The Fossa Bradanica in Basilicata (S Italy) is\ud
affected by almost 15% permanent Pleistocene and Holocene\ud
gullies. In the past decades climate versus land use\ud
management have dramatically increase both the soil loss\ud
rate and the muddy-flooding frequency. In this paper the\ud
impact of global change on soil production rates and erosion/\ud
deposition dynamics at medium-time scale (1949–2000) for\ud
two permanent gullies (Fosso Lavandaio and Fosso San\ud
Teodoro) has been studied. Pluviometric regime, land use\ud
changes and multi-temporal (1949, 1986 and 2000) subtraction\ud
method of digital elevation models have been conducted.\ud
From 1949 to 1986 the sediment production rate was\ud
estimated in 1,988.43 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso Lavandaio\ud
and in 808.5 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso San Teodoro, with\ud
deposition prevailing over erosion processes. From 1986\ud
to 2000 the sediment production rate was estimated in\ud
2,487.92 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso Lavandaio and in\ud
2,883.9 Mg ha-1 year-1 at Fosso San Teodoro, with higher\ud
values of net erosion. The data confirm that the increase in\ud
sedimentation would be due to human activities, in particular\ud
the levelling of gully heads for the production of cereals and\ud
orchards. Differently, the increase of the erosion processes\ud
depends on the recent changes of the pluviometric regime\ud
characterized by the extension of dry horizon and the concentration\ud
of high magnitude precipitation in macro-events\ud
of three to four consecutive days
We present an example of integration of persistent scatterer interferometry (PSI) and in situ measurements over a landslide in the Bovino hilltop town, in Southern Italy. First, a widearea analysis of PSI data, derived from legacy ERS and ENVISAT SAR image time series, highlighted the presence of ongoing surface displacements over the known limits of the Pianello landslide, located at the outskirts of the Bovino municipality, in the periods 1995-1999 and 2003-2008, respectively. This prompted local authorities to install borehole inclinometers on suitable locations. Ground data collected by these sensors during the following years were then compared and integrated with more recent PSI data from a series of Sentinel-1 images, acquired from March 2014 to October 2016. The integration allows sketching a consistent qualitative model of the landslide spatial and subsurface structure, leading to a coherent interpretation of remotely sensed and ground measurements. The results were possible thanks to the synergistic operation of local authorities and remote sensing specialists, and could represent an example for best practices in environmental management and protection at the regional scale.
Sinkholes are the main hazard related to underground voids of both natural and anthropogenic origin. Instabilities developing underground may propagate upwards in a dramatic manner and reach the surface in the form of a sinkhole. The Apulia region in southern Italy is an interesting case study due to the outcropping of soluble rocks throughout the region. These rocks are affected by karst processes and have a high number of anthropogenic cavities. The latter were excavated by humans at different times for a variety of purposes. The worrying recent increase in the number of sinkhole events registered in Apulia led us to collect information on natural and anthropogenic sinkholes in Apulia. We focused on anthropogenic cavities, mostly excavated in Plio-Pleistocene calcarenites, and characterized the rock masses before using two- and three-dimensional parametric numerical analyses to model the instability processes, with the aim of exploring the failure mechanisms that lead to the occurrence of sinkholes. The parametric studies allowed us to carry out a preliminary evaluation of the stability conditions through simple charts designed for use in the field.
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