• Energy Research

It is a common irrigation practice of fruit growers to fine-tune timing and amount of water gifts to achieve higher productivity and better quality of Peach cultivars. This requires different irrigation strategies during different phenological stages. Moreover, irrigation management should be adapted to different cultivars, besides weather and climate. Finally, after harvest, water gifts may be reduced to the minimum level required for plant survival. Adaptation to climate change adds an additional dimension to the challenge of designing and applying optimal irrigation scheduling. This challenge can be met by a combination of experiments and modelling on the water balance of the soil plant atmosphere system. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the magnitude and significance of differences in the modelled soil water deficit and in the resulting irrigation water gifts (as a function of time) when taking into account the specific phenological cycle of each cultivar versus a generic assessment for each species. We present the results of a case study on Peach cultivars in an area of the Po Valley where fruit crops are intensively grown. We evaluated for three Peach cultivars the soil water deficit and the irrigation requirement taking into account the shifting in phenological phases in response to air temperature. This analysis is performed taking into account the variability of soils. A reference (1961-90) and future (2021-2050) climate were considered. The reference climate data set has been produced applying a spatial statistic approach on ground observations. The future climate data set has been generated from statistical downscaling of predictions by general circulation models (AOGCM). The data sets consist of daily time series of maximum and minimum temperature, and daily rainfall on a 35 km × 35 km grid. The grid node located near Ravenna is the most representative of the local climate within the study area. The phenological development in the reference and future climate is modelled using phase - specific thermal times and specific thermal requirements for each peach cultivar. These requirements were estimated using phenological observations over several years in the Emilia Romagna region and scientific literature. We calculated the dates of start and end of rest completion, flowering, fruit development and ripening stages, from late autumn through late summer. Then, a mechanistic model of water flow in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum was used to describe the hydrological conditions in each phenological phase in response to climate and irrigation. Species-specific input data and model parameters were estimated on the basis of local experiments and of scientific literature and assumed to be generically representative of the species. Soils' hydrological properties of the study area were determined from soil texture using the HYPRES pedo-transfer functions. Upper boundary conditions were derived from the two climate scenarios. Despite the high evaporative demand and summer water shortage predicted for future climate scenario the impact on peach cultivars is positive since phenological stages from flowering to ripening are placed in rainy periods. Inter-cultivars differences have been assessed for future climate scenario concerning the required irrigation volumes in both optimal and in Regulated Deficit Irrigation managements.

Limited impacts of climate change on agricultural yields are unlikely to induce any significant changes in current landscapes. Larger impacts, unacceptable on economic or social ground, are likely to trigger interventions towards adaptation of agricultural production systems by reducing or removing vulnerabilities to climate variability and change. Such interventions may require a transition to a different production system, i.e. complete substitution of current crops, or displacement of current crops at their current location towards other locations, e.g. at higher elevations within the landscape. We have assessed the impacts of climate change and evaluated options for adaptation of a valley in Southern Italy, dominated by vine and olive orchards with a significant presence of wheat. We have first estimated the climatic requirements of several varieties for each dominant species. Next, to identify options for adaptation we have evaluated the compatibility of such requirements with indicators of a reference (current) climate and of future climate. This climate - compatibility assessment was done for each soil unit within the valley, leading to maps of locations where each crop is expected to be compatible with climate. This leads to identify both potential crop substitutions within the entire valley and crop displacements from one location to another within the valley. Two climate scenarios were considered: reference (1961-90) and future (2021-2050) climate, the former from climatic statistics, and the latter from statistical downscaling of general circulation models (AOGCM). Climatic data consists of daily time series of maximum and minimum temperature, and daily rainfall on a grid with a spatial resolution of 35 km. We evaluated the adaptive capacity of the "Valle Telesina" (Campania Region, Southern Italy). A mechanistic model of water flow in the soil-plant-atmosphere system (SWAP) was used to describe the hydrological conditions in response to climate for each soil unit. Crop-specific input data and model parameters were estimated on the basis of local experiments and of scientific literature and assumed to be generically representative of the species. Time series of MODIS TIR data were used to downscale gridded climate data on air temperature for both the reference and the future climate. The results indicate that no complete crop substitution will be required within this time frame, i.e. the Valle Telesina will preserve its typical landscape features of a vine - olive orchards dominated production system, typical of many regions in Mediterranean Europe. On the other hand very significant crop displacements will be necessary to grow each variety under optimal hydrothermal conditions, from the point of view of both quantity and quality of yield. The work was carried out within the Italian national project AGROSCENARI funded by the Ministry for Agricultural, Food and Forest Policies (MIPAAF, D.M. 8608/7303/2008)

The intra-specific biodiversity of agricultural crops is very significant and likely to provide the single majoropportunity to cope with the effects of the changing climate on agricultural ecosystems. Assessment of adaptivecapacity must rely on quantitative descriptions of plant responses to environmental factors (e.g. soil wateravailability, temperature). Moreover climate scenario needs to be downscaled to the spatial scale relevant to cropand farm management. Distributed models of crop response to environmental forcing might be used for thispurpose, but severely constrained by the very scarce knowledge on variety-specific values of model parameters,thus limiting the potential exploitation of intra-specific biodiversity towards adaptation.We have developed an approach towards this objective that relies on two complementary elements:a)a distributed model of the soil [U+FFFD] plant [U+FFFD] atmosphere system to downscale climate scenariosThe intra-specific biodiversity of agricultural crops is very significant and likely to provide the single major opportunity to cope with the effects of the changing climate on agricultural ecosystems. Assessment of adaptive capacity must rely on quantitative descriptions of plant responses to environmental factors (e.g. soil water availability, temperature). Moreover climate scenario needs to be downscaled to the spatial scale relevant to crop and farm management. Distributed models of crop response to environmental forcing might be used for this purpose, but severely constrained by the very scarce knowledge on variety-specific values of model parameters, thus limiting the potential exploitation of intra-specific biodiversity towards adaptation. We have developed an approach towards this objective that relies on two complementary elements:a) a distributed model of the soil - plant - atmosphere system to downscale climate scenarios to landscape units, where generic model parameters for each species are used;b) a data base on climatic requirements of as many varieties as feasible for each species relevant to the agricultural production system of a given region.By means of this approach, the adaptability of some olive cultivars was evaluated in a composite (hills and plains) area of Southern Italy (Valle Telesina, Campania Region, about 20.000 ha). The yearly average temperature is 22.5 °C and rainfall ranges between 600 and 900 mm. Two different climate scenarios were considered: current climate (1961-1990) and future climate (2021-2050). Future climate scenarios at low spatial resolution were generated with general circulation models (AOGCM) and down-scaled by means of a statistical model (Tomozeiu et al., 2007). The climate was represented by daily observations of minimum, maximum temperature and precipitation on a regular grid with a spatial resolution of 35 km; 50 realizations were used for future climate.The soil water regime of 45 soil units was described for the two climate scenarios by using an hydrological distributed model (SWAP). For 11 olive cultivars, the yield response function to soil water regime was determined through the re-analysis of experimental data (unpublished or derived from scientific literature). According to these responses, cultivar-specific threshold values of soil water (or evapotranspiration) deficit were defined. The soil water regime calculated by the distributed model was compared with the threshold values to identify cultivars compatible with present and expected climates. The operation is repeated for a set of realizations of each climate scenario. This analysis is performed in a distributed manner, i.e. using the time series for each model grid to assess possible variations in the extent and spatial distribution of cultivated area of olive cultivars.In the study area future climate scenarios predict an increase of monthly minimum and maximum air temperature of about 2°C during the summer (June, July and August) and a reduction of rainfall in autumn.Spatial pattern of cultivars' distribution, according their threshold values and soil water regime, was determined in the present and future climate scenarios, thus assessing variations in cultivars' adaptability to future climate with respect to the present.

Viticultural terroir is formally defined by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV, 2010) as “a concept which refers to an area in which collective knowledge of the interactions between the identifiable physical and biological environment and applied vitivinicultural practices develops, providing distinctive characteristics for the products originating from this area”.

AbstractNowadays, there is contrasting evidence between the ongoing continuing and widespread environmental degradation and the many means to implement environmental sustainability actions starting from good policies (e.g. EU New Green Deal, CAP), powerful technologies (e.g. new satellites, drones, IoT sensors), large databases and large stakeholder engagement (e.g. EIP‐AGRI, living labs). Here, we argue that to tackle the above contrasting issues dealing with land degradation, it is very much required to develop and use friendly and freely available web‐based operational tools to support both the implementation of environmental and agriculture policies and enable to take positive environmental sustainability actions by all stakeholders. Our solution is the S‐DSS LANDSUPPORT platform, consisting of a free web‐based smart Geospatial CyberInfrastructure containing 15 macro‐tools (and more than 100 elementary tools), co‐designed with different types of stakeholders and their different needs, dealing with sustainability in agriculture, forestry and spatial planning. LANDSUPPORT condenses many features into one system, the main ones of which were (i) Web‐GIS facilities, connection with (ii) satellite data, (iii) Earth Critical Zone data and (iv) climate datasets including climate change and weather forecast data, (v) data cube technology enabling us to read/write when dealing with very large datasets (e.g. daily climatic data obtained in real time for any region in Europe), (vi) a large set of static and dynamic modelling engines (e.g. crop growth, water balance, rural integrity, etc.) allowing uncertainty analysis and what if modelling and (vii) HPC (both CPU and GPU) to run simulation modelling ‘on‐the‐fly’ in real time. Two case studies (a third case is reported in the Supplementary materials), with their results and stats, covering different regions and spatial extents and using three distinct operational tools all connected to lower land degradation processes (Crop growth, Machine Learning Forest Simulator and GeOC), are featured in this paper to highlight the platform's functioning. Landsupport is used by a large community of stakeholders and will remain operational, open and free long after the project ends. This position is rooted in the evidence showing that we need to leave these tools as open as possible and engage as much as possible with a large community of users to protect soils and land.

<p>In the Mediterranean area, the expected increase in temperature coupled with the decrease in rainfall, as well as the increase in the frequency of extreme events (heatwaves and drought, IPCC, 2019), will severely affect the survival of current vineyard areas. Cultivar thermal requirement and soil water availability could be not satisfied, leading to a limitation in yield and berry quality also due to constraints in the achievement of optimal grape maturity.</p><p>In this context, the understanding of how the spatial viticultural suitability will change under climate change is of primary interest in order to identify the best adaptation strategies to guarantee the resilience of current viticultural areas. Moreover, the improvement of knowledge of climate, soil, and their interaction for each specific cultivar will be fundamental because the terroir system is based on this interaction able to influence the plant status (e.g., water).</p><p>In this study, different pedo-climatic conditions (past, present, and future) in three Italian sites at different latitudes (from center to southern), were compared for two red varieties of grapevine: Aglianico (indigenous cv) and Cabernet Sauvignon (international cv).</p><p>Grapevine adaptation to future climate in each experimental farm in Campania, Molise, and Sicily Italian regions has been realized through the use of bioclimatic indexes (e.g., Amerine & Winkler for Aglianico 2110 GDD). The climatic evaluation was performed using Regional Climate Model COSMO-CLM at high-resolution (8km x 8km) climate projections RCP4.5 and RCP 8.5 (2010-2100) and Reference Climate (RC, 1971-2005).</p><p>Results have shown how climate change will affect the cultivation of Aglianico and Cabernet Sauvignon, considering both the climate and bioclimatic needs of cultivars themselves in the current viticultural areas.</p><p>Finally, coupled with the climatic evaluation, a pedological survey to characterize the soils, and the analysis of satellite images (Sentinel2 ) coupled with stemwood anatomical analysis has been performed to reconstruct the past eco-physiological behavior.</p>

Traditional soil surveys were accompanied by interpretations with a qualitative, empirical, and static character: soils have "moderate limitations for a given form of land use." This information has been valuable for broad land-use questions on a regional or nationals scale. UN-Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 and the EU-Green Deal in 2019 require multifunctional land use, where not only production of healthy food is important but where also the quality of ground- and surface-water is considered, as well as carbon capture for climate mitigation and biodiversity preservation. All these demands correspond with a series of soil functions and related soil ecosystem services - varying in space and time - to be provided to society. Obviously, the traditional interpretations of soil survey reports can't provide this type of information, but Soil Taxonomy can still be relevant in a modern context. A comprehensive systems analysis is needed and soil-water-atmosphere-plant simulation models are essential to improve assessment of soil moisture regime and for developing alternative land-use options that satisfy the often-contrasting demands of the various ecosystem services (e.g., for provisioning and regulating). Examples will be shown where models express the effects of several forms of soil degradation: compaction, organic matter depletion and erosion, showing that different soil types show significantly different forms of behaviour illustrating the potential of using soil types as "carriers" of essential information to define suitable management procedures resulting in sustainable development. Two special applications of the models that produce unique and essential results, are illustrated: (i) exploratory studies to assess the effects of climate change and (ii) the important effect of soil properties on the quality of wines. These examples show again that soil types are excellent "carriers" of modern soil information providing a refreshed image for Soil Taxonomy.