Impacts of Climate Change on SOC Dynamic and Crop Yield of Italian Rainfed Wheat-Maize Cropping Systems Managed with Conventional or Conservation Tillage Practices

There is still uncertainty on the ability of conservation tillage (i.e., reduced- RT and no till - NT) in contributing to the resilience of cropping systems to climate change pressures (Powlson et al 2016). RT or NT can improve soil physical and biological proprieties thus increasing water holding capacity and fertility, stabilizing soil structure and enhancing soil biodiversity and functions. They are also frequently proposed as mitigation practices as they can contribute to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to conventional moldboard ploughing practices (Gonzalez-Sanchezet al., 2012). However, SOC increase occurs mostly in the upper soil layer but not always in the deeper profile (Haddaway et al., 2016) where SOC measurements are less frequently measured. In this study, we used data obtained from long term field experiments(LTE) coupled with three crop simulation models in order to assess the long-term effects of different tillage management practices on crop yield and on changes in SOC stocks in both superficial (0-20cm) and deeper layers (20-50cm) in Mediterranean rainfed cereal cropping systems at current and future climate scenarios

Littoral zoobenthos associated with aquatic vegetation and water quality recovery in the volcanic Lake Nemi (Italy).

Lake Nemi is located close to Rome and have small surface area (1.8 m²) and relatively great depth (30 m). From the 70ies it was subjected to an organic pollution due to domestic wastes, which was channelled elsewhere from 1990. Here we report a comparison between data on the zoobenthos associated with aquatic macrophytes of two periods of study (1981-1982 and 2000-2001), with the aim of demonstrate the performance of this littoral community in lake recovery assessment. The first study well evidenced the heavy eutrophication of the lake. The vegetation was extremely reduced both in extention and in number of taxa (plant colonization reached only 3 m of depth and comprised 5 taxa found in the samples) and the poor quality was widely confirmed by the values of some significant faunal parameters such as low species richness (61 taxa), very low diversity (2.2), low number of cladoceran species (3), and high percentages of a bioindicator of meso-eutrophy (Chydorus sphaericus, 57.7%). The recent data, collected in the same sites of the past investigation and partly analyzed, showed clear evidences of an improvement of the lake water quality: macrophyte colonization increased until 8 m of depth and a higher number of plants was found (9 taxa), comprising also a little, but important presence of macroalgae Charales, good indicators of low trophy. Fauna composition have shown interesting signs of positive modifications such as an increase in species richness (67 taxa) and in number of cladoceran species (8) and some changes in the quantitative structure, represented especially by decrease of the oligochaete percentages, associated at increase of other faunal groups

Caratterizzazione spettrale delle aree interessate da salinizzazione nel bacino del Oued Biskra in Algeria a supporto delle politiche di gestione dell'acqua nell'ambito del progetto WADIS-MAR

The study is part of the project activities WADIS -MAR, a demonstration project funded by the European Commission through the Sustainable Water Integrated Management (SWIM) Programme http://www.wadismar.eu). The overall objective is to achieve an integrated system of aquifer recharg , also based on the enhancement of the traditional methods of water harvesting in two areas of the region of the Maghreb in Algeria and Tunisia. One of the strong local interest is the phenomenon of salinization of soils , characteristic of arid and semiarid climatic regions and particularly felt by local communities as a limit for agriculture. The understanding of the dynamics related to the phenomenon is strongly connected to the knowledge of the geological environment in the broadest sense and therefore the availability of thematic mapping and integration of these aspects with the use of the soil. In the area of Oued Biskra in Algeria geological data are not available with the thematic and spatial detail necessary for the planning of interventions and therefore were acquired remotely sensed data intended for the preparation of maps updated and evolution over time of land cover and geology. Based on this initial information a methodology of investigation into the phenomenon of salinization was developed, based on the spectral characterization of the salt crusts by processing of remotely sensed data. The first result is the mapping of the distribution of salt crusts according to a Decision Tree classifier compared with the land cover classification on the basis of CORINE Land Cover methodology

Integrating top-down and bottom-up approaches to design a new framework to asses crop diversification sustainability

International audienc

Crop residue management as a strategy of adaptation and mitigation to climate change

This paper reports the first results of a research developed in the context of the three-years (2013-16) research project "IC-FAR - Linking long term observatories with crop system modelling for better understanding of climate change impact and adaptation strategies for Italian cropping systems" (www.icfar.it).The goals are : i) to parameterize crop models considering two Long Term Agro-Ecosystem experiments (LTAE) located in experimental farms of Foggia (FG) and Papiano, Perugia (PG), in Southern and Central Italy, respectively and ii) to evaluate the crop residue (CR) management as a strategy of adaptation and/or mitigation to climate change forecasted for the reference areas of the LTEs in study. Climate scenarios were generated by setting up a statistical model using predictors from ERA40 reanalysis and seasonal indices of temperature and precipitation from E-OBS gridded data for the period 1958-2010. The statistical downscaling model was applied to CMCC-CM predictors to obtain climate scenarios at local scale over the period 1971-2000 and 2021-2050 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios)

Assessment of climate change impacts on SOC dynamic in rainfed cereal cropping systems managed with contrasting tillage practices using a multi model approach.

Conservation tillage (i.e., reduced - RT and no till - NT) is frequently proposed as mitigation practices as it can contribute to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to conventional mouldboard ploughing (CT). In this study, we assessed the long-term effects of different tillage management practices on crop yield and SOC stock dynamics in Mediterranean rainfed cereal cropping systems at current and future climate scenarios. We relied on data obtained from long term experiments (LTEs) coming from ICFAR network coupled with four simulation models (APSIM, DSSAT, EPIC, SALUS). Two LTEs dataset were used: AN (Ancona, Marche, 1994-2015) characterized by a two-year durum wheat-maize rotation (NT vs CT: 40 cm deep mouldboard ploughing) and PI2 (Pisa, Toscana) based on a maize continuous crop from 1994 to 1998 followed by a durum wheat-maize rotation (RT: 15 cm disc tillage; vs CT: 30 cm deep ploughing). Climate scenarios were generated by setting up a statistical model using predictors from ERA40 reanalysis and seasonal indices of temperature and precipitation from E-OBS gridded data for the period 1958-2010. The statistical downscaling model was applied to CMCC-CM predictors to obtain climate scenarios at local scale over the period 1971-2000 and 2021-2050 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 emission scenarios). The multi-model mean was able to better reproduce with less associated uncertainty the SOC dynamics than a single model, hence better SOC predictions are also expected to occur in the future assessment. Overall, our study showed a decrease of SOC stocks in both sites and tillage systems in future scenarios. However, even if conservation tillage was more affected by climate change losing more SOC than CT, these systems were still able to stock more soil organic carbon also under future scenarios