Ambiente Italia (Italy)

Since 2011 in Italy the surface area cultivated with pear tree (Pyrus communis L.) decreased from 35,400 ha to approximately 23,700 ha in 2023, driven by escalating production costs, stagnant market prices, and recurrent phytopathological challenges. Additionally, this decline has been hypothesized to be causally linked to progressively unfavorable climatic conditions, characterized by rising temperatures, frequent summer heatwaves exceeding 35°C, and reduced precipitation. The objective of this study is to identify the most effective soil–plant relationships across Emilia-Romagna, which is the leading Italian region for pear production. We aim at providing a scientific basis for adaptive management strategies linked to regional pedoclimatic variability, so as to support the future of the Italian periculture.Three experimental orchards were located in the provinces of Ferrara, Modena and Ravenna, which are key districts in Italy for periculture were set up in 2023. Agro-meteorological conditions were continuously monitored through an online automated system. Soil samples were thoroughly characterized with respect to their texture, calcium carbonate content, pH, loss on ignition LOI, multi-element profiling by X-ray fluorescence (XRF). To link soil properties with the plant performance, fast chlorophyll a fluorescence was measured in leaves in June 2025 on BA-29 grafted trees and the PItot (total performance index) was calculated, which represents a synthetic indicator of photosystem II efficiency.Soils at the Modena site were predominantly sandy, deriving from Apennine sediments, whereas soils from Ferrara and Ravenna sites exhibited a higher clay content resulting in greater, water-holding capacity. XRF analyses indicate that elemental concentrations at all sites were within expected background levels. LOI and calcimetric analyses were higher in Ravenna soils compared to those from Ferrara and Modena, indicating a greater organic matter and carbonate content. At the Modena site, trees exhibited significantly lower PItot values than those observed in Ferrara and Ravenna sites, This pattern is attributable to the higher sand fraction, which promotes rapid water drainage and reduced nutrient retention in contrast to clay-rich soils where enhanced water and nutrient availability can support improved photosynthetic performance performance. A relationship could also be envisaged found between soil organic carbon content and PItot. Because meteorological conditions were comparable and the germoplasm was uniform across the three sites, the observed differences in photosynthetic performance can be primarily ascribed to soil properties. These location-specific soil–plant correlations can inform precision agriculture practices, rootstock-scion selection, and adaptation strategies to enhance the resilience of pear orchards under changing climate conditions. Research funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU, Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca - Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza, D.M. 630/2024.

Isotopic analyses of carbon (δ¹³C) and oxygen (δ¹⁸O) are widely applied in biogeosciences to investigate biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem functioning, and environmental dynamics. Elemental analyzer-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (EA-IRMS) represents one of the most widely applied systems for bulk samples. The laser ablation-IRMS (LA-IRMS) provides the possibility to resolve spatial and temporal variability at high resolution, but also presents some limitations due to gas handling, signal stability, and analytical comparability with conventional approaches.For this study, we present a methodological comparison between δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O measurements obtained using EA-IRMS and an improved LA-IRMS configuration. In our configuration, the LA is coupled with the IRMS through a greenhouse gas (GHG) analyzer specifically modified to concentrate, purify, and stabilize CO₂ and CO generated during ablation to improve the gas signal for isotope measurements.Analyses were conducted on hazelnut (Corylus avellana L.) wood slices for EA-IRMS and tree-ring increments for LA-GHG-IRMS. The comparison between the two methods showed main differences related to sampling resolution and analytical configuration. The LA-GHG-IRMS system provided high-resolution isotope measurements that allowed investigations of intra-seasonal patterns.The application of the LA-GHG-IRMS system extends the analytical utility of laser-based stable isotope measurements in biogeosciences, providing new opportunities for high-resolution studies of ecological processes in terrestrial ecosystems.

In some cases, soils exhibit a layered structure clearly identified even at the depth scales investigated by Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys. However, not many methods and computational tools are available that systematically address imaging in layered soils. Imlaymed (Imaging in Layered Media) is a Python graphical user interface (GUI) freeware software specifically designed to tackle this problem. The code assumes either a two layered soil or a cavity embedded within a homogeneous soil. In the latter case, the cavity is locally interpreted as a three-layered medium. The interfaces between adjacent layers are assumed smooth—which is geologically reasonable—although not necessarily planar. However, the non-flatness of the layers precludes the possibility of obtaining an analytical solution. Consequently, Imlaymed addresses the focusing and time–depth conversion issues as an imaging problem rather than an inverse scattering problem. The method explicitly accounts for the presence of two distinct propagation velocities within the soil, which results in geometric distortions, including dilation and compression effects on both the targets and the distances among them. Imlaymed aims to mitigate these distortions. The current release represents an initial version of the software, to be progressively updated and extended. Future developments are expected to introduce additional capabilities—e.g. time-reverse migration—and to enhance the existing features, e.g. through the incorporation of AI techniques and the optional use of parallel computing. In particular, Imlaymed will aid to generation of slices directly in the spatial domain instead of the common slices built up in time domain.The methodology underlying the code is based on our previous results [1-6]. The implementation of this code has improved both the computational efficiency and the ease of use of the algorithms. Notwithstanding, the user of Imlaymed is supposed to have some non-too-basic background experience in GPR prospecting.Imlaymed is distributed under AUL/ANCL License (Academic Use License/Academic Non-Commercial License).AcknowledgementsThis work has been implemented within the activities of the Research Project “Georadar e avanzamento delle investigazioni: un’applicazione economica alla sicurezza stradale”, financed by University of Calabria.ReferencesPersico, G. Morelli, Combined Migrations and Time-Depth Conversions in GPR Prospecting: Application to Reinforced Concrete, Remote Sens. 2020, Volume 12, Issue 17, 2778, open access, DOI 10.3390/rs12172778.Persico et al. “A posteriori insertion of information for focusing and time–depth conversion of ground-penetrating radar data”, Geophysical Prospecting, open access, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2478.13369, 2023.Persico et al., ­GPR mapping of cavity in complex scenarios with a combined time-depth conversion, Sensors, MDPI, Sensors 2024, 24(10), 3238; https://doi.org/10.3390/s24103238, 2024.Persico et al., An innovative time-depth conversion for the management of buried scenarios with strong discontinuities, Journal of Applied Geophysics vol. 227, 105435, DOI 10.1016/j.jappgeo.2024.105435, 2024.Yang et al., Accounting for the Different Propagation Velocities for the Focusing and Time–Depth Conversion in a Layered Medium, Applied Sciences 14(24):11812, 2024.Persico et al., Retrieving the propagation velocity of the electromagnetic waves in a two-layered medium through the diffraction curves, Near Surface Geophysics, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/nsg.70028, 2025.

Understanding how land use and land cover changes (LULCCs) affect ecosystem services (ES) is essential for guiding sustainable management strategies in protected areas (PAs), particularly in small island contexts where ecological processes, historical land uses and socio-economic dynamics are tightly interwoven. This study explores the medium-term dynamics of ES supply using LULCCs as a spatial indicator on the island of Asinara (Italy). Spatially modelled results show that the transition from agricultural and semi-natural uses to uncultivated areas, driven by land abandonment and soft nature-restoration actions, has reshaped the balance between provisioning, regulating and cultural services, generating reflections on opportunities and land management challenges. These outcomes require careful contextualization to reflect underlying ecological processes and land capabilities, highlighting the need for governance frameworks oriented towards conservation-driven landscape management rather than passive rewilding, especially in landscapes long shaped by human activities. More generally, sustainability in PAs is not an automatic outcome of protection or abandonment, but a contingent, spatially differentiated and governed process, in which indicators and maps serve to guide decisions, not to certify their success.

In recent years, renewable energy production has expanded rapidly, becoming an essential component of the global energy transition. However, the inherent variability and unpredictability of renewable generation require technologies that can provide grid stability and operational flexibility. Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) play a central role in addressing this challenge, but their long-term effectiveness depends on a thorough understanding of their degradation mechanisms. This work aims to model and predict the capacity and power degradation of a real-world BESS operating in the electricity market, bridging the gap between laboratory-based ageing studies and field applications. Several degradation indicators, such as available capacity evolution, DC efficiency evolution, conductivity loss, and loss of lithium inventory, were evaluated to determine which models best describe the system’s ageing behaviour. Some estimations were found inaccurate and subsequently excluded, while the remaining analyses enabled a detailed characterisation of BESS performance over time. Using operational data collected between November 2022 and October 2024, results indicate a linear capacity degradation reaching 4.57% over 23 months (490 equivalent cycles), from approximately 9600 kWh to 9150 kWh, with a Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of 0.2%. DC efficiency exhibited a two-phase evolution, with an initial rise followed by a slow reduction trend. These findings confirm that ageing effects can be effectively evaluated using operational data, enabling reliable lifetime forecasting for BESS assets.

Abstract. We present a novel approach based on leveraging a network-wide parameterisation to derive snow water equivalent (SWE) with cosmic ray neutron sensing (CRNS) probes. The network comprises 26 sites (1422–2901 m asl) in the Italian Alps. The parameterisation was defined by fitting neutron counts to 35 SWE measurements taken at 6 sites in the first half of the 2023–2024 snow season and validated with 111 SWE data from 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 at 13 sites. Our analysis shows that this approach retains good representativeness of the snowpack, which can be extended to unmonitored sites if they have monitored counterparts at similar elevation. This finding overcomes the need for year-round accessibility and increases the number of potential sites for continuous SWE retrieval.

In line with circular economy principles and the reduction of primary material exploitation, waste-to-energy (WtE) by-products such as bottom ash (BA) are increasingly being used as raw materials in cement and ceramics manufacturing. However, it is critical to verify that the final product presents not only adequate technical properties but also that it does not pose negative impacts to the environment and human health during its use. This study investigates the environmental compatibility of the use of ceramic porcelain stoneware tiles manufactured with BA as partial replacement of traditional raw materials, with a particular focus on the leaching behavior of the tiles during their use, and also after crushing to simulate their characteristics at their end of life. To evaluate the latter aspect, compliance leaching tests were performed on crushed samples and compared with Italian End-of-Waste (EoW) thresholds for the use of construction and demolition waste as recycled aggregates. Whereas, to assess the environmental compatibility of the tiles during the utilization phase, a methodology based on the application of monolithic leaching tests to intact tiles, and the evaluation of the results through multi-scenario human health risk assessment and the analysis of the main mechanisms governing leaching at different stages, was employed. The results of the study indicate that the analyzed BA-based tiles showed no significant increase in the release of potential contaminants compared to traditional formulations and fully complied with End-of-Waste criteria. The results of the monolith tests used as input for site-specific risk assessment, simulating worst-case scenarios involving the potential contamination of the groundwater, indicated negligible risks to human health for both types of tiles, even considering very conservative assumptions. As for differences in the release mechanisms, tiles containing BA exhibited a shift toward depletion-controlled leaching and some differences in early element release compared to the ones with a traditional formulation.

Intron retention (IR) is one of the cellular mechanisms to perform alternative splicing and thus control gene expression in several mammalian cellular pathways. IR in PI-PLC γ1 mRNA was observed in some primary synoviocyte samples from osteoarthritis (OA) patients, likely due to inter-patient variability. The aim of the present manuscript was to explore the PI-PLC γ1 IR molecular mechanism as a consequence of nutraceutical treatment of synoviocytes and the molecular basis of individual response. To evaluate the gene expression modulation of molecules involved in mRNA splicing, an RNA-seq analysis was performed, and the transcription modulation of six differentially expressed genes was validated by RT-PCR. Moreover, through a silencing experiment, the relationship between PI-PLC γ1 IR and the six modulated genes was explored. Finally, two of them, the RNA-binding proteins CELF1 and PTBP3, whose mRNA levels were elevated in samples exhibiting IR, were analyzed in detail. CELF1 and PTBP3 were overexpressed in synoviocytes lacking PI-PLC γ1 IR, and we found that CELF1 was responsible for IR, whereas PTBP3 did not seem to be involved. In conclusion, in our experimental model, the role of CELF1 protein in PI-PLC γ1 IR was explored, opening new scenarios for understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying the IR phenomenon present in several kinds of diseases.