Publications
Publications found: 2022
Progetto MEMPHIS.D3.3 Report of trial cases plan
Fifamè Koudogbo (1), Marco Bianchi (1), Rubén Iglesias (1), Hervé Caumont (2), Fabrizio Pacini (2), Francesca Ardizzone (3), Mauro Rossi (3), Alessandro Mondini (3), Christian Bignami (4), Vassilis Sakkas (4), Natalia Spanou (4), 2016, Progetto MEMPHIS.D3.3 Report of trial cases plan,
2016,
Abstract
This document is the deliverable D3.3 Trial Case readiness; it defines and describes the trial ...
This document is the deliverable D3.3 Trial Case readiness; it defines and describes the trial cases that are foreseen in the framework of the MEMpHIS project.
The defined trial cases are designed to address real world use cases targeting landslide and seismic hazard mapping based on the use of EO data together with ancillary information.
This document is organised as follows_
Trial cases objectives, for both landslide and earthquakes (paragraph 2)
Pilot project description (paragraph 3 and 4)
Trial case setup and exploitation plan (paragraph 5)
Progetto MEMPHIS.D5.1: Report of the assessment of requirements
Francesca Ardizzone (1), Federica Fiorucci (1), Paola Reichenbach (1), Michele Santangelo (1), Alessandro Mondini (1), Christian Bignami (2), Matteo Albano (2), Salvatore Stramondo (2), Natalia Spanou (3), Vassilis Sakkas (4), 2016, Progetto MEMPHIS.D5.1: Report of the assessment of requirements,
pp.1–18, 2016,
Abstract
The main objective of WP5000, "Future space assets for DRR (Disaster and Risk Reduction)", is ...
The main objective of WP5000, "Future space assets for DRR (Disaster and Risk Reduction)", is to perform a gap analysis between the current space technology and the user needs required for landslide and seismic hazard mapping. As a result, a requirements baseline, including EO data types, processing methods, output products, ICTs storage and processing options, and current and future planned missions, is delivered for future space assets in DRR. WP5000 is subdivided in four sub-tasks including WP5100 "User needs analysis" aimed to define the EO technical requirements for landslide and seismic hazard evaluation, including the user required to prepare landslide inventory maps, a prerequisite for landslide hazard assessment.
The deliverable describes user requirements and system specifications (satellite imagery types and characteristics) appropriate for landslide and seismic hazard evaluation. For landslide hazard we analyse_ i) the requirements of the satellite images useful to prepare landslide inventory maps and ii) the system specifications for the optical and the SAR sensors. This report, will consider only the landslide inventory maps acquired using the photo-interpretation. The interpretation of aerial photographs or satellite images is the method most widely used to prepare inventory maps necessary to evaluate landslide hazard posed by a population of mass movements. For seismic hazard, we focus on the requirements associated with the existing solutions and on the ICT system specifications.
Photo-geology of the Montefalco Quaternary Basin, Umbria, Central Italy
Bucci, Francesco; Mirabella, Francesco; Santangelo, Michele; Cardinali, Mauro; Guzzetti, Fausto, 2016, Photo-geology of the Montefalco Quaternary Basin, Umbria, Central Italy,
Journal of maps 12 (2016): 314–322. doi_10.1080/17445647.2016.1210042,
DOI: 10.1080%2F17445647.2016.1210042
Abstract
We present a photo-geological map for the 185 km(2) fault-bounded, Montefalco Basin, Umbria, Central Italy. ...
We present a photo-geological map for the 185 km(2) fault-bounded, Montefalco Basin, Umbria, Central Italy. The basin formed in the Quaternary in response to extensional tectonics dissecting folds and thrusts of the northern Apennines range. To prepare the 1_25,000 geological map, we integrated geological and morphological information obtained through the visual analysis of three sets of aerial photographs of different age, the collection of new field data, and the review of pre-existing surface and sub-surface geological data. We show that systematic interpretation of aerial photographs contributed to improving the geological mapping, providing information not readily available through traditional field mapping. We expect that the new map will be used for different types of geological and geomorphological investigations, including studies of active tectonic, Quaternary morpho-tectonics, sedimentological and stratigraphic analyses, mining and exploration investigations, and the analysis of landslide types, patterns and distribution.
Safety Project. Susceptibility map of the southern Tuscany (Volterra area) test site
Paola Reichenbach, mauro Rossi, Francesca Ardizzone, Ivan Marchesini, 2016, Safety Project. Susceptibility map of the southern Tuscany (Volterra area) test site,
2016,
Abstract
D.E2.1 "Susceptibility map of the southern Tuscany (Volterra area) test site" is a deliverable of ...
D.E2.1 "Susceptibility map of the southern Tuscany (Volterra area) test site" is a deliverable of Task E "Geohazard impact assessment", in the framework of the action Action E.2 "Susceptibility and hazard maps". The action will focus on generating susceptibility and hazard maps using data available in the project test sites (Task D). The results of the susceptibility and hazard assessments will be used to evaluate the impact on the urban areas and infrastructures. The report will describe the susceptibility map prepared for the Volterra test site.
Safety Project. Report on tailoring existing knowledge and tools
Paola Reichenbach e Mauro Rossi, 2016, Safety Project. Report on tailoring existing knowledge and tools,
2016,
Abstract
D.E1 "Report on tailoring existing knowledge and tools" is the first deliverableof Task E"Geohazard impact ...
D.E1 "Report on tailoring existing knowledge and tools" is the first deliverableof Task E"Geohazard impact assessment". The main goal of action E.1 is to exploit the existing knowledge and tools developed within projects completed in the framework of different European Funding programs (e.g. LAMPRE, DORIS). Particular attention will be paid to_ i) the software for regional landslide susceptibility modelling that exploits statistical methods for the susceptibility zonation, and ii) the software for the determination of landslide statistics from inventory maps that consists of algorithm for the determination of statistics of landslide size (area) derived from inventory maps. The report will describe the existing knowledge and tools, and the strategies used to adapt them to the SAFETY project.
Rainfall estimation by inverting SMOS soil moisture estimates_ A comparison of different methods over Australia
Brocca, Luca; Pellarin, Thierry; Crow, Wade T.; Ciabatta, Luca; Massari, Christian; Ryu, Dongryeol; Su, Chun Hsu; Rüdiger, Christoph; Kerr, Yann, 2016, Rainfall estimation by inverting SMOS soil moisture estimates_ A comparison of different methods over Australia,
Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres (Print) 121 (2016): 12,062–12,079. doi_10.1002/2016JD025382,
Abstract
Remote sensing of soil moisture has reached a level of maturity and accuracy for which ...
Remote sensing of soil moisture has reached a level of maturity and accuracy for which the retrieved products can be used to improve hydrological and meteorological applications. In this study, the soil moisture product from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite is used for improving satellite rainfall estimates obtained from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission multisatellite precipitation analysis product (TMPA) using three different "bottom up" techniques_ SM2RAIN, Soil Moisture Analysis Rainfall Tool, and Antecedent Precipitation Index Modification. The implementation of these techniques aims at improving the well-known "top down" rainfall estimate derived from TMPA products (version 7) available in near real time. Ground observations provided by the Australian Water Availability Project are considered as a separate validation data set. The three algorithms are calibrated against the gauge-corrected TMPA reanalysis product, 3B42, and used for adjusting the TMPA real-time product, 3B42RT, using SMOS soil moisture data. The study area covers the entire Australian continent, and the analysis period ranges from January 2010 to November 2013. Results show that all the SMOS-based rainfall products improve the performance of 3B42RT, even at daily time scale (differently from previous investigations). The major improvements are obtained in terms of estimation of accumulated rainfall with a reduction of the root-mean-square error of more than 25%. Also, in terms of temporal dynamic (correlation) and rainfall detection (categorical scores) the SMOS-based products provide slightly better results with respect to 3B42RT, even though the relative performance between the methods is not always the same. The strengths and weaknesses of each algorithm and the spatial variability of their performances are identified in order to indicate the ways forward for this promising research activity. Results show that the integration of bottom up and top down approaches has the potential to improve the quality of near-real-time rainfall estimates from remote sensing in the near future.
RAMSES: A nowcasting system for mitigating geo-hydrological risk along the railway
Gabriele S., O. G. Terranova, S. Pascale, V. Rago, F. Chiaravalloti, P.Sabatino, L. Brocca, S. Laviola, L. Baldini, S. Federico, M. M. Miglietta, G.P. Marra, R. Niccoli, S. Arcuri, F. Catalano, S. Stassi, M. Baccillieri, M. Agostino, G.G.R. Iovine, 2016, RAMSES: A nowcasting system for mitigating geo-hydrological risk along the railway,
EGU annual meeting, Vienna, 17-22/04/2016,
Abstract
In recent years, a number of exceptional rainfall events of short / very short duration ...
In recent years, a number of exceptional rainfall events of short / very short duration (from 15 minutes to about 2 hours) caused incidents and service interruptions due to landslides, collapses of bridges, and erosion of the ballast, along the Calabrian railway. RAMSES (RAilway Meteorological SEcurity System) is a pilot CNR project, recently co-funded by RFI S.p.A. and aimed at mitigating the risk along the railway. Forecasting of weather events responsible of heavy convective rainfall, even when provided with some advance, is not generally performed with reliable localization. In fact, objective limits of the numerical weather prediction derive from grid resolution, often exceeding the size of convective cells. These phenomena, whose recurrence periods seem to show a reduction due to climate changes, affect limited areas and are characterized by a very short life cycle. As a consequence, failures of hydraulic crossings are increasingly being recorded together with landslide-related debris invasion along the drainage network and slopes. RAMSES aims at improving short term (3-6 hours) weather forecasts and ground effects at local scale. The employed approach is base on synergistic and integrated operational tools to provide weather information on small-size basins. The system will also allow to promptly identify and track the short-term evolution (15-60 min) of convective cells, by means of imaging techniques based on quasi-real time radar and Meteosat data. The extension of the temporal horizon of the forecast up to three hours will be performed by using the Local Analysis and Prediction System (LAPS) model. This latter employs, as a "first guess", the output of the WRF numerical model_ such analyses are updated and improved by means of observational data from different instruments (e.g. on land weather stations, radar, satellites, etc.). Finally, the assessment of ground effects will be accomplished for selected study areas, by means of landslide susceptibility mapping combined with hydrological, rainfall-runoff and hydraulic flow modeling.
Modeling the effects induced by the expected climatic trends on landslide activity at large scale
Salciarini, Diana; Volpe, Evelina; Kelley, Sara Alison; Brocca, Luca; Camici, Stefania; Fanelli, Giulia; Tamagnini, Claudio, 2016, Modeling the effects induced by the expected climatic trends on landslide activity at large scale,
Procedia engineering 158 (2016): 541–545. doi_10.1016/j.proeng.2016.08.486,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.proeng.2016.08.486
Abstract
Traditionally, slope stability assessments are based on stationary expected extreme rainfalls, provided by the Intensity-Duration ...
Traditionally, slope stability assessments are based on stationary expected extreme rainfalls, provided by the Intensity-Duration Frequency curves. More recent approaches are based on projected rainfall scenarios, considering the expected climatic trends provided by General Circulation Models (GCMs). The projected rainfalls used in this study have been obtained by climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIPS). Different GCMs emission scenarios (Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 4.5, 8.5) and time horizons (e.g., 2010-2039; 2040-2069; 2070-2099) are analysed. In order to fill the scale gap between the spatial resolution of GCMs and the resolution required for impact studies, statistically downscaled climate projections provided by [1-2] are used as input into PG_TRIGRS [3] to predict the effect of climatic change on landslide activity. A hydrological basin located in the Umbria region of central Italy is used as case study. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Automatic delineation of geomorphological slope units with r.slopeunits v1.0 and their optimization for landslide susceptibility modeling
Massimiliano Alvioli, Ivan Marchesini, Paola Reichenbach, Mauro Rossi, Francesca Ardizzone, Federica Fiorucci, and Fausto Guzzetti, 2016, Automatic delineation of geomorphological slope units with r.slopeunits v1.0 and their optimization for landslide susceptibility modeling,
Geoscientific model development (Online) 9 (2016): 3975–3991. doi_10.5194/gmd-9-3975-2016,
DOI: 10.5194%2Fgmd-9-3975-2016
Abstract
Automatic subdivision of landscapes into terrain units remains a challenge. Slope units are terrain units ...
Automatic subdivision of landscapes into terrain units remains a challenge. Slope units are terrain units bounded by drainage and divide lines, but their use in hydrological and geomorphological studies is limited because of the lack of reliable software for their automatic delineation. We present the r.slopeunits software for the automatic delineation of slope units, given a digital elevation model and a few input parameters. We further propose an approach for the selection of optimal parameters controlling the terrain subdivision for landslide susceptibility modeling. We tested the software and the optimization approach in central Italy, where terrain, landslide, and geo-environmental information was available. The software was capable of capturing the variability of the landscape and partitioning the study area into slope units suited for landslide susceptibility modeling and zonation. We expect r.slopeunits to be used in different physiographical settings for the production of reliable and reproducible landslide susceptibility zonations.
Process-based approaches for predicting soil erosion at the field and small watershed scales.
Dino Torri, 2016, Process-based approaches for predicting soil erosion at the field and small watershed scales.,
THIRD CONFERENCE OF COST ACTION ES1306_ CONNECTING EUROPEAN CONNECTIVITY RESEARCH HYDROLOGICAL AND EROSION PROCESSES IN MEDITERRANEAN LANDSCAPES_ IMPACTS OF LAND MANAGEMENT ON CONNECTIVITY., Universita' Palermo, 28th February - 5th March, 2016,
Abstract
Process-based approaches for predicting soil erosion at the field and small watershed scales
Dino Torri
IRPI, ...
Process-based approaches for predicting soil erosion at the field and small watershed scales
Dino Torri
IRPI, CNR, Perugia, Italy,
dino.torri@irpi.cnr.it
Processes occur at their own scale and often are the results of other processes occurring at a more basic scale. This is a well-known mechanism that is at the base of the whole scientific system_ looking for more and more basic processes aiming at the basic processes/constituents of Universe and Life. Soil erosion, runoff generation, and slope stability research share this same aspect, even if these studies are often driven by practical implications and immediate utilization. Hence, discussing something that is process-based requires that we define what are the processes we want to discuss and at which scale of approximation and generalization, their representation in the synthetic landscape represented by our approximation of topography, land use and management, structures and infrastructures, landscape and land use spatially distributed history. Following the scale of representation of the processes, we will need to explicitly describe the math approximating the chosen set of physics, chemistry and biology laws which are relevant to the studied processes.
Given our present knowledge of the processes involved in soil erosion at the field-to-small-catchment scale (FSC), we can expect that we will work at a scale that is usually coarser than the one proper to the processes. Furthermore, we will be limited by the input data (typology and quality) available with respect to the data requested by our equations. Hence our models, despite how well founded on a good physics, are always at risk of producing coarse approximations.
FSC scale implies a quite large number of processes (Torri and Borselli, 2011). Since the first drop hits the soil, water begins to penetrate into it decreasing soil resistance to compaction and detachment. Capillary suction can cause telluric air to be trapped and compressed into the soil causing aggregates to partly disintegrate (slaking). With decreasing soil resistance, drop impact becomes effective in compressing soil and detaching soil particles and aggregates. These processes (slaking and splash) are responsible for the formation of a usually less porous layer, which causes a change in soil pore size distribution and infiltration rate. Raindrops also smoothen local roughness. These processes accelerate the formation of ponds and their expansion until partial runoff starts. The presence of water at the very surface of the soil dissipates part of the raindrop impact energy reducing raindrop detachment. The dissipated drop energy increases the capacity of the usually thin layer of diffuse overland flow to transport detached soil grains. A series of proto-rills starts to appear, to be quickly erased by episodes of intense and very localized deposition. If a sufficiently large area gets hydraulically connected to some of the proto-rills then a rill channel is usually formed. Similarly, excess-runoff gullies will be excavated, e.g. when rills coalesce. The area draining to a potential gully head ought to be 40-50 times larger than in the rill case to initiate gully erosion. When there is a subsurface layer more erodible than the capping layer then a hypodermic flow develops and, with it, pipe erosion. The occurrence of micropiping at rill and gully headcuts helps increasing linear erosion intensity and the head-cut retreat rate. Along the rill and gully walls various type of mass movements occur, from soil toppling to relatively large mass movements favored by the undercutting and the formation of tension cracks, some of these processes occur during rainfall, others later. Debris flows occur when water rapidly accumulates in the ground, during heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt. Mass movements along slopes often occur after the causative rainfall. They can trigger the formation of other rills and gullies in subsequent events. Other erosion processes, which occur mainly or partly outside rainfall events, include soil creeping, due to soil shrinking-swelling cycles, and solifluction, due to freeze-thaw activity. All these processes are characterized by very different erosion rates, with process-caused soil loss and process occurrence being almost inversely proportional.
When the most devastating soil erosion processes occur, they can damage infrastructures and buildings and strongly affect the agricultural activities in cropland. In the latter case, extra tillage operations and land leveling are requested, which accelerate and spread around the degradation of soil characteristics while the local morphology is modified.
On the basis of the recalled processes, we can list the items concurring to produce a process-based approach to soil erosion modeling at the field/slope and small watershed scale_
1- the processes, which dominate soil erosion at a given site, are actually and properly described in the software;
2- the input data, required by the processes and their descriptions, are adequate and measurable or they can be estimated through proper and reproducible procedures;
3- stochasticity and spatial variability are taken into account;
4- the landscape is described at the correct scale for the involved processes;
and, if the model evaluates erosion over long periods, then
5- it must be able to work under very different climatic conditions (i.e. the model must deal with climate direct and indirect effects);
6- it must interact with the various ecosystem components.
Finally, if we want the model to include all the erosion processes, then the model cannot be an event-model that does not simulate the processes occurring between rainfall events. On the contrary_
7- the model must be a continuous model;
8- tillage and land leveling shall be included because of their effect on local topography and on soil characteristics.
Item 1 seems obvious_ a model cannot be process-based if processes are missing. Actually, the way in which a process is represented can make the difference. Slaking of soil aggregate is a composite process, which can be represented in different ways_
a) through a quantity proportional to the soil saturation degree - in this case, we need four input data_ water content at saturation, initial moisture, volumetric fraction of disconnected pores and an empirical coefficient depending on soil, soil use, period of the year (or prevalent weather condition of the previous weeks), vegetation status - hence something very local and of short temporal duration;
b) describing water penetration into aggregates by capillary action and get a dynamic reconstruction of the slaking, even introducing a slaking rate - temporal dynamics of the water retention curves substitute the soil empirical coefficients and their dynamics as in a);
c) adding a constant to interrill detachment and call it "slaking component", maybe measuring it through soil aggregate stability.
The three approaches are not equivalent; the second one can be used for understanding and depicting a wide range of remediation. The first one is probably the best for keeping the model simple and improving chances to forecast reliable erosion rates. The third is too coarse to be useful
Another important aspect, still belonging to Item 1, is relative to the mathematics of the software. It often involves approximate numerical calculus, which must converge_ convergence is a responsibility of the modelers. Unfortunately, most model descriptions leave convergence into a foggy background.
Similar discussions will be developed for the other items. E.g., soil resistance to erosion can be represented by undrained soil strength at saturation (tensile and/or shear; Item 2). The presence of living plants increases it because the direct effect of roots and the indirect effects of root exudates and the soil biota that plants favor (Item 6): certainly worms (Charles Darwin in his book "The formation of vegetable mould though the action of worms", 1881) and fungi (Rillig et al., 2015). Several plant-related parameters can help evaluating this increased resistance. Vegetation-growing models can be used for evaluating these effects and for changing them on the base of the history of land use and management changes (residence time of soil organic matter bindings).
Items 5 through 8 are of the outstanding importance because of climate changes and ecosystem modifications. The local weather is not a constant. On the contrary, it is changing dramatically and ecosystems are following the changes, partly resisting, partly adapting. In the Mediterranean area, we are facing warmer winters and hotter summers, with more rainstorms and less rainy days, and more frequent and longer droughts (Zollo et al. 2015). Shortly, we must expect a different weather situation in 10 years from now, which will be different from the situation in 20 years and so on. Hence any prediction of soil erosion, that want to be serious and scientifically informed, must use predicted weather series under a changing climate while vegetation and soil properties must be evolved accordingly. Under the present situation, where the climate change is one of the major threats to ecosystems (Hansen et al., 2015), the ecosystem resilience is basic to maintain its functions. This makes the soil component essential because of its many fundamental services, from storing water, which can attenuate drought effects, to hosting an important part of the biota. Hence, managing soil resistance to erosion and degradation becomes paramount to contrast the expected increase of climate aggressiveness while soil erosion (process-based) models should be able to replace models based on empirical/statistical process-lumping relationships (based on observations of a past situation).
Definition and performance of a threshold-based regional early warning model for rainfall-induced landslides
Luca Piciullo(1), Stefano Luigi Gariano(2,3)(*), Massimo Melillo(2), Maria Teresa Brunetti(2), Silvia Peruccacci(2), Fausto Guzzetti(2), Michele Calvello(1), 2016, Definition and performance of a threshold-based regional early warning model for rainfall-induced landslides,
Landslides (Berl., Internet) (2016). doi_10.1007/s10346-016-0750-2,
DOI: 10.1007%2Fs10346-016-0750-2
Abstract
A process chain for the definition and the performance assessment of an operational regional warning ...
A process chain for the definition and the performance assessment of an operational regional warning model for rainfall-induced landslides, based on rainfall thresholds, is proposed and tested in a landslide prone area in the Campania region, southern Italy. A database of 96 shallow landslides triggered by rainfall in the period 2003-2010 and rainfall data gathered from 58 rain gauges are used. First, a set of rainfall threshold equations are defined applying a well-known frequentist method to all the reconstructed rainfall conditions responsible for the documented landslides in the area of analysis. Several thresholds at different exceedance probabilities (percentiles) are evaluated and 9 different percentiles combinations are selected for the activation of 3 warning levels. Subsequently, for each combination, the issuing of warning levels is computed by comparing, over time, the measured rainfall with the pre-defined warning level thresholds. Finally, the optimal percentiles combination to be employed in the regional early warning system, i.e., the one providing the best model performance in terms of success and error indicators, is selected employing the "event, duration matrix, performance" (EDuMaP) method.
LAND-SE: a software for statistically based landslide susceptibility zonation, version 1.0
Mauro Rossi, Paola Reichenbach, 2016, LAND-SE: a software for statistically based landslide susceptibility zonation, version 1.0,
Geoscientific model development (Online) 9 (2016): 3533–3543. doi_10.5194/gmd-9-3533-2016,
DOI: 10.5194%2Fgmd-9-3533-2016
Abstract
TS1Landslide susceptibility (LS) assessment provides a relative estimate of landslide spatial occurrence based on local ...
TS1Landslide susceptibility (LS) assessment provides a relative estimate of landslide spatial occurrence based on local terrain conditions. A literature review revealed that LS evaluation has been performed in many study areas 5 worldwide using different methods, model types, different partition of the territory (mapping units) and a large variety of geo-environmental data. Among the different methods, statistical models have been largely used to evaluate LS, but the minority of articles presents a complete and comprehensive LS assessment that includes model performance analysis, prediction skills evaluation, and estimation of the errors and uncertainty. The aim of this paper is to describe LAND-SE (LANDslide Susceptibility Evaluation) software that performs susceptibility modelling and zonation using statistical models, quantifies the model performances, and the associated uncertainty. The software is implemented in R, a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. This provides users with the possibility to implement and improve the code with additional models, evaluation tools, or output
types. The paper describes the software structure, explains input and output, and illustrates specific applications with maps and graphs. The LAND-SE script is delivered with a basic user guide and three example data sets.
Precipitation Estimation Using L-Band and C-Band Soil Moisture Retrievals
Koster, R.D., Brocca, L., Crow, W.T., Burgin, M.S., De Lannoy, G.J.M., 2016, Precipitation Estimation Using L-Band and C-Band Soil Moisture Retrievals,
Water resources research 52 (2016): 7213–7225. doi_10.1002/2016WR019024,
Abstract
An established methodology for estimating precipitation amounts from satellite-based soil moisture retrievals is applied to ...
An established methodology for estimating precipitation amounts from satellite-based soil moisture retrievals is applied to L-band products from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) and Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite missions and to a C-band product from the Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) mission. The precipitation estimates so obtained are evaluated against in situ (gauge-based) precipitation observations from across the globe. The precipitation estimation skill achieved using the L-band SMAP and SMOS datasets is higher than that obtained with the C-band product, as might be expected given that L-band is sensitive to a thicker layer of soil and thereby provides more information on the response of soil moisture to precipitation. The square of the correlation coefficient between the SMAP-based precipitation estimates and the observations (for aggregations to ~100 km and 5 days) is on average about 0.6 in areas of high rain gauge density. Satellite missions specifically designed to monitor soil moisture thus do provide significant information on precipitation variability, information that could contribute to efforts in global precipitation estimation.
Analysis of soil moisture dynamics beneath olive trees
Espejo-Pérez, Antonio Jesús; Brocca, Luca; Moramarco, Tommaso; Giráldez, Juan V.; Giráldez, Juan V.; Triantafilis, John; Vanderlinden, Karl, 2016, Analysis of soil moisture dynamics beneath olive trees,
Hydrological processes (Print) (2016). doi_10.1002/hyp.10907,
DOI: 10.1002%2Fhyp.10907
Abstract
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Spatiotemporal densification of river water level time series by multimission satellite altimetry
Tourian, M. J.; Tarpanelli, A.; Elmi, O.; Qin, T.; Brocca, L.; Moramarco, T.; Sneeuw, N., 2016, Spatiotemporal densification of river water level time series by multimission satellite altimetry,
Water resources research (2016). doi_10.1002/2015WR017654,
Abstract
Limitations of satellite radar altimetry for operational hydrology include its spatial and temporal sampling as ...
Limitations of satellite radar altimetry for operational hydrology include its spatial and temporal sampling as well as measurement problems caused by local topography and heterogeneity of the reflecting surface. In this study, we develop an approach that eliminates most of these limitations to produce an approximately 3 day temporal resolution water level time series from the original typically (sub)monthly data sets for the Po River in detail, and for Congo, Mississippi, and Danube Rivers. We follow a geodetic approach by which, after estimating and removing intersatellite biases, all virtual stations of several satellite altimeters are connected hydraulically and statistically to produce water level time series at any location along the river. We test different data-selection strategies and validate our method against the extensive available in situ data over the Po River, resulting in an average correlation of 0.7, Root-Mean-Square Error of 0.8 m, bias of -0.4 m, and Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency coefficient of 0.5. We validate the transferability of our method by applying it to the Congo, Mississippi, and Danube Rivers, which have very different geomorphological and climatic conditions. The methodology yields correlations above 0.75 and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficients of 0.84 (Congo), 0.34 (Mississippi), and 0.35 (Danube).
An investigation of the effects of spatial heterogeneity of initial soil moisture content on surface runoff simulation at a small watershed scale
Morbidelli, Renato; Saltalippi, Carla; Flammini, Alessia; Corradini, Corrado; Brocca, Luca; Govindaraju, Rao S., 2016, An investigation of the effects of spatial heterogeneity of initial soil moisture content on surface runoff simulation at a small watershed scale,
Journal of hydrology (Amst.) 539 (2016): 589–598. doi_10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.05.067,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.jhydrol.2016.05.067
Abstract
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Rainfall-runoff modelling by using SM2RAIN-derived and state-of-the-art satellite rainfall products over Italy
Ciabatta, Luca; Brocca, Luca; Massari, Christian; Moramarco, Tommaso; Gabellani, Simone; Puca, Silvia; Wagner, Wolfgang, 2016, Rainfall-runoff modelling by using SM2RAIN-derived and state-of-the-art satellite rainfall products over Italy,
ITC journal 48 (2016): 163–173. doi_10.1016/j.jag.2015.10.004,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.jag.2015.10.004
Abstract
Satellite rainfall products (SRPs) are becoming more accurate with ever increasing spatial and temporal resolution. ...
Satellite rainfall products (SRPs) are becoming more accurate with ever increasing spatial and temporal resolution. This evolution can be beneficial for hydrological applications, providing new sources of information and allowing to drive models in ungauged areas. Despite the large availability of rainfall satellite data, their use in rainfall-runoff modelling is still very scarce, most likely due to measurement issues (bias, accuracy) and the hydrological community acceptability of satellite products.
Robust Assessment of an Operational Algorithm for the Retrieval of Soil Moisture from AMSR-E Data in Central Italy
Santi, Emanuele; Paloscia, Simonetta; Pettinato, Simone; Brocca, Luca; Ciabatta, Luca, 2016, Robust Assessment of an Operational Algorithm for the Retrieval of Soil Moisture from AMSR-E Data in Central Italy,
IEEE journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing (Print) 9 (2016): 2478–2492. doi_10.1109/JSTARS.2016.2575361,
DOI: 10.1109%2FJSTARS.2016.2575361
Abstract
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Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Rainfall from Ku-Band Scatterometers
Brocca, Luca; Massari, Christian; Ciabatta, Luca; Wagner, Wolfgang; Stoffelen, Ad, 2016, Remote Sensing of Terrestrial Rainfall from Ku-Band Scatterometers,
IEEE journal of selected topics in applied earth observations and remote sensing (Print) 9 (2016): 533–539. doi_10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2508065,
DOI: 10.1109%2FJSTARS.2015.2508065
Abstract
Rainfall is the most fundamental variable of the terrestrial hydrological cycle. However, in many regions ...
Rainfall is the most fundamental variable of the terrestrial hydrological cycle. However, in many regions of the world, ground observations are still very scarce or even missing. Recently, a bottom-up approach, named SM2RAIN, for terrestrial rainfall estimation from satellite soil moisture (SM) products was proposed and successfully applied to C-and L-band products from scatterometers and radiometers. Thanks to the multiple Ku-band scatterometers launched in the recent years and a number of new sensors expected in the near future, accurate rainfall estimation at subdaily time scale could be obtained. We present here a first attempt to estimate terrestrial rainfall from Ku-band scatterometers using SM2RAIN. To this end, backscattering data (sigma-0) collected in central Italy from the RapidScat instrument on board the International Space Station are compared with the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT, C-band) SM product and in situ observations for assessing its sensitivity to SM variations. Then, RapidScat sigma-0 is used for rainfall retrieval and compared with ground observations over a regular grid of 15-km spacing. The 8-month period from Nov 2014 to Jun 2015 is considered. Results show a very good agreement between ASCAT SM and RapidScat SM index with a median temporal correlation coefficient R of ~0.9 and a reasonable performance (R > 0.52) against in situ data. More interestingly, the performance of RapidScat in 1-day rainfall estimation is found to be satisfactory with median R-values equal to ~0.6. These promising results highlight the large potential of using the constellation of scatterometers for providing an accurate rainfall product with high spatial-Temporal resolution.
Comparison of SMOS, modelled and in situ long-term soil moisture series in the northwest of Spain
Gumuzzio, A.; Brocca, L.; Sánchez, N.; González-Zamora, A.; Martínez-Fernández, J., 2016, Comparison of SMOS, modelled and in situ long-term soil moisture series in the northwest of Spain,
Hydrological sciences journal (2016): 1–16. doi_10.1080/02626667.2016.1151981,
DOI: 10.1080%2F02626667.2016.1151981
Abstract
This work aimed to evaluate the capability of modelled vs in situ soil moisture observations ...
This work aimed to evaluate the capability of modelled vs in situ soil moisture observations in the northwest of Spain for a period of four years (2010-2013) in order to validate the SMOS L2 product. Comparisons were performed for a set of representative stations of the Soil Moisture Measurement Stations network of the University of Salamanca (REMEDHUS) at both point and area scales. The SMOS series showed good correlation with the modelled series, better than that obtained with the in situ observations (0.77 vs 0.68 average correlation coefficients). However, some underestimation or overestimation of the SMOS series, related to the soil characteristics, was observed with respect to both the in situ and the modelled series. The SMOS data normalization produced a notable improvement in the results, highlighting the capability of the modelled data to validate the SMOS soil moisture series. This research provides a solid foundation for the future validation of SMOS at large scales, overcoming the spatial representativeness issues arising from the use of in situ point measurements.EDITOR M.C. Acreman; ASSOCIATE EDITOR N. Verhoest
Comparative evaluation of different satellite rainfall estimation products and bias correction in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin
Abera, Wuletawu; Brocca, Luca; Rigon, Riccardo, 2016, Comparative evaluation of different satellite rainfall estimation products and bias correction in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin,
Atmospheric research (Print) 178-179 (2016): 471–483. doi_10.1016/j.atmosres.2016.04.017,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.atmosres.2016.04.017
Abstract
In a region where ground-based gauge data are scarce, satellite rainfall estimates (SREs) are a ...
In a region where ground-based gauge data are scarce, satellite rainfall estimates (SREs) are a viable option for proper space-time rainfall characterization. However, their accuracy and performances vary from region to region, and must be assessed. In this study, five high resolution satellite products (3B42V7, CMORPH, TAMSAT, SM2R-CCI, and CFSR) are compared and analyzed using the available rain gauge data in one of the most topographically and climatologically complex basin of Africa, the Upper Blue Nile basin (UBN). The basin rainfall is investigated systematically, and it is found that, at some locations, the difference in mean annual rainfall estimates between these SREs could be as much as about 2700 mm. Considering three goodness-of-fit indexes, correlation, bias and root mean square error (RMSE) between the SREs and ground-based gauge rainfall, CMORPH, TAMSAT and SM2R-CCI outperform the other two. Furthermore, a confusion matrix is used to investigate the detection ability of satellite rainfall products for different rainfall intensities. TAMSAT has the highest (91%) detection skill for dry days, followed by CFSR (77%). On the contrary, SM2R-CCI has the highest accuracy index for medium rainfall ranges (10-20 mm). The empirical cumulative distribution (ecdf) mapping technique is used to correct the intensities distribution givenby the SREs. This method provides a means to improve the rainfall estimation of all SREs, and the highest improvement is obtained for CMORPH (bias reduction from - 72% to - 1%).
Do landslides follow landslides? Insights in path dependency from a multi-temporal landslide inventory
Jalal Samia (1,3), Arnaud Temme (2,3), Arnold Bregt (1), Jakob Wallinga (2), Fausto Guzzetti (4), Francesca Ardizzone (4), Mauro Rossi (4), 2016, Do landslides follow landslides? Insights in path dependency from a multi-temporal landslide inventory,
Landslides (Berl., Internet) (2016). doi_10.1007/s10346-016-0739-x,
DOI: 10.1007%2Fs10346-016-0739-x
Abstract
Landslides are a major category of natural disasters, causing loss of lives, livelihoods and property. ...
Landslides are a major category of natural disasters, causing loss of lives, livelihoods and property. The critical roles played by triggering (such as extreme rainfall and earthquakes), and intrinsic factors (such as slope steepness, soil properties and lithology) have previously successfully been recognized and quantified using a variety of qualitative, quantitative and hybrid methods in a wide range of study sites. However, available data typically do not allow to investigate the effect that earlier landslides have on intrinsic factors and hence on follow-up landslides. Therefore, existing methods cannot account for the potentially complex susceptibility changes caused by landslide events. In this study, we used a substantially different alternative approach to shed light on the potential effect of earlier landslides using a multitemporal dataset of landslide occurrence containing 17 time slices. Spatial overlap and the time interval between landslides play key roles in our work. We quantified the degree to which landslides preferentially occur in locations where landslides occurred previously, how long such an effect is noticeable, and how landslides are spatially associated over time. We also investigated whether overlap with previous landslides causes differences in landslide geometric properties. We found that overlap among landslides demonstrates a clear legacy effect (path dependency) that has influence on the landslide affected area. Landslides appear to cause greater susceptibility for follow-up landslides over a period of about 10 years. Follow-up landslides are on average larger and rounder than landslides that do not follow earlier slides. The effect of earlier landslides on follow-up landslides has implications for understanding of the landslides evolution and the assessment of landslide susceptibility.
Landslides in a changing climate
Gariano S.L. (a,b), Guzzetti F. (a), 2016, Landslides in a changing climate,
Earth-science reviews 162 (2016): 227–252. doi_10.1016/j.earscirev.2016.08.011,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.earscirev.2016.08.011
Abstract
Warming of the Earth climate system is unequivocal. That climate changes affect the stability of ...
Warming of the Earth climate system is unequivocal. That climate changes affect the stability of natural and engineered slopes and have consequences on landslides, is also undisputable. Less clear is the type, extent, magnitude and direction of the changes in the stability conditions, and on the location, abundance, activity and frequency of landslides in response to the projected climate changes. Climate and landslides act at only partially overlapping spatial and temporal scales, complicating the evaluation of the climate impacts on landslides. We review the literature on landslide-climate studies, and find a bias in their geographical distribution, with large parts of the world not investigated. We recommend to fill the gap with new studies in Asia, South America, and Africa. We examine advantages and limits of the approaches adopted to evaluate the effects of climate variations on landslides, including prospective modelling and retrospective methods that use landslide and climate records. We consider changes in temperature, precipitation, wind and weather systems, and their direct and indirect effects on the stability of single slopes, and we use a probabilistic landslide hazard model to appraise regional landslide changes. Our review indicates that the modelling results of landslide-climate studies depend more on the emission scenarios, the Global Circulation Models, and the methods to downscale the climate variables, than on the description of the variables controlling slope processes. We advocate for constructing ensembles of projections based on a range of emissions scenarios, and to use carefully results from worst-case scenarios that may over/under-estimate landslide hazards and risk. We further advocate that uncertainties in the landslide projections must be quantified and communicated to decision makers and the public. We perform a preliminary global assessment of the future landslide impact, and we present a global map of the projected impact of climate change on landslide activity and abundance. Where global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of severe rainfall events, a primary trigger of rapid-moving landslides that cause many landslide fatalities, we predict an increase in the number of people exposed to landslide risk. Finally, we give recommendations for landslide adaptation and risk reduction strategies in the framework of a warming climate.
Estimation of daily rainfall over Italy by merging multiple microwave-based satellite products
Giulia Panegrossi (1), Daniele Casella (1), Anna Cinzia Marra (1), Paolo Sano (1), Stefano Dietrich (1), Luca
Brocca (2), Luca Ciabatta (2), and Christian Massari (2), 2016, Estimation of daily rainfall over Italy by merging multiple microwave-based satellite products,
EGU General Assembly 2016, pp. 18080–18080, Vienna, 17-22 aprile, 2016,
Abstract
Precipitation retrieval from space has seen great advances thanks to the improving quality of PMW ...
Precipitation retrieval from space has seen great advances thanks to the improving quality of PMW measurements, the refinement of precipitation retrieval techniques, and the increasing number of microwave radiometers on board LEO satellites orbiting around the Earth. With the recent advent of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission the constellation of cross-track and conically scanning microwave radiometers with precipitation-sensing capabilities currently ensures 1- to 3-hourly coverage at mid/high latitudes. Traditionally passive microwave (PMW) retrieval algorithms are based on the principle that surface precipitation can be estimated from the mul- tichannel brightness temperature (TB) measurements because these are affected (in different ways depending on channel frequency, viewing geometry, spatial resolution, and surface background conditions) by the microphysical properties and 3-D distribution of liquid and frozen hydrometeors within the precipitating cloud, and, therefore, can be related to surface precipitation. These approaches can be categorized as top-down approaches and they provide instantaneous precipitation rate estimate at the surface at the time of the satellite observation. Recently a new perspective for surface precipitation estimate has been proposed, the bottom-up approach, based on the principle that the soil moisture can be considered as a "natural raingauge" and can be employed for "measuring" rainfall. The algorithm, called SM2RAIN, allows estimating rainfall directly from soil moisture retrieved from spaceborne sensors (i.e. ASCAT). Several recent studies have demonstrated that the approach is very effective for precipitation estimation from the daily to 5-daily scale, even though not applicable in regions where soil moisture retrieval is not feasible (i.e. highly vegetated areas, frozen surfaces, oceans).
This study shows that the precipitation estimates obtained by PMW observations using the two approaches (top-down and bottom-up) can be combined to provide accurate estimates of daily rainfall. For the top-down approach two different precipitation retrieval algorithms are used_ the Cloud Dynamics Radiation Database algorithm (CDRD), a physically ¬based Bayesian algorithm applied to the conically scanning radiometer SSMIS, and the Passive microwave Neural network Precipitation Retrieval (PNPR) algorithm for cross-track scanning radiometers AMSU/MHS. Four-year (2011-2014) assessment over Italy (complex territory with orography, sea-land interface, vegetation, frozen soils) is carried out for the daily rainfall estimates obtained from SM2RAIN, combined CDRD-PNPR, and merged SM2RAIN-CDRD-PNPR products, all regridded at 0.25ox0.25o spatial resolution. Rainfall measurements from the Italian raingauge network are used as reference. Results show that both SM2RAIN and CDRD-PNPR rainfall products are as accurate as state-of-the-art products, e.g., the TRMM product 3B42RT. The CDRD-PNPR product shows sensitivity to the number and frequency of SSMIS and AMSU/MHS overpasses available, and evidences worse results along the coast, while SM2RAIN shows criticalities mostly related to soil moisture retrieval feasibility. The merged SM2RAIN-CDRD-PNPR product shows better results in terms of correlation (R=0.7), accuracy (RMSE=6.6 mm), and rainfall detection capability (POD=0.75, FAR=0.32, TS=0.5 for 1 mm threshold). The study demonstrates that daily rainfall estimate over a complex territory such as Italy can benefit from the exploitation of multiple PMW radiometers, and from the integration of the top-down and bottom-up approaches.
MAPPING LANDSLIDES IN LUNAR IMPACT CRATERS USING CHEBYSHEV POLYNOMIALS AND DEM’S
(a)V. Yordanov, (a) M. Scaioni, (b) M. T. Brunetti, (c) M. T. Melis, A. Zinzi (d,e), P. Giommi (d), 2016, MAPPING LANDSLIDES IN LUNAR IMPACT CRATERS USING CHEBYSHEV POLYNOMIALS AND DEM’S,
XXIII ISPRS Congress, pp. 17–24, Praga, Repubblica Ceca, 12-19 luglio 2016,
Abstract
Geological slope failure processes have been observed on the Moon surface for decades, nevertheless a ...
Geological slope failure processes have been observed on the Moon surface for decades, nevertheless a detailed and exhaustive lunar landslide inventory has not been produced yet. For a preliminary survey, WAC images and DEM maps from LROC at 100 m/pixels have been exploited in combination with the criteria applied by Brunetti et al. (2015) to detect the landslides. These criteria are based on the visual analysis of optical images to recognize mass wasting features. In the literature, Chebyshev polynomials have been applied to interpolate crater cross-sections in order to obtain a parametric characterization useful for classification into different morphological shapes. Here a new implementation of Chebyshev polynomial approximation is proposed, taking into account some statistical testing of the results obtained during Least-squares estimation. The presence of landslides in lunar craters is then investigated by analyzing the absolute values off odd coefficients of estimated Chebyshev polynomials. A case study on the Cassini A crater has demonstrated the key-points of the proposed methodology and outlined the required future development to carry out.
THE ‘MOON MAPPING’ PROJECT TO PROMOTE COOPERATION BETWEEN STUDENTS OF ITALY AND CHINA
M. Scaioni (a), P. Giommi (b), M.T. Brunetti (c), C. Carli (d), P. Cerroni (d), G. Cremonese (e), G. Forlani (f), P. Gamba (g), M. Lavagna (h),
M.T. Melis (i), M. Massironi (j), G. Ori (k), F. Salese (k), A. Zinzi (b,l), G. Xie (m), Z. Kang (n), R. Shi (o), Y. Sun (p), Y. Wu (q), 2016, THE ‘MOON MAPPING’ PROJECT TO PROMOTE COOPERATION BETWEEN STUDENTS OF ITALY AND CHINA,
XXIII ISPRS Congress, pp. 71–78, Praga, Repubblica Ceca, 12-19 luglio 2016,
Abstract
The research project 'Moon Mapping' has been established in 2014 between the Italian and Chinese ...
The research project 'Moon Mapping' has been established in 2014 between the Italian and Chinese Governments to promote cooperation and exchange between undergraduate students from both countries. The operational phase of the project started in early 2015, and will end in 2017, for a total length of three years. The main aim is to train new scholars to be able to work on different kinds of remotely-sensed data collected over the Moon surface by the Chinese space missions Chang'E-1/2. The project coordination has been assigned to the Italian Space Agency for the Italian side and to the Center of Space Exploration, China Ministry of Education, for the Chinese side. Several Chinese universities and Italian national research institutes and universities have been officially involved in this project. Six main research topics have been identified_ (1) map of the solar wind ion; (2) geomorphological map of the Moon; (3) data preprocessing of Chang'E-1 mission; (4) map of element distribution; (5) establishment of 3D digital visualization system; and (6) compilation and publication of a tutorial on joint lunar mapping.
Landslide Risk to the Population of Italy and its Geographical and Temporal Variations
Paola Salvati, Mauro Rossi, Cinzia Bianchi, Fausto Guzzetti, 2016, Landslide Risk to the Population of Italy and its Geographical and Temporal Variations,
Extreme Events_ Observations, Modeling, and Economics, edited by Mario Chavez (Editor), Michael Ghil (Editor), Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi (Editor), pp. 177–194. Hoboken_ John Wiley & Sons Inc., 2016,
Abstract
Landslides cause damage to the population in Italy every year. Using an updated version of ...
Landslides cause damage to the population in Italy every year. Using an updated version of a historical catalogue of landslide events with human consequences we employed a new approach to investigate landslide risk to the population it Italy over time. We studied the temporal and geographical variation of risk on the basis of two classifications of the Italian territory. We used (i) the five zones based on the average terrain elevation and the distance to the seacoast of the Italian municipalities, and (ii) the topographic areas based on a semi-quantitative, stepwise approach of derivatives of altitude. We estimated individual landslide risk levels in the five zones for the north, centre, and south of Italy and for three different periods between 1861 and 2010. To determine new societal landslide risk levels, we established the probability of experiencing severe landslide events in the eight topographic areas by modelling the empirical distributions of events with a Zipf distribution. The catalogue used covers the period 91BC-2011; the number of events in the catalogue increased with time. The reduced number of events in the early part of the catalogue is attributed to incompleteness, a known bias in non-instrumental records of natural events. To overcome problems of incompleteness in carrying out the risk analysis, we used the recent portion of the catalogue between 1861 and 2010. We believe that the quantification of the risk posed by landslides to the population is an important step for increasing awareness of the problem among Italian administrators and citizens.
Communication strategies to address geohydrological risks_ the POLARIS web initiative in Italy
Paola Salvati, Umberto Pernice, Cinzia Bianchi, Ivan Marchesini, Federica Fiorucci, and Fausto Guzzetti, 2016, Communication strategies to address geohydrological risks_ the POLARIS web initiative in Italy,
Natural hazards and earth system sciences (Print) 16 (2016): 1487–1497. doi_10.5194/nhess-16-1487-2016,
DOI: 10.5194%2Fnhess-16-1487-2016
Abstract
Floods and landslides are common phenomena that cause serious damage and pose a severe threat ...
Floods and landslides are common phenomena that cause serious damage and pose a severe threat to the population of Italy. The social and economic impact of floods and landslides in Italy is severe, and strategies to target the mitigation of the effects of these phenomena are needed. In the last few years, the scientific community has started to use web technology to communicate information on geohydrological hazards and the associated risks. However, the communication is often targeted at technical experts. In the attempt to communicate relevant information on geohydrological hazards with potential human consequences to a broader audience, we designed the POpoLazione A RISchio (POLARIS) website. POLARIS publishes accurate information on geohydrological risk to the population of Italy, including periodic reports on landslide and flood risk, analyses of specific damaging events and blog posts on landslide and flood events. By monitoring the access to POLARIS in the 21-month period between January 2014 and October 2015, we found that access increased during particularly damaging geohydrological events and immediately after the website was advertised by press releases. POLARIS demonstrates that the scientific community can implement suitable communication strategies that address different societal audiences, exploiting the role of mass media and social media. The strategies can help multiple audiences understand how risks can be reduced through appropriate measures and behaviours, contributing to increasing the resilience of the population to geohydrological risk.
Landslide distribution and size in response to Quaternary fault activity_ The Peloritani Range, NE Sicily, Italy
Bucci F.; Santangelo M.; Cardinali M.; Fiorucci F.; Guzzetti F., 2016, Landslide distribution and size in response to Quaternary fault activity_ The Peloritani Range, NE Sicily, Italy,
Earth surface processes and landforms (Online) (2016). doi_10.1002/esp.3898,
DOI: 10.1002%2Fesp.3898
Abstract
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Chemical weathering and consumption of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the Alpine region
Marco Donnini (a,d), Francesco Frondini (a), Jean-Luc Probst (b,c), Anne Probst (b,c), Carlo Cardellini (a), Ivan Marchesini (d), Fausto Guzzetti (d), 2016, Chemical weathering and consumption of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the Alpine region,
Global and planetary change (Print) 136 (2016): 65–81. doi_10.1016/j.gloplacha.2015.10.017,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.gloplacha.2015.10.017
Abstract
To determine the CO2 consumption due to chemical weathering in the Alps, water samples from ...
To determine the CO2 consumption due to chemical weathering in the Alps, water samples from the 32 main Alpine rivers were collected and analysed in two periods, spring 2011 and winter 2011/2012. Most of the river waters are characterized by a bicarbonate earth-alkaline composition with some samples showing a clear enrich- ment in sulphates and other samples showing a slight enrichment in alkaline metals. The amount of total dissolved solids (TDS) ranges between 96 and 551 mg/L. Considering the major ion composition and the Sr isotopic composition of water samples, coherently with the geological setting of the study area, three major reservoirs of dissolved load have been recognized_ carbonates, evaporites and silicates. Based on a chemical mass balance, the flux of dissolved solids, and the flux of carbon dioxide consumed by chemical weathering have been computed for each basin and for the entire study area. Results show that the flux of dissolved solids, ranges from 8 × 103 to 411 × 103 kg km-2 y-1, with an average value of 127 × 103 kg km-2 y-1, while the flux of carbon dioxide consumed by chemical weathering in the short-term (b 1 Ma) is 5.03 × 105 mol km- 2 y- 1 1 on average. Since part of the CO2 is returned to the atmosphere through carbonate precipitation and reverse weathering once river water reaches the ocean, the CO2 removed from the atmosphere/soil system in the long-term (N 1 Ma) is much smaller than the CO2 consumed in the short-term and according to our calculations amounts to 2.01 × 104 mol km- 2 y- 1 on average. This value is almost certainly a minimum estimate of the total amount of CO2 fixed by weathering on the long-term because in our calculations we assumed that all the alkaline metals deriving from rock weathering in the continents are rapidly involved in the process of reverse weathering in the oceans, while there are still large uncertainties on the magnitude and significance of this process. The values of CO2 flux consumed by weathering are strongly correlated with runoff while other potential controlling factors show only weak correlations or no correlation. Our estimation of the CO2 consumed by weathering in the Alpine basins is in the same order of magnitude, but higher than the world average and is consistent with previ- ous estimations made in river basins with similar climatic conditions and similar latitudes.
Rainfall thresholds for the possible landslide occurrence in Sicily (Southern Italy) based on the automatic reconstruction of rainfall events
Massimo Melillo (1), Maria Teresa Brunetti (1), Silvia Peruccacci (1), Stefano Luigi Gariano (1,2), Fausto Guzzetti (1), 2016, Rainfall thresholds for the possible landslide occurrence in Sicily (Southern Italy) based on the automatic reconstruction of rainfall events,
Landslides (Berl., Internet) 13 (2016): 165–172. doi_10.1007/s10346-015-0630-1,
DOI: 10.1007%2Fs10346-015-0630-1
Abstract
Review of the literature on the reconstruction of the rainfall responsible for slope failures reveals ...
Review of the literature on the reconstruction of the rainfall responsible for slope failures reveals that criteria for the identification of rainfall events are lacking or somewhat subjective.
To overcome this problem, we developed an algorithm for the objective and reproducible reconstruction of rainfall events and of rainfall conditions responsible for landslides. The algorithm consists of three distinct modules for (i) the reconstruction of distinct rainfall events, in terms of duration (D, in h) and cumulated event rainfall (E, in mm), (ii) the identification of multiple ED rainfall conditions responsible for the documented landslides, and (iii) the definition of critical rainfall thresholds for possible landslide occurrences. The algorithm uses pre-defined parameters to account for different seasonal and climatic settings. We applied the algorithm in Sicily, southern Italy, using rainfall measurements obtained from a network of 169 rain gauges, and information on 229 rainfall-induced landslides occurred between July 2002 and December 2012. The algorithm identified 29,270 rainfall events and reconstructed 472 ED rainfall conditions as possible triggers of the observed landslides. The algorithm exploited the multiple rainfall conditions to define objective and reproducible empirical rainfall thresholds for the possible initiation of landslide in Sicily. The calculated thresholds may be implemented in an operational early warning system for shallow
landslide forecasting.
Multiyear monitoring of soil moisture over Iran through satellite and reanalysis soil moisture products
Abdolaziz Rahmani a, Saeed Golian b, Luca Brocca c, 2016, Multiyear monitoring of soil moisture over Iran through satellite and reanalysis soil moisture products,
International journal of applied earth observation and geoinformation (2016): in press. doi_10.1016/j.jag.2015.06.009,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.jag.2015.06.009
Abstract
Soil moisture (SM) plays a fundamental role for many hydrological applications including water resources, drought ...
Soil moisture (SM) plays a fundamental role for many hydrological applications including water resources, drought analysis, agriculture, and climate variability and extremes. SM is not measured in most parts of Iran and limited measurements do not meet sufficient temporal and spatial resolution. Hence, due to ease of operation, their global coverage and demonstrated accuracy, use of remote sensing SM products is almost the only way for deriving SM information in Iran. In the present research, surface SM (SSM) datasets at six subregions of Iran with different climate conditions were extracted from two satellite-based passive (SMOSL3) and active + passive (ESA CCI SM) microwave observations, and two reanalysis (ERA-Interim and ERA-Interim/Land) products. Time series of averaged monthly mean SSM products and in situ ground precipitation and temperature measurements were derived for each subregion. Results revealed that, generally, all SSM products were in good agreement with each other with correlation coefficients higher than 0.5. The better agreement was found in the Northeast and Southwest region with average correlation values equal to 0.88 and 0.91, respectively. It should be noted that the SSM datasets are characterized by different periods and lengths. Hence, results should be assessed with cautious. Moreover, most SSM products have strong correlations with maximum, minimum and average temperature as well as with total monthly precipitation. Also, trend analysis showed no trend for time series of monthly SSM over all subregions in the two periods 1980-1999 and 2000-2014. The only exceptions were the Southeast subregion for ERA-Interim and Center and Northwest subregions for the ESA CCI SM for which a negative trend was detected for the period 2000-2014. Finally, the Standardized Soil Moisture Index (SSI) calculated from ERA-Interim, ERA-I/Land and ESA CCI SM datasets showed that the Center and Southeast regions suffered from the most severe and longest-lasting drought events in the last decade.
Effects of Large Gullies on Catchment-scale Soil Moisture Spatial Behaviors_ A Case Study on the Loess Plateau of China
Xiaodong Gao1,2, Xining Zhao1,2,*, Pute Wu1,2, Luca Brocca3, Baoqing Zhang4, 2016, Effects of Large Gullies on Catchment-scale Soil Moisture Spatial Behaviors_ A Case Study on the Loess Plateau of China,
Geoderma (Amst.) 261 (2016): 1–10. doi_10.1016/j.geoderma.2015.07.001,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.geoderma.2015.07.001
Abstract
Large gullies which occur globally affect greatly ecohydrological processes in gullied landscape. However, the effects ...
Large gullies which occur globally affect greatly ecohydrological processes in gullied landscape. However, the effects of large gullies on spatial behaviors of soil moisture, a critical ecohydrological variable, at catchment scale are poorly understood. To this end, we conducted spatially intensive soil moisture measurements in the 0-60 cm during the spring, summer and fall of 2010 in the Yuanzegou catchment on the Loess Plateau of China. Statistical and geostatistical analyses showed that the presence of gullies clearly increased the spatial variability in terms of standard deviation (by 26.4% on average), nugget (by several folds) and sill (by 41.3% on average), but had weak effects on spatial means. Particularly, the large gullies also markedly strengthened soil moisture spatial correlations. Slope aspect was shown to be a stronger topographic control than elevation and gradient on soilmoisture spatial variabilitywhether or not gully observationswere included. The role of elevation in soil moisture variability depended on the presence of gullies. As gully observations were included, significant (P < 0.01) and stronger correlations were observed in summer; however, as gully observations were excluded, stronger correlations were found in spring and fall. The presence of gullies increased the required number of samples (N) by 33 to 100% to accurately represent spatial means. A random combination method showed that the effects of sample counts on soil moisture spatial variability were more dependent on gully observations and showed clear seasonality compared with spatial means. This means that both spatial means and spatial variability should be considered for optimizing sampling strategy for gullied topography.
Climate anomalies associated to the occurrence of rockfalls at high-elevation in the Italian Alps
Paranunzio R., Laio F., Chiarle M., Nigrelli G., Guzzetti F., 2016, Climate anomalies associated to the occurrence of rockfalls at high-elevation in the Italian Alps,
Natural hazards and earth system sciences (Online) 16 (2016): 2085–2106. doi_10.5194/nhess-16-2085-2016,
DOI: 10.5194%2Fnhess-16-2085-2016
Abstract
Climate change is seriously affecting the cryosphere, in terms, for example of permafrost thaw, alteration ...
Climate change is seriously affecting the cryosphere, in terms, for example of permafrost thaw, alteration of rain/snow ratio, glacier shrinkage. There is concern about the increasing number of rockfalls at high elevation in the last decades. Nevertheless, the impact of climate variables on slope instability at high elevation has not been fully explored yet. In this paper, we investigate 41 rockfalls occurred at high elevation in the Italian Alps between 1997 and 2013 in the absence of an evident trigger. We apply and improve an existing data-based, statistical approach to detect the anomalies of climate parameters (temperature and precipitation) associated to rockfall occurrences. The identified climate anomalies have been related to the spatio-temporal distribution of the events. Rockfalls occurred in association with temperature anomalies in 83 % of our case studies. Temperature represents a key factor contributing to slope failure occurrence in different ways. As expected, warmer temperatures accelerate snowmelt and permafrost thaw; however, surprisingly, negative anomalies are also often associated to slope failures. Interestingly, different regional patterns emerge from the data_ higher-than-average temperatures are often associated to rockfalls in the Western Alps, while in the Eastern Alps slope failures are mainly associated to colder-than-average temperatures. The results of this study represent a first step towards the identification of the possible role of climate change in the triggering of slope failures in a mountain environment.
Serial and parallel versions of the Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS)
M. Alvioli(1), R.L. Baum(2), 2016, Serial and parallel versions of the Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS),
2016,
Abstract
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed ...
The Transient Rainfall Infiltration and Grid-Based Regional Slope-Stability Model (TRIGRS) is a Fortran program designed for modeling the timing and distribution of shallow, rainfall-induced landslides. The program computes transient pore-pressure changes, and attendant changes in the factor of safety, due to rainfall infiltration. The program models rainfall infiltration, resulting from storms that have durations ranging from hours to a few days, using analytical solutions for partial differential equations that represent one-dimensional, vertical flow in isotropic, homogeneous materials for either saturated or unsaturated conditions. This command-line program is used in conjunction with geographic information system (GIS) software to prepare input grids and visualize model results.
This release, 2.1.00a, includes bug fixes, new output formats, and various optimizations to improve performance of the serial code. These improvements have also been incorporated into a new parallel implementation of the TRIGRS program. We have parallelized the four time-demanding execution modes of TRIGRS, namely both the saturated and unsaturated model with finite and infinite soil depth options, within the Message Passing Interface (MPI) framework. Performance gain with respect to the serial code was tested both on commercial hardware and on a high-performance multi-node machine. We also compared results of the parallel code against results of the serial code for a large study area in Colorado to verify accuracy of the results. Modifications to the code and results of the performance tests are described in an interpretive paper in the journal Environmental Modeling & Software (Alvioli and Baum, 2016).
Monitoring_local_rainfall_threshold
Ivan Marchesini, Mauro Rossi, Silvia Peruccacci, Massimo Melillo, 2015, Monitoring_local_rainfall_threshold,
2015,
Abstract
Descrizione: Il codice sviluppato intregra_
- un modulo di acquisizione e lo storage di ...
Descrizione: Il codice sviluppato intregra_
- un modulo di acquisizione e lo storage di dati pluviometrici, da singoli pluviometri, a alta risoluzione temporale
- un modulo per l'analisi dei dati in relazione alle soglie di innesco di frane pluvioindotte
- un modulo per la restituzione di bollettini periodici e di messaggi di allerta al superamento di determinate soglie di pioggia cumulata.
Il software è stato sviluppato e applicato nell'ambito di una convenzione tra il Commissario delegato per fronteggiare l'emergenza idrica nella Città di Messina e l'Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica (CNR IRPI). Il software è stato sviluppato integrando librerie Open Source in ambiente GNU-Linux
Potenziamento sistemistico del sistema d’allertamento nazionale per la possibile occorrenza di fenomeni franosi indotti da piogge (SANF) e Disegno e implementazione di sistemi di allertamento per la previsione di fenomeni franosi a scala regionale (SARF)
Mauro Rossi
Ivan Marchesini, 2015, Potenziamento sistemistico del sistema d’allertamento nazionale per la possibile occorrenza di fenomeni franosi indotti da piogge (SANF) e Disegno e implementazione di sistemi di allertamento per la previsione di fenomeni franosi a scala regionale (SARF),
Versione 1.0 31 dicembre 2015, 2015,
Abstract
Il documento illustra le attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito dell'Accordo di
Collaborazione (AC) tra ...
Il documento illustra le attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito dell'Accordo di
Collaborazione (AC) tra il Dipartimento della Protezione Civile (DPC) e il Centro di
Competenza dell'Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica (CC IRPI), del
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) [DA-008]. Le attività previste dal presente AC
si inquadrano nell'ambito dell'Accordo di Programma Quadro firmato dal Capo del
Dipartimento della Protezione Civile della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, e dal
Presidente del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [DA-002].
Le attività oggetto del presente AC riguardano la manutenzione e lo sviluppo del Sistema
di Allertamento Nazionale per la previsione del possibile innesco di fenomeni Franosi
indotti da piogge (SANF). In particolare le attività descritte nel presente rapporto hanno
riguardato il potenziamento sistemistico di SANF e il disegno e implementazione di
sistemi di allertamento per la previsione di fenomeni franosi a scala regionale.
Il documento è suddiviso in 5 capitoli. Il Capitolo 1 contiene un'introduzione ai contenuti
del documento. Nel Capitolo 2 sono è descritto il potenziamento sistemistico e la struttura
del nuovo sistema SANF. Il Capitolo 3 descrive le specifiche modifiche per l'esportazione
del sistema a scala regionale. Il Capitolo 4 riporta le attività di modifica a livello di sistema
utili in sede di validazione delle previsioni SAN. Il Capitolo 5 contiene l'elenco della
bibliografia di riferimento.
LAMPRE – D.7 .2. HANDBOOK FOR SW INSTALLATION AND RUNNING
Ivan Marchesini, Mauro Rossi, B.D.Malamud, 2015, LAMPRE – D.7 .2. HANDBOOK FOR SW INSTALLATION AND RUNNING,
2015,
Abstract
This report is the Deliverable 7.2 of the LAMPRE project "Handbook for the installation and ...
This report is the Deliverable 7.2 of the LAMPRE project "Handbook for the installation and running of SW tools for regional susceptibility modelling and the determination of the statistic of landslide size".
The software, their logical scheme, the interfaces and the relative input and outputs are described in this report. The document contains a user guide describing how to install and use the two software and gives specifications on the operational software modes.
The prototype software for determination of landslide statistics from inventory maps (LStats) was designed and developed in the Task 5.3 in the framework of LAMPRE project, while that for the regional landslide susceptibility modelling and zonation in Task 6.2.
The first software is described in the sections from 1 to 4, the second from section 5 to 8. Sections 1, 2 and 5 introduce the software, while section 4 and 8 contain specific information on the installation and running procedures.
Modelli di valutazione dell’esposizione e del danno idrologico
Simone Sterlacchini, Marco Zazzeri, Paola Salvati, Ivan Marchesini, Mauro Rossi, Marco Donnini, 2015, Modelli di valutazione dell’esposizione e del danno idrologico,
RII.I, 2015,
Abstract
Le attività scientifiche relative al II anno del progetto GENERALI intendono incrementare, partendo dalle
mappe della ...
Le attività scientifiche relative al II anno del progetto GENERALI intendono incrementare, partendo dalle
mappe della pericolosità (recanti le informazioni relative ai tiranti idrici e ai tempi di ritorno degli eventi
attesi), il livello informativo contenuto negli scenari di rischiodi alluvione. Questo avvieneesplicitando non
solo l'esposizione (in termini di numero e valore degli edifici a uso residenziale e industriale) ma anche una
quantificazione del danno diretto atteso in termini di costo di costruzione/ricostruzione considerando solo
le abitazioni ad uso civile.
CC-DPC – PROCEDURA PER LA GENERAZIONE DI UN BOLLETTINO DI MONITORAGGIO PLUVIOMETRICO PER LA POSSIBILE OCCORRENZA DI FENOMENI FRANOSI INDOTTI DA PIOGGE
Dott. Ivan Marchesini
Dott. Mauro Rossi
Ing. Silvia Peruccacci
Dott.ssa Maria Teresa Brunetti, 2015, CC-DPC – PROCEDURA PER LA GENERAZIONE DI UN BOLLETTINO DI MONITORAGGIO PLUVIOMETRICO PER LA POSSIBILE OCCORRENZA DI FENOMENI FRANOSI INDOTTI DA PIOGGE,
2015,
Abstract
Il documento illustra le attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito dell'Accordo di
Collaborazione (AC) tra ...
Il documento illustra le attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito dell'Accordo di
Collaborazione (AC) tra il Dipartimento della Protezione Civile (DPC) e il Centro di
Competenza dell'Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica (CC IRPI), del
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) [DA-008]. Le attività previste dal presente AC
si inquadrano nell'ambito dell'Accordo di Programma Quadro firmato dal Capo del
Dipartimento della Protezione Civile della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, e dal
Presidente del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [DA-002].
Le attività oggetto del presente AC riguardano la manutenzione e lo sviluppo del
Sistema di Allertamento Nazionale per la previsione del possibile innesco di fenomeni
Franosi indotti da piogge (SANF). In particolare le attività descritte nel presente rapporto
riguardano la progettazione di un sistema per la generazione di un bollettino per il
possibile innesco di fenomeni franosi indotti da piogge.
Il documento è suddiviso in due capitoli. Il Capitolo 1 descrive le procedure per la
generazione in automatico di bollettini di monitoraggio pluviometrico per la previsione
della possibile occorrenza di fenomeni franosi indotti da piogge. Il Capitolo 2 contiene
l'elenco della bibliografia di riferimento.
CC-DPC – POTENZIAMENTO OPERATIVO DEL SISTEMA D’ALLERTAMENTO NAZIONALE PER LA POSSIBILE OCCORRENZA DI FENOMENI FRANOSI INDOTTI DA PIOGGE SANF
Dott. Ivan Marchesini
Dott. Mauro Rossi, 2015, CC-DPC – POTENZIAMENTO OPERATIVO DEL SISTEMA D’ALLERTAMENTO NAZIONALE PER LA POSSIBILE OCCORRENZA DI FENOMENI FRANOSI INDOTTI DA PIOGGE SANF,
2015,
Abstract
Il documento illustra alcune delle attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito
dell'Accordo di Collaborazione (AC) ...
Il documento illustra alcune delle attività realizzate nel corso del 2015 nell'ambito
dell'Accordo di Collaborazione (AC) tra il Dipartimento della Protezione Civile (DPC) e il
Centro di Competenza dell'Istituto di Ricerca per la Protezione Idrogeologica (CC IRPI),
del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) [DA-008]. Le attività previste dal presente
AC si inquadrano nell'ambito dell'Accordo di Programma Quadro firmato dal Capo del
Dipartimento della Protezione Civile della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, e dal
Presidente del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche [DA-002].
Le attività oggetto del presente AC riguardano la manutenzione e lo sviluppo del
Sistema di Allertamento Nazionale per la previsione del possibile innesco di fenomeni
Franosi indotti da piogge (SANF). In particolare le attività descritte nel presente rapporto
riguardano il potenziamento operativo del sistema.
Il documento descrive la nuova dashboard di SANF e in particolare le due interfacce di
monitoraggio e di catalogo.
Modeling Morpho-Structural Settings Exploiting Bedding Data Obtained Through the Interpretation of Stereoscopic Aerial Photographs
Marchesini, Ivan; Santangelo, Michele; Guzzetti, Fausto; Cardinali, Mauro; Bucci, Francesco, 2015, Modeling Morpho-Structural Settings Exploiting Bedding Data Obtained Through the Interpretation of Stereoscopic Aerial Photographs,
5th International Symposium on Geotechnical Safety and Risk, pp. 797–802, Rotterdam, 13/10/2015 - 16/10/2015,
Abstract
Landslide abundance is controlled by multiple factors, including the presence and attitude of beddings, foliation, ...
Landslide abundance is controlled by multiple factors, including the presence and attitude of beddings, foliation, faults, joints and cleavage systems. Few attempts were made to exploit bedding attitude (BA) data (or data on similar types of rock discontinuities) in statistical or physically based models for regional slope stability analysis. A reason for the lack of applications lays in the complexity of the bedding data, and in the difficulty in the treatment and modelling of circular information. Typically, BA data are collected as point data through field surveys, and suffer from heterogeneity in their spatial distribution. The latter problem is particularly important due to the limited possibility to collect BA data in areas of difficult access. An additional problem lays in the spatial interpolation of the BA data, which are directional data that cannot be interpolated using standard approaches. We build on previous work where we proposed an approach to obtain BA data from bedding traces (BT) i.e., linear signatures of layered rocks on the topographic surface, obtained through the visual interpretation of aerial photographs, and to interpolate the BA data to construct maps showing the geometrical relationship between BA data and slope geometry i.e., maps showing cataclinal, orthoclinal, and anaclinal slopes. In this work, we consider the uncertainties in the definition of the BAs that are used in the production of morpho-structural domain maps, and we investigate the relationships between the morpho-structural domains and landslide abundance in a study area in Umbria, Italy.
Physically-based landslide susceptibility modelling_ geotechnical testing and model evaluation issues
Marchesini, Ivan and Mergili, Martin and Schneider-Muntau, Barbara and Alvioli, Massimiliano and Rossi, Mauro and Guzzetti, Fausto, 2015, Physically-based landslide susceptibility modelling_ geotechnical testing and model evaluation issues,
EGU General Assembly 2015, Vienna, 12/04/2015-17/04/2015,
Abstract
We used the software r.slope.stability for physically-based landslide susceptibility modelling in the 90 km2 Collazzone ...
We used the software r.slope.stability for physically-based landslide susceptibility modelling in the 90 km2 Collazzone area, Central Italy, exploiting a comprehensive set of lithological, geotechnical, and landslide inventory data.
The model results were evaluated against the inventory.
r.slope.stability is a GIS-supported tool for modelling shallow and deep-seated slope stability and slope failure probability at comparatively broad scales. Developed as a raster module of the GRASS GIS software,
r.slope.stability evaluates the slope stability for a large number of randomly selected ellipsoidal potential sliding surfaces. The bottom of the soil (for shallow slope stability) or the bedding planes of lithological layers (for
deep-seated slope stability) are taken as potential sliding surfaces by truncating the ellipsoids, allowing for the
analysis of relatively complex geological structures. To take account for the uncertain geotechnical and geometric parameters, r.slope.stability computes the slope failure probability by testing multiple parameter combinations
sampled deterministically or stochastically, and evaluating the ratio between the number of parameter combinations yielding a factor of safety below 1 and the total number of tested combinations. Any single raster cell may be
intersected by multiple sliding surfaces, each associated with a slope failure probability. The most critical sliding
surface is relevant for each pixel.
Intensive use of r.slope.stability in the Collazzone Area has opened up two questions elaborated in the present
work_
(i) To what extent does a larger number of geotechnical tests help to better constrain the geotechnical characteristics of the study area and, consequently, to improve the model results? The ranges of values of cohesion and angle
of internal friction obtained through 13 direct shear tests corresponds remarkably well to the range of values suggested by a geotechnical textbook. We elaborate how far an increased number of tests may help to further improve
the geotechnical parameterization of the model and, consequently, how much effort and resources should be put
into geotechnical sampling and testing for physically-based landslide susceptibility modelling.
(ii) What is the spatial unit most suitable to discretize landslide susceptibility maps? Whilst the GIS pixel is
the most commonly used level of discretization, slope units represent a valid alternative. Tests have shown that
the area under the ROC curve increases significantly when evaluating the slope failure probabilities yielded with
r.slope.stability at the level of slope units instead of pixels. At the level of slope units, the physically-based model
r.slope.stability outperforms statistical models applied to the Collazzone Area. However, there is good reason to
discuss the validity and the usefulness of different levels of discretization.
High-school software development project helps increasing students’ awareness of geo-hydrological hazards and their risks
Marchesini, Ivan and Rossi, Mauro and Balducci, Vinicio and Salvati, Paola and Guzzetti, Fausto and Bianchini, Andrea and Grzeleswki, Emanuell and Canonico, Andrea and Coccia, Rita and Fiorucci, Gianni Mario and others, 2015, High-school software development project helps increasing students’ awareness of geo-hydrological hazards and their risks,
EGU General Assembly 2015, Vienna, 12/04/2015-17/04/2015,
Abstract
In Italy, inundation and landslides are widespread phenomena that impact the population and cause significant ...
In Italy, inundation and landslides are widespread phenomena that impact the population and cause significant economic damage to private and public properties. The perception of the risk posed by these natural geo-hydrological
hazards varies geographically and in time. The variation in the perception of the risks has negative consequences
on risk management, and limits the adoption of effective risk reduction strategies. We maintain that targeted education can foster the understanding of geo-hydrological hazards, improving their perception and the awareness
of the associated risk. Collaboration of a research center experienced in geo-hydrological hazards and risks (CNR
IRPI, Perugia) and a high school (ITIS Alessandro Volta, Perugia) has resulted in the design and execution of a
project aimed at improving the perception of geo-hydrological risks in high school students and teachers through
software development. In the two-year project, students, high school teachers and research scientists have jointly
developed software broadly related to landslide and flood hazards. User requirements and system specifications
were decided to facilitate the distribution and use of the software among students and their peers. This allowed a
wider distribution of the project results. We discuss two prototype software developed by the high school students,
including an application of augmented reality for improved dissemination of information of landslides and floods
with human consequences in Italy, and a crowd science application to allow students (and others, including their
families and friends) to collect information on landslide and flood occurrence exploiting modern mobile devices.
This information can prove important e.g., for the validation of landslide forecasting models
Impact of landslides along road network and direct cost estimation_ two case studies in Central and Southern Italy
Donnini M., Salvati P., Napolitano E., Ardizzone F., Bucci F., Cardinali M., Fiorucci F., Santangelo M., Guzzetti F., 2015, Impact of landslides along road network and direct cost estimation_ two case studies in Central and Southern Italy,
Fourth Italian workshop on landslides, Napoli (Italy), 23-25/10/2015,
The role of the uncertainty in assessing future scenarios of water shortage in alluvial aquifers
Romano, Emanuele; Camici, Stefania; Brocca, Luca; Moramarco, Tommaso; Guyennon, Nicolas; Preziosi, Elisabetta, 2015, The role of the uncertainty in assessing future scenarios of water shortage in alluvial aquifers,
Geophysical Research Abstract 17, EGU2015-5718 (2015).,
Abstract
There are many evidences that the combined effects of variations in precipitation and temperature due ...
There are many evidences that the combined effects of variations in precipitation and temperature due to climate change can result in a significant change of the recharge to groundwater at different time scales. A possible reduction of effective infiltration can result in a significant decrease, temporary or permanent, of the availability of the resource and, consequently, the sustainable pumping rate should be reassessed. In addition to this, one should also consider the so called indirect impacts of climate change, resulting from human intervention (e.g. augmentation of abstractions) which are feared to be even more important than the direct ones in the medium term_ thus, a possible increase of episodes of shortage (i.e. the inability of the groundwater system to completely supply the water demand) can result both from change in the climate forcing and change in the demand. In order to assess future scenarios of water shortage a modelling chain is often used. It includes_ 1) the use of General Circulation Models to estimate changes in temperature and precipitation; 2) downscaling procedures to match modeling scenarios to the observed meteorological time series; 3) soil-atmosphere modelling to estimate the time variation of the recharge to the aquifer; 4) groundwater flow models to simulate the water budget and piezometric head evolution; 5) future scenarios of groundwater quantitative status that include scenarios of demand variation. It is well known that each of these processing steps is affected by an intrinsic uncertainty that propagates through the whole chain leading to a final uncertainty on the piezometric head scenarios. The estimate of such an uncertainty is a key point for a correct management of groundwater resources, in case of water shortage due to prolonged droughts as well as for planning purposes. This study analyzes the uncertainty of the processing chain from GCM scenarios to its impact on an alluvial aquifer in terms of exploitation sustainability. To this goal, three GCMs (ECHAM5, PCM and CCSM3) and two downscaling methods (Linear Rescaling and Quantile Mapping) are used to generate future scenarios of precipitation and temperature; the Thornthwaite-Mather soil water balance model is used to estimate the recharge to the aquifer; the evolution in time of the piezometric heads is estimated through a numerical model developed using the MODFLOW2005 code. Finally, different scenarios of water demand are applied. Final results show that the uncertainty due to the groundwater flow model calibration/validation in steady-state conditions is comparable to that arising from the whole processing chain from the GCM choice to the effective infiltration estimates. Simulations in transient conditions show the high impact of the uncertainty related to the calibration of the storage coefficient, that significantly drives the resilience of the system, thus the ability of the aquifer to sustain the demand during the periods of prolonged drought.
Shape matters in sampling plant diversity_ Evidence from the field
Bacaro G.; Rocchini D.; Diekmann M.; Gasparini P.; Gioria M.; Maccherini S.; Marcantonio M.; Tordoni E.; Amici V.; Landi S.; Torri D.; Castello M.; Altobelli A.; Chiarucci A., 2015, Shape matters in sampling plant diversity_ Evidence from the field,
Ecological complexity (Print) 24 (2015): 37–45. doi_10.1016/j.ecocom.2015.09.003,
DOI: 10.1016%2Fj.ecocom.2015.09.003
Abstract
The identification of shape and size of sampling units that maximises the number of plant ...
The identification of shape and size of sampling units that maximises the number of plant species recorded in multiscale sampling designs has major implications in conservation planning and monitoring actions. In this paper we tested the effect of three sampling shapes (rectangles, squared, and randomly shaped sampling units) on the number of recorded species. We used a large dataset derived from the network of protected areas in the Siena Province, Italy. This dataset is composed of plant species occurrence data recorded from 604 plots (10. m. ×. 10 m), each divided in a grid of 16 contiguous subplot units (2.5. m. ×. 2.5. m). Moreover, we evaluated the effect of plot orientation along the main environmental gradient, to examine how the selection of plot orientation (when elongated plots are used) influences the number of species collected. In total, 1041 plant species were recorded from the study plots. A significantly higher species richness was recorded by the random arrangement of 4 subplots within each plot in comparison to the 'rectangle' and 'square' shapes. Although the rectangular shape captured a significant larger number of species than squared ones, plot orientation along the main environmental gradient did not show a systematic effect on the number of recorded species. We concluded that the choice of whether or not using elongated (rectangular) versus squared plots should dependent upon the objectives of the specific survey with squared plots being more suitable for assessing species composition of more homogeneous vegetation units and rectangular plots being more suited for recording more species in the pooled sample of a large area.
Impact of satellite rainfall and soil moisture products on landslides and floods prediction over the Italian territory
Luca Ciabatta(1), Luca Brocca(1), Christian Massari(1), Tommaso Moramarco(1), Giulia Fanelli(2), Diana Salciarini(2), Claudio Tamagnini(2), Giulia Panegrossi(3), Anna Cinzia Marra(3), Daniele Casella(3), Paolo Sanò(3), Stefano Dietrich(3), Simone Gabellani(4), Silvia Puca(5), Wolfgang Wagner(6), 2015, Impact of satellite rainfall and soil moisture products on landslides and floods prediction over the Italian territory,
Earth Observation for Water Cycle Science 2015, ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, 20-23/10/2015,
Abstract
The ever increasing availability and accuracy of satellite rainfall and soil moisture products is opening ...
The ever increasing availability and accuracy of satellite rainfall and soil moisture products is opening new perspectives in the hydrology and civil protection fields, providing new valuable sources of information for flood and landslide prediction. Despite the abundance of this kind of data, the use of satellite products for such purposes in well gauged regions is still very scarce, most likely due to measurement (bias, accuracy) and resolution issues (both spatial and temporal). Satellite rainfall and soil moisture products have been employed for flood and landslide prediction throughout the Italian territory. For an assessment of performances obtained by satellite products, hydrometeorological ground observations of rainfall, temperature and discharge derived from the monitoring network of the Italian Civil Protection Department (period 2010 - 2014) are used. The satellite rainfall products here considered are_ 1) the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission (TRMM) Multi - satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) 3B42 - RT product, 2) the H05 product from the H - SAF project, and 3) an experimental daily satellite rainfall product obtained by merging instantaneous rainfall rate estimates from cross - track and conical scanning microwave radiometers. Additionally, the satellite soil moisture products provided by the Advanced SCATterometer (ASCAT) and the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission are used. In this work, on one hand, satellite rainfall observations are used to drive a continuous rainfall - runoff model (MISDc, Brocca et al., 2011). On the other hand, satellite soil moisture data are used to define the initial conditions for a physically - based slope stability model (TRIGRS, Baum et al., 2008), applied in the Umbria region (central Italy), allowing the estimation of the landslide susceptibility over the territory. The modelled landslide susceptibility, obtained with ground and satellite observations, has been compared with a landslide inventory available in the study area. For the investigated period, MISDc model has been used for flood simulation over different basins in Italy (e.g., Brenta, Tanaro, Tevere, Volturno, ...). For landslide susceptibility evaluation, TRIGRS model has been initialized in two different ways. The first considers modelled soil moisture data computed by a Soil Water Balance model forced with in situ meteorological observations (rainfall and air temperature). The second uses satellite soil moisture products in place of modelled data. The analysis has encompassed some significant storm events occurred in the recent years. As far as the floods prediction is concerned, results highlighted that both bias correction and model recalibration are preliminary steps to be carried out for using properly satellite rainfall data. After performing these steps, satellite rainfall data have allowed to achieve results comparable with those obtained by forcing MISDc model with observed data, confirming the feasibility of using satellite rainfall estimation in hydrological applications. As regards the landslide susceptibility analysis, 102 although spatial and temporal resolution of satellite soil moisture data could be considered too coarse, satisfactory results are obtained as demonstrated from the comparison with the landslide inventory map.
Commons (ESA-SEOM Project) D1.1 Requirement Baseline (RB)
Alessandro Mondini
Angelica Tarpanelli
Mauro Rossi
Claudia Notarnicola
Carlo Manin
Ruth Sonnenshein
Pablo Blanco, 2015, Commons (ESA-SEOM Project) D1.1 Requirement Baseline (RB),
2015,
Abstract
This document represents the Requirements Baseline (RB), output result of WP1000 "Implementation Strategy" ...
This document represents the Requirements Baseline (RB), output result of WP1000 "Implementation Strategy"
Effect of plant diversity on a set of soil characteristics relevant to soil erosion processes_ an example from a biancana badland site (Siena Province, Central Italy)
Giovanni Bacaro (1), Elisa Santi (1), Francesca Vergari (2), Simona Maccherini (3), Mauro Rossi (1), Maurizio
Del Monte (2), and Dino Torri (1), 2015, Effect of plant diversity on a set of soil characteristics relevant to soil erosion processes_ an example from a biancana badland site (Siena Province, Central Italy),
EGU General Assembly 2015, vienna, 10/04/2015,
Abstract
A study on the influence of vegetation (grassland) on the evolution of a set of ...
A study on the influence of vegetation (grassland) on the evolution of a set of soil characteristics was carried out in a protected area (Site of Community Importance, Natura 2000 Network) where there are some residual areas of biancana badlands. This site, named "Crete di Camposodo e Leonina" is located in the Province of Siena, Tuscany, central Italy. Following geomorphological zonation in the badlands, the areas where firstly classified in a series of different classes where erosion is or was active and where sedimentation is or was active. Secondly, for each "erosion class" as determined before, another classification criterion based on the type of vegetation cover was given. Random plots were than sampled on the basis of these classifications until 22 plots where chosen for analyses. In each plot, vegetation was described in a squared sampling unit (40*40cm), and, after description, it was cut, dried and weighted. A functional matrix, based on plant functional traits, was created and Functional Diversity indices, as well as other classic biodiversity metrics (such as Shannon, Simpson, etc) were obtained. On the same sampling area, 4 randomly selected soil carrots (each with a depth of 20cm) were extracted and used for laboratory analysis while undrained soil shear strength at saturation (U4S) was measured using a pocket torvane. Electrical conductivity, pH, and U4S where then compared with several of the vegetation features, including epi- and ipo-gean biomass, vegetation cover and biodiversity indices. Our results clearly identify the relationships which attribute to vegetation (as representative of the ecosystem they shelter) the main role in modifying the soil from bare rock to a well developed surface horizon_ while vegetation changes soil attributes, the changed soil attributes make the niche suitable to other plants, with a modification of the composition of the grassland. Finally, we also demonstrated that plant functional dissimilarity represents one of the most correlated parameter with observed dissimilarity in soil characteristics between areas, indicating that Functional Diversity represents a finer indicator of ecosystem functioning than species richness.
Data from https://intranet.cnr.it/people/
