Giulia Villani

Conservation and recreational values from semi-natural grasslands for visitors to two Italian parks

According to integrated natural resources management, interrelated resources have to be managed by maintaining their environmental quality, and visitors are stakeholders who have to be involved in natural park management decisions. In this paper we simultaneously examine the conservation and recreational values from grasslands for visitors to two Italian Regional Parks. A contingent valuation survey was carried out in 2007 for estimating non-use benefits to visitors from a grasslands conservation project in these parks. Two scenarios were considered: the present landscape composed of grasslands and forests, and a hypothetical scenario of forests without grasslands. Respondents were asked the quality rating of the parks as places for recreational activities, and their willingness to donate (WTD) per year to a project for maintaining the status quo. Results show that the majority of respondents give a high rating to these parks, are in favour of the project implementation, and willing to donate mainly for the benefit of future generations. Among the WTD determinants, by estimating a Tobit model and a two-stage model, giving a high quality rating to the park for recreational activities corresponds to a higher WTD for grassland conservation. This seems to suggest that the recreational motivation tends to coincide with the need to conserve habitats and biodiversity, and that the decision maker should pay specific attention to the maintenance of the quality of the recreational activities as well as the maintenance of a diversified landscape in these parks.

Modelling Soil Water Content in a Tomato Field: Proximal Gamma Ray Spectroscopy and Soil–Crop System Models

Proximal soil sensors are taking hold in the understanding of soil hydrogeological processes involved in precision agriculture. In this context, permanently installed gamma ray spectroscopy stations represent one of the best space–time trade off methods at field scale. This study proved the feasibility and reliability of soil water content monitoring through a seven-month continuous acquisition of terrestrial gamma radiation in a tomato test field. By employing a 1 L sodium iodide detector placed at a height of 2.25 m, we investigated the gamma signal coming from an area having a ~25 m radius and from a depth of approximately 30 cm. Experimental values, inferred after a calibration measurement and corrected for the presence of biomass, were corroborated with gravimetric data acquired under different soil moisture conditions, giving an average absolute discrepancy of about 2%. A quantitative comparison was carried out with data simulated by AquaCrop, CRITeRIA, and IRRINET soil–crop system models. The different goodness of fit obtained in bare soil condition and during the vegetated period highlighted that CRITeRIA showed the best agreement with the experimental data over the entire data-taking period while, in presence of the tomato crop, IRRINET provided the best results.

Land use transformations, territory naturalness and ecological planning

An analysis is made of the land use transformations over the last sixty years, as well as the consequences of these transformations on the naturalness of the territories of three municipalities of the “Nuovo Circondario Imolese” (Bologna, Italy). The selected municipalities are: Medicina, Borgo Tossignano and Castel del Rio, which represent the main territorial aspects of the “Nuovo Circondario Imolese”.The land use transformations are quantified through the GIS comparison of the land use maps of the years 1995, 1976, 1994 and 2003. The corresponding legends are transformed into the five categories of the first level CORINE Land Cover classes. The naturalness increases in the three territories throughout the period 1955-2003, but with different quantitative importance: limited for the territory of Medicina and progressively increasing from Borgo Tossignano to Castel del Rio. Urban areas increase too, but following a gradient opposite to the one concerning naturalness. The land use transformations in the “Nuovo circondario imolese” are similar to the trends reported for the same period in Italy as a whole and in many other European countries. Concerning the effects of land use transformations on the territory naturalness and biodiversity, our results highlight the critical state of the intensively used areas and the marginal areas. Some lines of action for a correct ecological planning of these different situations are suggested.