Differentiating the effects of climate and land use change on European biodiversity: A scenario analysis

Current observed as well as projected changes in biodiversity are the result of multiple interacting factors, with land use and climate change often marked as most important drivers. We aimed to disentangle the separate impacts of these two for sets of vascular plant, bird, butterfly and dragonfly species listed as characteristic for European dry grasslands and wetlands, two habitats of high and threatened biodiversity. We combined articulations of the four frequently used SRES climate scenarios and associated land use change projections for 2030, and assessed their impact on population trends in species (i.e. whether they would probably be declining, stable or increasing). We used the BIOSCORE database tool, which allows assessment of the effects of a range of environmental pressures including climate change as well as land use change. We updated the species lists included in this tool for our two habitat types. We projected species change for two spatial scales: the EU27 covering most of Europe, and the more restricted biogeographic region of ‘Continental Europe’. Other environmental pressures modelled for the four scenarios than land use and climate change generally did not explain a significant part of the variance in species richness change. Changes in characteristic bird and dragonfly species were least pronounced. Land use change was the most important driver for vascular plants in both habitats and spatial scales, leading to a decline in 50–100% of the species included, whereas climate change was more important for wetland dragonflies and birds (40–50 %). Patterns of species decline were similar in continental Europe and the EU27 for wetlands but differed for dry grasslands, where a substantially lower proportion of butterflies and birds declined in continental Europe, and 50 % of bird species increased, probably linked to a projected increase in semi-natural vegetation. In line with the literature using climate envelope models, we found little divergence among the four scenarios. Our findings suggest targeted policies depending on habitat and species group. These are, for dry grasslands, to reduce land use change or its effects and to enhance connectivity, and for wetlands to mitigate climate change effects.     

Land Use, Climate and Transport of Nutrients: Evidence Emerging from the Lake Vicocase Study

Soil erosion is a Europe-wide problem, causing both loss of soil fertility and pollution due to nutrient transport into water bodies. This process is particularly important in the Mediterranean area, where the climate, characterised by long periods of drought followed by intense precipitation, favours soil erosion. Research carried out in this field has amply described this process, showing that climate and land use/land cover (LU/LC) are the two main factors regulating this phenomenon. However, the interaction between these factors is complex and experimental research is needed to understand the nutrient loads deriving from different land uses. This paper shows the results of a long-term monitoring project carried out in the Lake Vico basin (central Italy), using high resolution data and runoff samples to determine the phosphorus (P) export from four different LU/LC classes resulting from the same climatic event. The results highlight the fundamental role that LU/LC plays in terms of phosphorus load. Furthermore, the results appear to indicate that the maximum rainfall registered for 30′ (I _{30, max}), rather than the total quantity of precipitation, has the greatest effect on levels of erosion, and consequently on the migration of nutrients rather than the total quantity of precipitation can affect on erosion and therefore the migration of nutrients. These data could contribute to scientific planning support for land management choices aimed at controlling water pollution from non-point pollution sources.     

A Novel Metric to Evaluate the Association Rules for Identification of Functional Dependencies in Complex Technical Infrastructures

Environment Systems and Decisions - Functional dependencies in complex technical infrastructures can cause unexpected cascades of failures, with major consequences on availability. For this reason,...     

Olive mill solid residues as heavy metal sorbent material: a preliminary study

Biosorption of heavy metals is an innovative and alternative technology to remove these pollutants from aqueous solutions using inactive and dead biomasses such as agricultural and industrial wastes, algae and bacteria. In this study olive mill solid residue was used as heavy metal adsorbent material for its wide availability as agricultural waste and also for its cellulosic matrix, rich of potential metal binding active sites. Preliminary studies concerned with the removal of different heavy metals (Hg, Pb, Cu, Zn and Cd), the effect of pre-treatments by water and n-hexane and the regeneration possibility. Olive mill solid residue resulted able to remove heavy metals from aqueous solutions with an affinity series reflecting the hydrolytic properties of the metallic ions, but also a particular affinity for copper. It can be supposed that biosorption phenomenon occur by a general ion exchange mechanism combined with a specific complexation reaction for copper ions. Water pre-treatment is sufficient to reduce COD release in the effluent according to the law limit, while n-hexane pre-treatment strongly reduces also the adsorption properties of this material. Experimental isotherms obtained under different operating conditions were fitted using a non linear regression method for the estimation of the Langmuir parameters. Moreover a simple Scatchard plot analysis was performed for a preliminary investigation of the active sites, showing the presence of two different site affinities depending on the metal concentration, according to the previous hypothesis of two kinds of uptake mechanisms for copper biosorption. Regeneration tests gave good results in terms of yield of regeneration and also concentration ratios.     

Impacts of past and future land changes on landslides in southern Italy

Regional Environmental Change - Land use and land cover (LULC), as well as their geographical and temporal variations, affect landslide occurrence and the related risk, in ways that are difficult...     

Safety management systems: Performance differences between adopters and non-adopters

The aim of this paper is to assess, through an empirical investigation, whether the performance of safety management systems (SMSs) adopting and non-adopting companies statistically differ. To achieve such aim, empirical data were collected on a sample of 116 companies, encompassing both SMSs adopters and non-adopters. Hypotheses testing was performed to assess whether SMSs adopters experience significantly higher performance against (i) definition of safety and security goals and their communication to employees; (ii) risk data updating and risk analysis; (iii) identification of risks and definition of corrective actions; (iv) employees training. Results show that companies adopting SMSs exhibit higher performance against all the topics identified. These outcomes could be the starting point for providing empirical evidence of benefits achievable thanks to SMSs implementation.