The purpose of this study is to provide a proximity composting plant at a nursery. The disposal of pruning is an economic burden for farms. This paper shows that the reuse of pruning for composting and producing substrates for the nursery is an efficient procedure to reduce the environmental load and obtain quality ornamental plants. After a spatial analysis on the availability of pruning in a sample area, we have arranged, at a research partner's nursery, a plant for proximity composting. Using the collected data, a life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis was prepared for the compost and substrates. Agronomic tests, whose results will be published later, were conducted on four Mediterranean ornamental species. A comparison between the agronomic and environmental results shows that proximity composting is a convenient practice that significantly reduces the environmental load of substrates.
Abstract:Land use affects eco-hydrological processes with consequences for floods and droughts. Changes in land use affect ecosystems and hydrological services. The objective of this study is the analysis of hydrological services through the quantification of water resources, pollutant loads, land retention capacity and soil erosion. On the basis of a quantitative evaluation, the economic values of the ecosystem services are estimated. By assigning an economic value to the natural resources and to the hydraulic system, the hydrological services can be computed at the scale of catchment ecosystem. The proposed methodology was applied to the basin "Bonis" (Calabria Region, Italy). The study analyses four land use scenarios: (i) forest cover with good vegetative status (baseline scenario); (ii) modification of the forest canopy; (iii) variation in forest and cultivated surfaces; (iv) insertion of impermeable areas. The simulations prove that the variations of the state of forest areas has considerable influence on the water balance, and then on the provided economic value. Small economic changes derive from reducing the impermeable areas. Increasing the agricultural area to 50% of the total, and reducing the forest surface, affects soil erosion, reduces the storage capacity of the water, and consequently the water harvesting. The suggested methodology can be considered a suitable tool for land planning.
The agro-forestry territory in the Region of Apulia, southern Italy, is characterised by a widespread and diversified presence of dry stone constructions, including trulli, rural buildings with a characteristic a conical shape. The trulli are mainly to be found in the central and eastern part of the region, called Murgia of Trulli. Trulli are perfectly integrated with the agro-environment specificity of the area, creating a unique landscape and establishing themselves as a testimony of tradition and rural culture. In fact, in this area, from the 17th until the mid-20th century, the trulli accompanied the development of agricultural activities. According to the number of cones they had, they were used as temporary shelters, places of support for primary production, or comfortable houses for the rural population. In recent decades, for several social and economic reasons, this heritage of rural buildings has been affected by abandonment and degradation phenomena. Interventions aimed at recovery and re-use have not always respected the origin of the buildings, their design characteristics or the landscape in which they had been built. In order to reduce the impact that this situation has had on environmental and territorial quality it is, therefore, necessary to develop initiatives to protect and valorise the trulli while respecting the identity of place, the architectural elements, and the agricultural and environmental characteristics of the territory. For this purpose, we need to analyse and characterise the heritage of the existing trulli and its relationship with the local reality. The present paper analyses the typology and distribution of the trulli located on the site of community importance Murgia of Trulli, a protected area with high environmental value in the central-eastern area of the Region of Apulia. Specifically, we analysed the relationship between the trulli buildings and the agro-environment context to acquire a basic interpretative knowledge in order to define strategies for recovery and re-use
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