Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Climate change is a growing issue for developing countries, as they typically lack the technical and financial inputs to implement the necessary agricultural adaptations. These countries also suffer from the classic collective action problem; although they are able to identify the issue and a potential solution, their individual resources are not substantial enough to enact change. This article discusses north Cyprus’ 2006 adoption of pomegranate production and its relationship to climate-related agricultural concerns. We argue that the Turkish Cypriot community would not have been able to start an effective pomegranate agribusiness without third-party financial and technical assistance. As a post-conflict developing community, they lacked the resources necessary to collectivize on their own and initiate crop switching. Thus, Turkish Cypriot farmers needed external resources in order to launch a sustainable development project. The programme was a successful example of sustainable peacebuilding as it required local ownership.

The chapter aims at analyzing whether female entrepreneurs have some distinctive capacities than men in managing business within the Italian wine industry and if these skills are useful for the sustainability of their farms and the whole sector. After the sketch of the women situation in the Italian agriculture and in the wine sector, we have analyzed two case studies located in two wine regions, Tuscany and Sardinia, by having meetings and interviewing two wine women. The two regions are quite different for the general condition of winemaking and for the internationally perceived image. Furthermore, the two informants have different family histories and manage different dimensioned farms. Our findings are that these two female entrepreneurs, even starting from different general conditions, have been able to use their own leading capabilities in the improvement of business and in collective regional and national initiative of wine promotion. Basing economic decisions on formal and/or contextual training, they have introduced innovations in farming, winemaking, and marketing in a specific way. We can say they have been someway slower, less hasty, and even more effective than men in involving collaborators with a charismatic heading and attracting other entrepreneurs in doing business. The role of women in farming has been too long underrated by society and the policymakers, who, on the contrary, should provide more specific attentions to the female capacity to foster the sustainability of their own farms and the wine Italian industry.

The first studies on the possible impact of climate change on European forests and the development of adaptation and mitigation strategies began in the 1990s and resulted in the identification of risk assessment models and forest management tools. The prediction of climate change impacts on forests has been based using or (DS)’s , appropriately spatialised. The implemented evidence lines refer to the concepts of vulnerability and resilience. The results of the DS model, applied to the Basilicata region, were utilised to assess the loss in biomass production capacity and CO absorption ability of different forest-derived biomasses. The loss in stumpage value and in the estimated CO absorption shows a reduction over time of forest system’s economic value that is basically higher in 2050 than in 2100. The applied methodological approach has shown that the high degree of spatial and information detail may be helpful to produce good predictions to envisage environmental policy strategies for the monitoring and mitigation of the damages caused by the climate change, with a view to ensuring the ecosystems’ capacity to produce positive externalities, including air carbon sequestration capacity.

Over the last few years, wildlife damages to the agricultural sector have shown an increasing trend at the global scale. Fragile rural areas are more likely to suffer because marginal lands, which have little potential for profit, are being increasingly abandoned. Moreover, public administrations have difficulties to meet the growing requests for crop damage compensations. There is therefore a need to identify appropriate measures to control this growing trend. The specific aim of this research is to understand this phenomenon and define specific and effective action tools. In particular, the proposed research involves different steps that start from the historic analysis of damages and result in the mapping of risk levels using different tests (ANOVA, PCA and spatial correlation) and spatial models (MCE-OWA). The subsequent possibility to cluster risk results ensures greater effectiveness of public actions. The results obtained and the statistical consistency of applied parameters ensure the strength of the analysis and of cost-effectiveness parameters.

The aim of this work was to assess the socioeconomic impact derived from the oil royalty allocation on regional development, using a multi-sector model based on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM), appropriately implemented for Basilicata region (Italy), the typical case of a region lagging behind in a developed economy. Our focus was on how political decisions have influenced the economic development of the region and how a different set of choices can be more effective in transforming public receipts into long-term benefits. Results show clearly that in the past the allocation of oil royalties to the regional Government (as a whole 990 million euros) generated a much lower impact than expected, in terms of economic growth and employment. Given the structure of the regional economy, much of the impact of investments and running expenses financed by royalties has maybe been lost outside the regional boundaries. A greater effect on income and employment will not be possible unless resources are redirected towards greater competitiveness of the regional economic system. Better balancing the use of royalties between social expenditure and production investments would probably be the first step towards a strategy of sustainable development of the regional economy.

Different local and international experiences show that the agroforestry sector can be fully included in the global warming mitigation strategies and in the market mechanisms that may have environmental and socioeconomic benefits. At present, however, the primary sector plays only a minor role in mitigation policies within the UNFCCC and under Kyoto’s Protocol, due to problems and difficulties related to emission/absorption accounting models and monitoring and standardisation systems. If, on one hand, the progress in science has enabled to overcome accounting-related problems, on the other, there are no adequate mechanisms to encourage and remunerate the primary sector’s efforts. More specifically, if the primary sector is considered as a source of emissions, it should also be recognised that it has beneficial impacts, notably in economic terms, as carbon sink. Therefore, the definition of clear and internationally shared rules might increase the carbon friendly initiatives and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This article is focused on the international experiences that have concerned the primary sector and is intended to supply researchers and policymakers with suggestions and recommendations for implementing local market practices related to carbon credits.

Regional-scale studies on groundwater vulnerability assessment of non-point source agrochemical contamination suffer either from no evaluation of uncertainty in data output, in that of qualitative modelling, or from prohibitively costly computational efforts, in that of deterministic modelling. By contrast, a methodology is presented here which integrates a solute transport model based on transfer function (TF) and a geographic information system (GIS). The methodology (1) is capable of solute concentration estimation at a depth of interest within a known error confidence class, (2) uses available soil survey and climatic and irrigation information and requires minimal computational cost for application and (3) can dynamically support decision-making through thematic mapping. Raw data (coming from different sources) include: i) water table depth, ii) soil texture properties, iii) land use, and iv) climatic information with reference to a study area located in southern Italy. Such information has been then manipulated in order to generate data required for the subsequent hydrological modelling. Simulated breakthrough curves were generated for each soil textural class. They are texture-based travel time probability density functions (TF), describing the leaching behaviour of soil profiles with similar soil hydrological properties. The latter, in turn, were estimated by indirect estimation techniques such as pedotransfer functions (PTFs) to overcome the trouble of intensive in situ and/or laboratory determinations of soil hydraulic and hydrodispersive properties, which are generally lacking for regional-scale studies. Results showed large differences in the magnitude of the different travel times and related uncertainties among different profiles. The lower or higher vulnerability was found to be mainly related to the average silt content of the soil profiles.

This paper provides a summarisation of information on the biodiversity of Natura 2000 sites of Basilicata and the impacts of grazing on protected habitats and species. Besides, using a case study of a site particularly rich in biodiversity as an example, we described the application of the Driving Force, Pressure, State, Impact and Response (DPSIR) framework to evaluate the impacts of grazing and to propose corrective measures for ensuring restoration and conservation of habitats.

Similar situations to those described on grazing in the study site can arise for any kind of anthropogenic disturbance, which makes the approach here described and discussed suitable for a large-scale use.

However, the challenge for Natura 2000 network in Basilicata is not strictly to propose measures aiming at conserving biodiversity, but rather to build a better awareness of the ‘natural heritage’ concealed within the sites, in order to create an active involvement of the stakeholders in the process of devising policies toward biodiversity conservation.

This study reports the results of a research project () funded by the Italian Ministry of Agriculture. The research was organised in two phases: the first one involved the screening of the study area (Southern Italy) to find suitable turfgrass species and the second one focused on ex situ cultivation to test the ecotypes with salinity resistance. During the first step of the research, 11 sites from 6 regions of Southern and Central Italy were identified. In these sites, 24 ecotypes of (L.) Pers. were collected and their habitus, phenology, and some biometric parameters have been determined. During the 2 years of research, both botanic and agronomic characterisation of the collected ecotypes was carried out. Some native accessions showed a behaviour similar to commercial cultivars, while an ecotype from the Abruzzo Region showed better results compared to the commercial cultivars for several quality indices. The results of this project showed that Mediterranean-adapted native grass species (e.g. (L.) Pers.) are worth investigating for turfgrass, making for their performance and low resource requirement (especially water). This species can be used as promising alternatives to conventional non-native turfgrasses.

During the last two decades, systematic studies were carried out on biodiversity of hypogeous fungi in forestry territories of the two Basilicata (southern Italy) provinces, Matera and Potenza. Identification of fungus taxa found in the region was commonly accomplished on the basis of macro- and microscopic features, and only in a few instances, molecular analyses were utilized. Thanks to these investigations, Basilicata now occupies, among Italian regions, the first and fourth positions for number of species, varieties or forms and total number of hypogeous fungi (, and ) naturally growing in its woodlands and Mediterranean maquis areas. In fact, the last up-to-date acquirements on the topic bring up to 29 and 53 the number of taxa and that of the other hypogeous and semi-hypogeous (only three entities) fungi present in the region, respectively. In this chapter, the essential information regarding these fungi is given, so updating to 2014 the relative available knowledge. Among the , object of this review, the and , the , , , and as well as the deserve a particular mention because of their rarity.