Agricultural lands are the widest Human-modified ecosystems, making crop production the most extensive form of land use on Earth. However, in conventional agricultural land management, soil erosion may be boosted up to 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than the natural rates of soil production, making unproductive about the 30% of the world’s arable. Nowadays in Europe, vineyards represent the most erosion-prone agricultural lands, especially in Mediterranean countries, showing the highest erosion rates in comparison to other type of land uses. Prosecco wine is produced in NE Italy by a rate of 400 M bottles per year, with the fastest growing demand in the global market at present. A production of 90 M bottles year -1 is currently running in the historical Prosecco DOCG (215 km 2 ), in a steep hilly landscape of Veneto Region (Conegliano-Valdobbiadene). To sustain wine production, agricultural intensification is at present increasing, by re-setting of hillslopes and land use changes towards new vineyard plantations. The aim of this study is to estimate and to map potential soil erosion rate, calculating a sort of “soil footprint” for wine production in different agricultural land-management scenarios. RUSLE model was adopted to estimate potential soil erosion in Mg ha −1 year −1 , by using high resolution topographic data (LiDAR), 10 years rainfall data analysis, detailed land use and local soil characteristics. For a conventional land-management scenario the estimated that total potential soil erosion in the Prosecco DOCG area is 411,266 Mg year -1 , with an erosion rate of 19.5 Mg ha year -1 . Modelled soil erosion is mainly clustered on steep slopes, with rates higher than 40 Mg ha -1 year -1 . In Prosecco vineyards potential soil erosion could reach 300,180 Mg year -1 , by a mean rate of 43.7 Mg ha -1 year -1 , which is 31 times higher than the upper limit of tolerable soil erosion threshold defined for Europe. In contrast, simulation of different nature-based scenarios (hedgerows, buffer strips, and grass cover) showed soil erosion could be effectively reduced: a 100% inter-row grass cover showed a reduction of almost 3 times in vineyards (from 43.7 to 14.6 Mg ha -1 year -1 ), saving about 50% of soil in the whole Prosecco DOCG. The soil footprint modelled for a conventional land-management scenario is about 3.3 kg every bottle produced; in contrast it would be reduced to 1.1 kg/bottle in the completely green land-management scenario. This study, as the first estimation of potential soil erosion at Prosecco DOCG scale, suggests that an integrated and public soil erosion monitoring system is strongly needed in viticultural area, by implementing direct/indirect field measures with spatial analyses at agricultural ...

LiDAR and photogrammetry data are integrated to study an Early Jurassic extensional synsedimentary structure in the Italian Southern Alps. Airborne LiDAR data helped in getting geologic information in areas covered by vegetation, photogrammetry was applied to produce a high-resolution 3D textured model of the inaccessible parts of the outcrop. LiDAR and photgrammetric data were merged together producing a multi-resolution model. Key geologic boundaries and faults bounding the synsedimentary structure were digitized in a 3D geomodeling environment. The reconstruction yielded information about the structure kinematics and accumulated displacements.

Prosecco, one of the most widespread sparkling wine in the world, is produced in Northeast Italy by a rate of 400 M bottles per year, with the fastest growing demand in the global market at present. A production of 90 M bottles year-1 is currently running in the historical Prosecco sector (215 km2), defined as the Controlled and Guaranteed Designation of Origin (DOCG) area, in a steep hilly landscape of Veneto Region (Conegliano-Valdobbiadene) registered in 2017 for the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list. To sustain wine production agricultural intensification boosted to re-setting of hillslopes and land use changes toward new vineyard plantations. The aim of this study is to assess soil erosion rate, calculating a sort of “soil footprint” for wine production by i) estimation of the total soil erosion, ii) identification of the most critical areas, iii) simulation of different nature-based mitigation scenarios. RUSLE model was adopted to estimate soil erosion in Mg ha−1 year−1, using high resolution topographic data (LiDAR), 10 years rainfall data analysis, detailed land use and local soil characteristics. We found that the total soil erosion estimation for the Prosecco DOCG area is 546,263 Mg year-1, with an erosion rate of 25.4 t ha year-1, which is 11 times higher than the Italian average. Prosecco vineyards contributes to 400,000 Mg year-1, by a mean rate of 59.8 Mg ha-1 year-1, and encompass 74% of all the erosion in the whole DOCG area. Soil erosion modelled is mainly concentrated in cultivated hillslopes, highlighting critical areas with more than 40 Mg ha-1 year-1), mainly clustered on steep slopes. The modelled soil loss of a single bottle of Prosecco is, therefore, about 4.4 kg year-1. In contrast, alternative scenarios of different nature-based mitigation measures (hedgerows, buffer strips, and grass cover) showed that total erosion in the Prosecco DOCG area would be reduced to 275,140 Mg year-1, saving about the 50% of soil. In vineyards a general decrease of almost 3 times (from 400,000 to 135,161 Mg year-1) is also demonstrated, reducing on average the erosion rate from 59.8 to 19.2 Mg ha-1 year-1. This study highlights, thus, that an integrated soil erosion monitor system is needed in the DOCG area as well as the implementation of nature-based mitigation measures as sustainable agricultural layout for modern agroecosystems.