Academy of Georgofili

The whole Mediterranean is suffering today because of climate changes, with projections of more severe impacts predicted for the coming decades. Egypt, on the southeastern flank of the Mediterranean Sea, is facing many challenges for water and food security, further exacerbated by the arid climate conditions. The Nile River represents the largest freshwater resource for the country, with a minor contribution coming from rainfall and from non-renewable groundwater aquifers. In more recent years, another important source is represented by non-conventional sources, such as treated wastewater reuse and desalination; these water resources are increasingly becoming valuable additional contributors to water availability. Moreover, although rainfall is scarce in Egypt, studies have shown that rainfall and flash floods can become an additional available source of water in the future. While presently rare, heavy rainfalls and flash floods are responsible for huge losses of lives and infrastructure especially in parts of the country, such as in the Sinai Peninsula. Despite the harsh climate, water from these events, when opportunely conveyed and treated, can represent a precious source of freshwater for small communities of Bedouins. In this work, rainfall climatology and flash flood events are presented, together with a discussion about the dynamics of some selected episodes and indications about future climate scenarios. Results can be used to evaluate the water harvesting potential in a region where water is scarce, also providing indications for improving the weather forecast. Basic information needed for identifying possible risks for population and infrastructures, when fed into hydrological models, could help to evaluate the flash flood water volumes at the outlets of the effective watershed(s). This valuable information will help policymakers and local governments to define strategies and measures for water harvesting and/or protection works.

Climatic factors and weather type frequencies affecting Tuscany are examined to discriminate between vintages ranked into the upper- and lower-quartile years as a consensus from six rating sources of Chianti wine during the period 1980 to 2011. These rankings represent a considerable improvement on any individual publisher ranking, displaying an overall good consensus for the best and worst vintage years. Climate variables are calculated and weather type frequencies are matched between the eight highest and the eight lowest ranked vintages in the main phenological phases of Sangiovese grapevine. Results show that higher heat units; mean, maximum and minimum temperature; and more days with temperature above 35°C were the most important discriminators between good- and poor-quality vintages in the spring and summer growth phases, with heat units important during ripening. Precipitation influences on vintage quality are significant only during veraison where low precipitation amounts and precipitation days are important for better quality vintages. In agreement with these findings, weather type analysis shows good vintages are favoured by weather type 4 (more anticyclones over central Mediterranean Europe (CME)), giving warm dry growing season conditions. Poor vintages all relate to higher frequencies of either weather type 3, which, by producing perturbation crossing CME, favours cooler and wetter conditions, and/or weather type 7 which favours cold dry continental air masses from the east and north east over CME. This approach shows there are important weather type frequency differences between good- and poor-quality vintages. Trend analysis shows that changes in weather type frequencies are more important than any due to global warming.

Reviews in Religion & TheologyVolume 15, Issue 1 p. 116-118 Alone in the World? Human Uniqueness in Science and Theology – By J. Wentzel Van Huyssteen Alessandro Giostra, Alessandro Giostra Accademia Georgica, TreiaSearch for more papers by this author Alessandro Giostra, Alessandro Giostra Accademia Georgica, TreiaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 07 December 2007 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9418.2007.00371_14.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume15, Issue1January 2008Pages 116-118 RelatedInformation

ITALSCAR is a burned Burned Forest Mapping from project requested by the Italian Department of Civil Protection and funded by the European Space Agency under the framework of its Data User Programme (DUP), with the primary aim of developing operative answers to National Civil Protection Agencies needs regarding Burn Scars Mapping. The main goal of the project was the generation of reference Burn Scars Maps (BSM) and the associated catalogue, over the entire Italian territory for 4 consecutive years, with the objective to support the operational Fire Disaster Management in Italy. The project aimed also at providing a reference framework for similar European initiatives that would be undertaken at national and at regional levels. The paper highlights the major findings of the project and evidences the way forward for developing a regional burn scar mapping service in the Mediterranean ecosystem.

The quantitative and qualitative monitoring of the moisture is of great importance both in agriculture and environment protection. The paper presents a measurement procedure for the evaluation of the relationship between moisture and dielectric permittivity, by using bifilar copper lines buried in soil at different depth. Particular attention is given to the effects of salinity and temperature on the results of measurement.

Abstract Fuzzy classification procedures are hypothesized to provide more class membership information than hard methods as well as specific insights about sub-pixel components. This hypothesis is investigated in the present work using ancillary and spatially degraded Thematic Mapper (TM) data of a wide valley in central Italy. Hard and fuzzy modified maximum likelihood classifications (MLC) were applied to the data set. Fuzzy membership grades were found to be related to class cover proportions for each degraded pixel. Also, fuzzy probabilities were able to provide more precise estimates of class distribution, as measured by Kappa coefficients of agreement, with respect to hard attributions. Further analysis showed that this improvement was chiefly due to a better characterization of mixed, uncertainly attributable pixels. These results are of great interest for definition of the cases for which the fuzzy approach is appropriate.