Carlo Bisci

The Climate of Ethiopia

Several papers have been published on different issues regarding the climate of Ethiopia or of some specific region. This presentation attempts to revise the knowledge of the climate of Ethiopia by means of updated, longer time series and including a larger number of meteo-stations than previous studies. Basic climatic parameters such as temperature, rainfall, relative humidity, wind, evapotranspiration, and aridity are considered and their spatial distribution is analyzed. The main results of such elaborations have been regionalized to obtain climatic maps by means of geostatistical interpolation, also taking into account topogeographic variables. These parameters were also used to update the Koppen classification of the Ethiopian territory. Climate change is a very important issue with worrying repercussions on agriculture and hence the social and economic development of the country. Trends of temperature and annual, spring, and summer rains were interpolated for the last 3–5 decades. Temperature shows a markedly increasing trend especially as regards the minimum values, whereas annual rainfalls tend to decrease with the spring, ‘small rains’ decreasing at faster rate.

Analysis of spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation in Trentino (Italian Eastern Alps): Preliminary Report.

The records of 92 pluviometric stations located in the Trentino Province (Italian Eastern Alps) were analyzed in order to find significant features in their spatial and temporal distribution. Differentiation of climatic regimes was detected, as well as the influence of many topographic-geographic parameters. Analyses of the data from the 20 stations with the best continuity of records indicate some periodic trends, with a major influence of those having a wavelength of ca. 26.7, 36.9 and 13.5 years. Also non strictly periodic Mediterranean oscillations influences the precipitation in the study area.

Interpolation of Rainfall Through Polynomial Regression in the Marche Region (Central Italy)

Notwithstanding its small size (less than 10,000 km2), because of its varied topography, ranging from the Apennines Range (up to more than 2000 m amsl) to coastal environments, the Marche Region (the Adriatic side of Central Italy), is characterized by many different types of climate. In this region there are no fully satisfactory models to interpolate and generalize rainfall data from the 111 available meteorological recording stations; however, in this study an innovative way to interpret data linking precipitation to many topographic parameters is introduced. Based on those considerations, statistical analyses were carried out on rainfall historical series in order to assess significantly variations during the last 60 years and to create a model capable of explaining rainfall distribution based on geographical and topographic parameters. The model highlighted a significant decrease of rainfall from 1961–1990 to 1991–2016, over the whole period, in the hilly and mountainous sectors (100–200 mm), while closer to the coast the difference is slight (about 0–100 mm). The new model also highlights the presence of some outliers in the rainfall values, which may lead to a better comprehension of climatic dynamics in this area.

Clean and Healthy – Natural Hazards and Resources

The methodology adopted to classify and represent natural hazards and resources influencing the quality of land and of life is briefly reported.It aims to make as schematic and simple as possible the classification procedure, based upon available thematic maps, adopting only three levels of hazard (each subdivided into two sub-levels, depending upon the possibility to reclaim or recover the area) and two levels of resources (each subdivided into two sub-levels according to its exploitability).The proposed representation aims at simplifying the interpretation of the resulting map, where both the hazard and resources levels are displayed using full colors and hatchings, respectively.