Impacts of Wildlife on Agriculture: A Spatial-Based Analysis and Economic Assessment for Reducing Damage

Over the last few years, the impacts of wildlife on agriculture have constantly been growing, in particular in areas close to woodland and in hunting ban zones (“refuge effect”). Public administrations have difficulty in meeting the growing requests for crop damage compensation. The development of appropriate measures to control this trend—starting from the understanding of the dynamics concerned—is crucial. The aim of this study was, therefore, to analyze damage at regional scale and define common local actions. In particular, the study involved different steps that define a spatial-based classification of risk levels, integrating statistical methods (principal component analysis and receiver operating characteristic) with multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) in a geographic information system (GIS). It turns out that, in the study area, the very high-risk zones affect 8.83% of used agricultural areas; about 97% of them concentrated in the first 400 m from the most suitable habitats. A selected cluster of 11 test areas within these zones allowed us to assess the cost-effectiveness of integrated prevention and control actions (IPCA) with respect to the compensation of the damage. The analysis shows cost of IPCA to be nearly twice the actual cost incurred by the public administration to compensate partially the damage. The comparison with the estimated damage shows the overall economic convenience of the proposed investment with significant differences depending on the areas. Thus, we suggest reaching an “agro-ecological” balance starting from actions on specific areas; if they produce the desired effects, they could be progressively extended to other areas with gradual investments (adaptive management).

     

Petrogenesis of tourmaline rocks associated with Fe-carbonate–graphite metapelite, metabasite and strata-bound polymetallic sulphide mineralisation, Peloritani Mountains, Sicily, Southern Italy

Tourmalinite and tourmaline-rich rocks associated with Fe-carbonate–graphite phyllite, strata-bound polymetallic sulphide deposits, metabasite and marble were studied, for information on the mechanism of tourmaline formation in the pre-Hercynian low-grade metamorphic sequence of the Mandanici Unit in the Peloritani Mountains of Sicily, southern Italy. The major and trace element compositions of the tourmaline rocks suggest the existence of a sedimentary protolith with pre-metamorphic black shale and bedded chert. Boron was interpreted to be accumulated in a restricted sedimentary basin, between platform carbonate formations, with abundant organic matter and Fe–Al–Ti-rich laterite–bauxite soil-derived clastic supply, under a continental volcano-tectonic extensional regime accompanied by a local convective hydrothermal system along faults. Petrographic, crystal–chemical and δ¹¹B isotopic data are compatible with a model of marine sediment dewatering at temperatures below 200 °C, which caused the removal of boron from clay. Metamorphism led to the development of tourmaline in an Al–Ti-rich environment, in equilibrium with other minerals such as ilmenite, albite and muscovite. The upper temperature of metamorphism (almost 375 °C), estimated on the basis of δ¹¹B, fits geothermometric results from Δ¹³C_{carbonate–graphite} on associated rocks. The estimated value of δ¹¹B in the tourmalinite protolith, − 7.5‰ , is also compatible with continental-derived Al-rich sediments.     

Using the present to estimate the future: A simplified approach for the quantification of climate change effects on urban flooding by scenario analysis

Understanding and modelling pluvial flood patterns is pivotal for the estimation of flood impacts in urban areas, especially in a climate change perspective. However, urban flood modelling under climate change conditions poses several challenges. On one hand, the identification and collection of climate change data suitable for flood-related evaluations requires consistent computational and scientific effort. On the other hand, large difficulties can arise in the reproduction of the rainfall-runoff transformation process in cases when only little information about the subsurface processes is known. In this perspective, a simplified approach is proposed to address the challenges regarding the quantitative estimation of climate change effects on urban flooding for real case applications. The approach is defined as “bottom-up” because climate change information is not included in flood modelling, but it is only invoked for the interpretation of results. In other words, the challenge faced in this work is the development of a modelling strategy that is expeditious, because it does not require flood simulations for future rainfall scenarios, but only under current climate conditions, thus reducing the overall computational effort; and it is flexible, because results can be easily updated once new climate change data, scenarios or methods become available, without the need of additional flood simulations. To simulate real case applications, the approach is tested for a scenario analysis, where different return periods and hyetograph shapes are used as input for urban inundation modelling in Naples, Italy. The approach can support public and private stakeholders, such as land administrators and water systems managers; moreover, it represents a valuable and effective basis for climate change risk communication strategies.     

A storm event watershed model for surface runoff based on 2D fully dynamic wave equations

The main purpose of this work concerns the development and testing of an overland flow model based on the two‐dimensional fully dynamic shallow water equations. Three key aspects, fundamental to get accurate, efficient and robust computation of surface runoff at basin scale, are discussed by transferring the main findings obtained by the recent research on the topic of dam‐break wave and flood propagation in the context of rainfall–runoff modelling. In particular, attention is focused on the numerical flux and bottom slope source terms computation, on a numerical treatment of friction slope terms and on an algorithm for dealing with wetting/drying fronts. The performances of the numerical model have been preliminarily evaluated using experimental or ideal tests characterized by very critical conditions for the stability of a numerical model. Then, attention was focused on a real event occurred in a sub‐basin of Reno river in Italy to analyse the suitability of the model in simulating real flood situations. The numerical results highlight the good performances of the model in all the simulations discussed in the paper. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.