Preliminary Results on the Evaluation of Factors Influencing Evapotranspiration Processes in Vineyards

Abstract

The paper summarizes the preliminary results from the analysis of data collected during the 2008 and 2009 vegetative seasons in a northern Italy vineyard (Vitis vinifera L., Barbera variety) and the simulations carried out in the same period with the land surface model UTOPIA. The aim of the work is to study the influence of the meteorological factors on the plant conditions. We collected a set of standard and advanced meteorological, physiological and physical data and we investigated the performance of UTOPIA in describing the different components of the energy and hydrological processes (in particular the evapotranspiration), with a special focus on the vegetation and soil. The comparison between observed data and UTOPIA simulations showed satisfactory results for the soil variables (RRMSE ranging between 15% and 40%, and correlation coefficients of 0.9). Net radiation and sensible heat fluxes RRMSE (30% and 63% respectively) suggest that both Water 2010, 2 917 the calibration of the vegetation parameters (including the influence of the grass among vine rows) and the availability of more specific measurements are very important.

Soil erosion in sloping vineyards assessed by using botanical indicators and sediment collectors in the Ruwer-Mosel valley

“…Vineyards often have highly degraded soils, with soil lowering up to 0.5 to 2 mm yr À1 Prosdocimi et al, 2016a), rates that vastly exceed natural rates of pedogenesis (Brevik, 2013), which is due to: i) traditional tillage management (Cerdan et al, 2010;Francone et al, 2010); ii) the application of pesticides (Marín et al, 2016); iii) low soil organic matter and water retention capacity (Brillante et al, 2015); iv) biological degradation (Costantini et al, 2015;Cagnarli et al, 2015); and, v) the impact of irrigation (Terrón et al, 2015). Most of the wine growers, local and regional governments, and viticulture companies have contributed to improve the production of wine, dissemination of tourism, promotion of vineyard landscapes.…”

Understanding soil erosion processes in Mediterranean sloping vineyards (Montes de Málaga, Spain)

“…Within the viticultural agroecosystem, soils play a major role in providing mineral nutrients to plants, and soil characteristics also affect vine water status which is a key factor determining grape quality potential (van Leeuwen et al, 2009). The alteration of natural hydrological dynamics and increased sediment transport create several problems related to uncontrolled solute and nutrient transport (Gruber and Kosegarten, 2002;Manandhar and Odeh, 2014;Navel and Martins, 2014), soil loss (Hacisalihoglu, 2007;Novara et al, 2011;Prosdocimi et al, 2016b;Quiquerez et al, 2014), formation of rills and ephemeral gullies (Kosmas et al, 1997;Martínez-Casasnovas et al, 2003;Rodrigo Comino et al, 2015), degradation of roots, biodiversity and carbon storage (Bruggisser et al, 2010;Eldon and Gershenson, 2015;Francone et al, 2010;Gagnarli et al, 2015;Zsófi et al, 2011), and quality of the product and productivity (García-Díaz et al, 2016;Likar et al, 2015;Lorenzo et al, 2012;Marqués et al, 2015;Terrón et al, 2015). To understand the soil erosion processes in vineyards will bring solutions for a sustainable agriculture (Novara et al, 2013) and this is related to the income of the farmers due to payments for ecosystem services (Galati et al, 2016) and the soil erosion rates (Novara et al, 2016a), and the soil carbon sequestration (Novara et al, 2016b).…”

Climate change over the high-mountain versus plain areas: Effects on the land surface hydrologic budget in the Alpine area and northern Italy

“…Recent applications include studies on the parameterization of soil freezing (Bonanno et al, 2010), and the cold spells over the Alpine area and the Po Valley (Galli et al, 2010). It has also been applied to studies on vineyards environment, including canopy resistance (Prino et al, 2009), energy and hydrologic budgets (Francone et al, 2010), sensitivity to vegetation parameters (Francone et al, 2012a), and an analysis of turbulence (Francone et al, 2012b).…”