally grown in fields that remain flooded starting with crop establishment until close to harvest, and this traditional irrigation technique (i.e., continuous submergence) is recognised as an important water resource sink (almost 40% of the irrigation water available worldwide is used for paddy areas). Meanwhile, the water management in rice areas requires a high level of labour because it is based on maintaining a predetermined water height in paddy fields and because the regulation of input and output flow is typically operated manually by the farmer. This study aims to evaluate the economical sustainability of adopting automatic and remote-controlled systems for irrigation of paddy fields. The results show that the investment is affordable for Italian farmers, it amount on average at about 650 \u20ac hectare-1 and it is repaid in about 15 year

El trabajo femenino: distintos ámbitos y abordajes

Los artículos que forman parte de esta compilación son resultados y reflexiones de investigación sobre la cuestión de trabajo y género. Las primeras versiones de los mismos fueron presentadas en el XXIII Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Estudios Latinoamericanos, realizado en Washington en septiembre de 2001 en la Mesa Reestructuración económica, género y trabajo en América Latina. Diversos abordajes teórico metodológicos que organizó y coordinó Susana Masseroni y fueron comentados por Mónica Bendini y Rosalía Cortés. El conjunto de hallazgos que se presentan permiten conocer situaciones laborales y ocupacionales de mujeres de sectores populares y medios, tanto desde situaciones de hecho a partir del análisis de datos agregados, como desde sus propias percepciones y representaciones a través de sus propios testimonios y relatos

Assessing the Reliability of Thermal and Optical Imaging Techniques for Detecting Crop Water Status under Different Nitrogen Levels

Efficient management of irrigation water is fundamental in agriculture to reduce the environmental impacts and to increase the sustainability of crop production. The availability of adequate tools and methodologies to easily identify the crop water status in operating conditions is therefore crucial. This work aimed to assess the reliability of indices derived from imaging techniques\u2014thermal indices (Ig (stomatal conductance index) and CWSI (CropWater Stress Index)) and optical indices (NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) and PRI (Photochemical Reflectance Index))\u2014as operational tools to detect the crop water status, regardless the eventual presence of nitrogen stress. In particular, two separate experiments were carried out in a greenhouse, on two spinach varieties (Verdi F1 and SV2157VB), with different microclimatic conditions and under different levels of water and nitrogen application. Statistical analysis based on ANOVA test was carried out to assess the independence of thermal and optical indices from the crop nitrogen status. These imaging indices were successively compared through correlation analysis with reference destructive and non-destructive measurements of crop water status (stomatal conductance, chlorophyll a fluorescence, and leaf and soil water content), and linear regression models of thermal and optical indices versus reference measurements were calibrated. All models were significant (Fisher p-value lower than 0.05), and the highest R2 values (greater than 0.6) were found for the regression models between CWSI and the soil water content, NDVI and the leaf water content, and PRI and the stomatal conductance. Further analysis showed that imaging indices acquired by thermal cameras (especially CWSI) can be used as operational tools to detect the crop water status, since no dependence on plant nitrogen conditions was observed, even when the soil water depletion was very limited. Our results confirmed that imaging indices such as CWSI, NDVI and PRI can be used as operational tools to predict soil water status and to detect drought stress under different soil nitrogen conditions

Exploring the performances of a new integrated approach of grey, green and blue infrastructures for combined sewer overflows remediation in high-density urban areas

Most sewage collection systems designed between 19th and early to mid-20th century use single-pipe systems that collect both sewage and urban runoff from streets, roofs and other impervious surfaces. This type of collection system is referred to as a combined sewer system. During storms, the flow capacity of the sewers may be exceeded and the overflow discharged into a receiving water body (RWB) through spillways without any control and remediation. Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) may, therefore, produce serious water pollution and flooding problems in downstream RWBs. Methodologies for a rational management of CSOs quantity and quality share many commonalities, and these two aspects should be considered together in order to maximize benefits and promote local distributed actions, especially in high urban density areas where the space availability for the construction of CSO storage tanks is often a limiting factor. In this paper, a novel strategy to control downstream flow propagation of a CSO as well as to improve its quality is tested on a real case study in the area of the metropolitan city of Milan. The approach is based on the combination of grey, green and blue infrastructures and exploits the integrated storage and self-depuration capacities of a first-flush tank, a constructed wetland and a natural stream to obtain admissible flow rates and adequate water quality in the RWB. The results, evaluated through a modelling framework based on simplified equations of water and pollutants dynamics, show excellent performances for the integrated system, both in terms of flow control and pollution mitigation. The pollution, using biological oxygen demand concentration as a proxy of the whole load, was decreased by more than 90% and downstream flooding situations were avoided, despite the spillway was not regulated. Concerning the economic point of view, from a rough estimate of the costs, the system allows reducing the investment of 30 to 50% in respect to the traditional CSO controls based solely on flow detention tanks. The proposed approach, as well as the modelling framework for its effective implementation, appear strongly scalable in different world contexts and aim to fill the gap between urban and rural environments in the management of stormwater and CSOs, promoting the involvement of the water managers, the irrigation-reclamation agencies and regional authorities