Translating land cover/land use classifications to habitat taxonomies for landscape monitoring: A Mediterranean assessment

Periodic monitoring of biodiversity changes at a landscape scale constitutes a key issue for conservation managers. Earth observation (EO) data offer a potential solution, through direct or indirect mapping of species or habitats. Most national and international programs rely on the use of land cover (LC) and/or land use (LU) classification systems. Yet, these are not as clearly relatable to biodiversity in comparison to habitat classifications, and provide less scope for monitoring. While a conversion from LC/LU classification to habitat classification can be of great utility, differences in definitions and criteria have so far limited the establishment of a unified approach for such translation between these two classification systems. Focusing on five Mediterranean NATURA 2000 sites, this paper considers the scope for three of the most commonly used global LC/LU taxonomies—CORINE Land Cover, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) land cover classification system (LCCS) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme to be translated to habitat taxonomies. Through both quantitative and expert knowledge based qualitative analysis of selected taxonomies, FAO-LCCS turns out to be the best candidate to cope with the complexity of habitat description and provides a framework for EO and in situ data integration for habitat mapping, reducing uncertainties and class overlaps and bridging the gap between LC/LU and habitats domains for landscape monitoring—a major issue for conservation. This study also highlights the need to modify the FAO-LCCS hierarchical class description process to permit the addition of attributes based on class-specific expert knowledge to select multi-temporal (seasonal) EO data and improve classification. An application of LC/LU to habitat mapping is provided for a coastal Natura 2000 site with high classification accuracy as a result

Sulphide Biooxidation in Activated Sludge Diffusion Process: Microbiological and Biochemical Effects

Sulphide was adopted as odorous compound in a simulation of AS Diffusion, an interesting process to treat odors at wastewater treatment plants by diffusing odorous air into aerobic basins. Its behaviour were experimentally evaluated along with its effects on the biomass and the biological processes supposed by some author in an AS diffusion test. Two bench scale sequencing batch reactors (SBRs) were fed in parallel on real primary sewage and monitored after adding increasing concentrations of sulphide to one of them. In this reactor, an average sulphide removal of 94% was measured. Microbial biochemical activity and composition did not show relevant variations after the addition of sulphide, and the good features of activated sludge flocs were maintained also in terms of sludge settleability

La conferenza interdisciplinare: La Strategia europea di bioeconomia: scenari e impatti territoriali, opportunità e rischi. Gli esiti: dipendenza dalle risorse non sostenibili e non rinnovabili e dalle importazioni.

nota introduttiv

A new approach for microbiological characterization of activated sludge: from the sample to the biomolecular analysis

The growing biomass in the wastewater treatment plant is called "activated sludge"; usually it is mainly composed by bacteria (95%) and by Protozoa and Metazoans (5%). The sludge biological composition is a good indicator of the wastewater treatment plant state of health. In this study, an initial characterization of the microorganisms present in the activated sludge is carried out through DNA analysis.The aim of this activity is the development of the procedures for the characterization of the sludge of the biological oxidation lines, to identify microorganism throught a new approach using biomolecular analysis and the definition of new standard protocols

La Strategia europea e italiana di Bioeconomia. Scenari e impatti territoriali, opportunità e rischi. Documento di valutazione e indirizzo

La conferenza multidisciplinare “La Strategia europea di Bioeconomia: scenari e impatti territoriali, opportunità e rischi” dello scorso settembre – patrocinata da società scientifiche e università – ha raccolto i contributi di storici, geografi, economisti, urbanisti, costituzionalisti, biologi, biologi forestali e medici le cui analisi hanno messo in evidenza una serie di criticità sulla base delle quali si può asserire che la Strategia di Bioeconomia della Commissione europea (del 2012 aggiornata nel 2018) e la conseguente Strategia italiana siano distanti dall’idea originaria di Bioeconomia teorizzata da Georgescu-Roegen, ovvero una bioeconomia compatibile con la vita e le leggi della natura. La Strategia di Bioeconomia – promossa come la nuova frontiera dell’economia “verde” e basata sulla sostituzione delle fonti fossili con la biomassa – presenta forti contraddizioni rispetto agli stessi obiettivi che si pone, ovvero la riduzione dell’uso di fonti non sostenibili e non rinnovabili e della dipendenza dalle importazioni. La mera sostituzione delle fonti (che non prenda in considerazione anche la riduzione dei consumi di energia, materia e acqua) non solo non è sufficiente ma può essere dannosa. Questa si basa sulla produzione di biomassa su larga scala – e, quindi, sulla necessità di suolo fertile (sottratto anche alle foreste), acqua e input chimici – prodotta secondo il modello (e le logiche) dell’agro-industria che, come ampiamente dimostrato in letteratura, ha un forte impatto su ambiente, biodiversità ed economia territoriale. La Strategia, fondandosi sulla produzione energetica prevalentemente via combustione di sostanza biologica, compromette il recupero di questa per la compensazione dei suoli incidendo, così, sul clima a causa de bilancio di CO2 sfavorevole. Con riferimento all’Italia, è stata rilevata una stretta connessione fra la Strategia di Bioeconomia e il Testo Unico Forestale (TUF) del 2018, il cui impatto sul patrimonio forestale e la biodiversità appare piuttosto negativo. Con l’aggiornamento del 2018, la Strategia di bioeconomia si connette strettamente al processo di digitalizzazione (adeguamento alla Nuova Strategia di Politica Industriale 2017) aumentando esponenzialmente il fabbisogno di minerali essenziali alla produzione di alta tecnologia, come le terre rare che – oltre a non essere rinnovabili – sono fortemente impattanti per l’ambiente e la salute (ad esempio, la produzione di una tonnellata di terre rare genera fra 1 e 1,4 tonnellate di rifiuti radioattivi) e rendono, inevitabilmente, l’UE dipendente dalle importazioni (considerato che oltre il 90% delle terre rare sono prodotte in Cina). Pertanto, la Strategia di bioeconomia risulta dipendente da risorse non sostenibili, non rinnovabili e dalle importazioni, motivo per cui richiederebbe una rielaborazione sistematica partendo dall’imprescindibile adeguamento alla Strategia europea sulla biodiversità, al Piano nazionale integrato per l’energia e il clima (PNIEC) e ai piani di adattamento climatico. Il Comitato scientifico ha elaborato il Documento di valutazione e indirizzo della Strategia europea e italiana di bioeconomia - che esprime osservazioni e proposte già presentate alla Commissione europea e al governo italiano - pubblicato sulla Rivista “Economia e Ambiente” e liberamente scaricabile dall’homepage del sito www.economiaeambiente.i

Comparison of Land Cover/Land Use and Habitat Classification Systems for Habitat Mapping from Space: Strengths and Weaknesses Evidenced in Mediterranean Sites of Natura 2000 Network. GI_Forum 2013 – Creating the GISociety|

At a global level, protected sites have been established for the primary purpose of conserving biodiversity, with survey and monitoring of habitats undertaken largely within their boundaries. However, because of increasing human populations with greater access to resources, there is a need to now consider monitoring anthropic activities in the surrounding landscapes as pressures and disturbances are impacting on the functioning and biodiversity values of many protected sites. Earth Observation (EO) data acquired across a range of spatial and temporal scales offer new opportunities for monitoring biodiversity over varying time-scales, either through direct or indirect mapping of species or habitats. However, Land Cover (LC) and/or Land Use (LU), rather than habitat maps are generated in many national and international programs and, whilst the translation from one classification to the other is desirable, differences in definitions and criteria have so far limited the establishment of a unified approach. Focusing on both natural and non-natural environments associated with Natura 2000 sites in the Mediterranean, this paper considers the extent to which three common LC/LU taxonomies (CORINE, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (FAO-LCCS) and the IGBP) can be translated to habitat taxonomies with minimum use of additional environmental attributes and/or in situ data. A qualitative and quantitative analysis based on the Jaccard’s index established the FAOLCCS as being the most useful taxonomy for harmonizing LC/LU maps with different legends and dealing with the complexity of habitat description and as a framework for translating EO-derived LC/LU to habitat categories. As demonstration, a habitat map of a wetland site is obtained through translation of the LCCS taxonomy

Comparison of Land Cover/Land Use and Habitat Classification Systems for Habitat Mapping from Space: Strengths and Weaknesses Evidenced in Mediterranean Sites of Natura 2000 Network. GI_Forum 2013 – Creating the GISociety|

At a global level, protected sites have been established for the primary purpose of conserving biodiversity, with survey and monitoring of habitats undertaken largely within their boundaries. However, because of increasing human populations with greater access to resources, there is a need to now consider monitoring anthropic activities in the surrounding landscapes as pressures and disturbances are impacting on the functioning and biodiversity values of many protected sites. Earth Observation (EO) data acquired across a range of spatial and temporal scales offer new opportunities for monitoring biodiversity over varying time-scales, either through direct or indirect mapping of species or habitats. However, Land Cover (LC) and/or Land Use (LU), rather than habitat maps are generated in many national and international programs and, whilst the translation from one classification to the other is desirable, differences in definitions and criteria have so far limited the establishment of a unified approach. Focusing on both natural and non-natural environments associated with Natura 2000 sites in the Mediterranean, this paper considers the extent to which three common LC/LU taxonomies (CORINE, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) Land Cover Classification System (FAO-LCCS) and the IGBP) can be translated to habitat taxonomies with minimum use of additional environmental attributes and/or in situ data. A qualitative and quantitative analysis based on the Jaccard’s index established the FAOLCCS as being the most useful taxonomy for harmonizing LC/LU maps with different legends and dealing with the complexity of habitat description and as a framework for translating EO-derived LC/LU to habitat categories. As demonstration, a habitat map of a wetland site is obtained through translation of the LCCS taxonomy