Decision analysis for the determination of biomass in the territory Tuscia Romana by geographic information system and forest management plans

The growing interest in the development of chains for the use of agroforestry biomass for energy demand, is due to the awareness they are a crucial element to mitigate the global climatic change effects. The true effort is to have a reliable estimation of biomass availability by some instruments like forest management plans, which allow to locate the forest supply and to know the forest biomass availability in a medium period. In this paper we carried out a decision analysis by geographic information system, in Tuscia Romana area comprising 11 municipalities for a total amount of 813 km2. An estimation was carried out taking into account the bibliographic data on the analyzed species, reporting the biomass in weight taken out by the forest cut utilization. A comparison was also performed in field on chestnut trees cut in a sampling area near Bracciano and in a close sawmill. The results show long, medium and short-term dynamics, but some critical points were found related to the process of estimation and to the real procurement of biomass in some years. The results suggest to be care in a possible project of a biomass plant

The LAUE project for broadband gamma-ray focusing lenses

We present the LAUE project devoted to develop an advanced technology for building a high focal length Laue lens for soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). The final goal is to develop a focusing optics that can improve the current sensitivity in the above energy band by 2 orders of magnitude.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, presented at the SPIE conference on "Optics for EUV, X-ray, and Gamma-ray Astronomy". To be published in the Proceedings of SPIE, vol.8147, 201

Detection of Landscape patterns in airborne LIDAR data in the Nature Reserve of Castelporziano (Rome)

During the last decades the protection of nature has become a very important aspect due to the anthropogenic interference and structural alteration of the environment, especially in the peri-urban areas. Therefore, for a sustainable forest planning it is fundamental to get information about the actual state and the variation in landscape patterns concerning the forest layers. To this aim, an airborne laser scanning (LIDAR), a type of sensor which explicitly measures canopy height, was used to detect landscape patterns of broadleaf oak forest and for detecting the monumental trees in a peri-urban Natural Reserve: the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano (Rome)

Development status of the LAUE project

We present the status of LAUE, a project supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and devoted to develop Laue lenses with long focal length (up to 100 meters), for hard X--/soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). Thanks to their focusing capability, the design goal is to improve the sensitivity of the current instrumention in the above energy band by 2 orders of magnitude, down to a few times $10^{-8}$ photons/(cm$^2$ s keV).Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, presented at the Space Telescopes and Instrumentation Symposium in Amsterdam, 2012: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray Conference. Published in the Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 8443, id. 84430B-84430B-9 (2012

Scientific prospects in soft gamma-ray astronomy enabled by the LAUE project

This paper summarizes the development of a successful project, LAUE, supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and devoted to the development of long focal length (up to 100 m) Laue lenses for hard X--/soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). The apparatus is ready and the assembling of a prototype lens petal is ongoing. The great achievement of this project is the use of bent crystals. From measurements obtained on single crystals and from simulations, we have estimated the expected Point Spread Function and thus the sensitivity of a lens made of petals. The expected sensitivity is a few $\times10^{-8}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ keV$^{-1}$. We discuss a number of open astrophysical questions that can settled with such an instrument aboard a free-flying satellite.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, published in Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 8861, id. 886106 17 pp. (2013

The Contribution of Remote Sensing and Silvicultural Treatments to the Assessment of Decline in an Oak Deciduous Forest: The Study Case of a Protected Area in Mediterranean Environment

Thanks to their ability to produce ecosystem services, forest ecosystems have a significant social, economic and environmental impact on the development of many regions in theworld, especially when located in urban and peri-urban areas. Today, increased forest vulnerability is being reflected in a larger number of severe decline episodes associated mainly with drought. In this context, the Mediterranean area shows high forest vulnerability and a subsequent decline in its natural renewal rate. In this scenario, the aim of the present research is to assess sustainability of a protected pristine deciduous oak forest near Rome, developing a forest health condition monitoring tool based on the application of multispectral satellite data, and through the identification of silvicultural models appropriate for promoting natural forest renewal. The preliminary results of this research indicate how the exclusion of wildlife through fenced areas significantly favors the natural renewal of the forest, especially when silvicultural actions such as thinning are carried out. It has also been ascertained through the use of multispectral satellite data that there is a widespread decline in the health vegetative state of the deciduous oak surfaces, due to a widespread senescence of the forest. In the addressed study area, the Natural State Reserve of Castelporziano (Rome), data and results from this research can work as an important decision tool for sustainable forest management