The spread of Caulerpa cylindracea in Calabria (Italy) and the effects of shipping activities

A survey to state the spread of Caulerpa cylindracea in the Calabrian Tyrrhenian coasts has been undertaken. The research aims to value the role of shipping activities in the ten-year’s study from 1999 to 2009, as a vector in the spreading of the species. The outcome of this study has shown that, during the last ten years, the species has colonized most of the regional coastline, on all kinds of substrata, in areas closed to harbours and subjected to high rate of sedimentation. The main effects of Caulerpa cylindracea colonization have resulted in a gradual decrease of crustose species while the turf ones have increased their abundance, altering the native structure of the macroalgal assemblages. These results confirm the extremely invasive behaviour of this strain in the Calabrian Tyrrhenian coasts and, more generally, in the Mediterranean Sea

Integrated coastal zone management in Italy: a gap between science and policy

This paper introduces the need, in Italian countries, of a real integration of scientific knowledge into coastal policy. Actually, in Italy, still exists a gap between Science and Policy, interfering the implementation of an Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) process, while there is no coordination between local, regional and national authorities. This lack of an overall strategy has induced some regions to adopt regional plans for the sustainable development of their coastal areas, to compensate the shortcomings of a national planning. Besides, along Italian coasts, there is a heavy landscape urbanization producing conditions of environmental decay and highlighting the risk of erosions in littoral areas. In this critical context, it is necessary to adopt an effective Integrated Coastal Zone Management policy, to connect ecosystem and environmental approaches with the social and economic development of coastal areas. So, in Italian landscape, it is necessary to integrate the national cultural heritage into coastal management, joining scientific and cultural issues. In this framework, ICZM process could play an important role connecting scientists and policy makers towards an effective integration for the social and economic growth of local people

Trend Analysis of Rainfall Using Gridded Data over a Region of Southern Italy

Climate change is affecting all regions worldwide. Globally, polar ice shields are melting and the sea is rising. Moreover, some regions are facing more common extreme weather events and rainfall, while others are experiencing more extreme heat waves and droughts, causing changes in mean renewable water supplies e.g., precipitation and runoff. In this work, in order to detect possible rainfall trends in the Calabria region (southern Italy), a gridded database has been obtained from a rainfall data set of 129 monthly series collected for the period 1951–2016. In particular, the Inverse Distance Weighed was applied to build 603 rainfall grid series with a spatial resolution of 5 km × 5 km and, for each grid point, the monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall series were analyzed with the Mann–Kendall non-parametric test and the Theil–Sen estimator. Results showed a decreasing trend for the annual and winter–autumn rainfall and an increasing trend for the summer one

Marine and river environments: A pattern of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) in Calabria (Southern Italy)

The integrated coastal zone management is a working and continuous process to promote a dynamic balance between economic growth, human use of natural resources and environmental protection of coastal systems. The integration between terrestrial and marine environments is the main purpose of this course through a new kind of landscape planning extended from coastlines to continental areas,along the ideal lines of regional catchments. So, coastal environments require an integrated management to establish mutual interactions between human, political and scientific elements to achieve a sustainable development of the coastal zone. In this study, it has been developed a specific methodological framework, named Function Analysis, applied to a littoral region located in a wilderness area. The results highlight the good environmental condition of this seaboard system exposed, however, to a definite human pressure. In fact, the ecological and human values, plotted in a diagram, point out a transition state, for the studied area, on the border between development and conservation plans. To solve this problem, it is hoped to improve the environmental value of the ecological and fluvial corridor of Verri stream basin connecting two terrestrial and marine Sites of Community Interest, as conservation is the higher priority for this coastal region. In conclusion, it has been suggested to manage marine and terrestrial resources through a coordinated strategy in which coastal and river environments could be, really, inserted in the same landscape unit to promote the social and economic development of local communities toward a sustainable development of coastal areas

Chapter Integrated Coastal Zone Management of Natura 2000 and cultural heritage sites in Calabrian coastal landscape (Southern Italy)

This study shows the link connecting natural and cultural goods in the coastal landscape of Calabria (Southern Italy), considering seaboard and human impact risk conditions. In fact, Calabria has 58 Natura 2000 sites located on seaboard areas within a length of 300 meters from coast and 63 cultural heritage sites of which 42.9% coincides with the Natura 2000 network. As a results of this paper, the increasing coastal erosion and a heavy human impact have been highlighted as the main hazards to which the natural and cultural goods are exposed, thus it’s necessary a broader approach for the integration of natural and cultural issues into an active Integrated Coastal Zone Management proces

Indicators of sustainable forest management: application and assessment

Report of the international project Life ManForCBD

A Homogeneous Dataset for Rainfall Trend Analysis in the Calabria Region (Southern Italy)

In order to investigate the tendency in rainfall amount in Calabria (southern Italy), in this work, monthly rainfall series were first tested for homogeneity and then a trend analysis was performed. In particular, a homogenization approach based on the Climatol method was applied to homogenize monthly climatological series. Then, the Mann–Kendall non-parametric test and the Theil–Sen estimator were applied to evaluate the presence of trends and their significance in the monthly, seasonal and annual rainfall series. Moreover, the trend slopes were further evaluated with a linear regression analysis. At the annual scale, results evidenced a decreasing trend mainly in the north-eastern part of the region. At the seasonal scale, a spatial distributed negative trend in winter, and a positive trend in summer, mainly localized in the north-western part of the region, were identified. Finally, on a monthly scale negative trends spreading across the region were detected in January and December, with an opposite behavior in July and especially in September, when almost the entire region presented a positive trend