44%of steep slope cropland in Europe vulnerable to drought

Steep-slope cropland plays a vital role in food production,economic development,ecosystem diversity,and Eu-ropean cultural heritage.However,these systems are susceptible to extreme weather events.The 2022 summer drought significantly impacted European agriculture,but the specific effects on steep-slope crops remain uncer-tain.Clarifying this is essential for comprehending similar future events and for implementing effective water management strategies to ensure the sustainability of steep-slope agriculture and associated ecosystem services.This study quantitatively analyzes the spatial distribution of twelve major European steep-slope(>12%)crops and assesses agricultural drought severity during the 2022 events using open-access spatial data.The satellite-based Vegetation Health Index(VHI)is utilized to identify critical hotspots.Results show that olive grove is the most widespread crop in steep slope agriculture(34%of total area),followed by wheat(24%),maize(16%),and vineyard(11%).Almost half of the steep-slope agriculture in Europe suffered drought during summer 2022.Vineyards were hardest affected at 79%,primarily in northern Portugal,northern Spain,southern France,and central Italy.Sunflowers followed at 62%,mainly in Spain,central Italy,southern France,and northern Roma-nia.Olive groves ranked third at 59%,with the most impact in northern Portugal,southern and central Spain,and southern Italy.Maize was also significantly affected at 54%.In this paper,we therefore highlight the need to increase steep-slope agriculture resilience by improving water management and promoting sustainable land practices.

Viticulture in Argentina under extreme weather scenarios:Actual challenges,future perspectives

Viticulture in Argentina is an important socioeconomic sector,reflected in a significant wine market and tourism.However,climate change and related extreme events are serious concerns.The main issues are heatwaves,hail-storms,and heavy rainfall,resulting in damage to vineyards.While climate change impacts have already been discussed for regions such as the Mediterranean,the literature lacks an up-to-date overview of Argentine viticul-ture and potential mitigation solutions.In a country culturally and economically connected to the world of wine,it is strategic to bridge this gap to be prepared for a climatically adverse future.This perspective paper presents an overview of Argentine viticulture and its relationship to climate change.We focus on the Mendoza region,one of the most productive areas and home to cultural landscapes where internationally recognized wines are produced.Climate change is already occurring,a fact we observed by analyzing data from the past decades.We discussed how heatwaves in the lowlands drive farmers to move to the Andes slopes looking for more favorable conditions.But new threats arise,such as extreme rainfall.Due to surface hydrological processes,they can cause land degradation and compromise vineyards.We investigate these phenomena in detail,highlighting how they represent a growing challenge that must be addressed for the sustainable development of future viticulture in the area.Therefore,we propose mitigation strategies for more resilient production,drawing inspiration from the Sustainable Development Goals and suggesting a framework that can be extended to broader contexts worldwide。

基于多尺度数字地形定量分析的月球线性构造自动提取研究

月球表面构造对于理解和重建月球地质构造演化具有重要意义,月岭、月溪等线性构造的形态及分布特征与月球内动力构造运动密切相关。极为有限的样品和难度极高的野外勘察使得遥感成为行星科学研究的最主要手段。中国、美国、日本、印度等国先后发射的多颗新型探月卫星获取了大量高质量数据,尤其是高分辨率的数字地形数据(DTM,Digital Terrain Model)。高分辨率的DTM为月球表面构造特征的自动提取带来了新的机遇与挑战。文中利用多种分辨率的DTM数据,基于多尺度数字地形定量分析方法,识别和提取月球表面的线性构造。使用的地形数据包括500m分辨率"嫦娥一号"激光高度计数据,100m分辨率LRO-WAC广角相机数据,60m分辨率的LRO-LOLA激光测距仪数据以及分辨率高达5m的LRO-NAC窄视角相机数据。文中使用地形曲率来识别月溪月岭等线性构造,并利用不同滑动窗口大小和阈值进行线性构造的自动提取。对研究区试验结果的定量分析表明,文中提出的基于地形曲率的月表线性构造自动提取方法是有效且可行的,其结果可为月球表面线性构造解译提供重要参考,提高构造解译时效性和精度。

Agriculture in Hilly and Mountainous Landscapes: Threats, Monitoring and Sustainable Management

Agricultural landscapes cultivated in hilly and mountainous areas,often with terracing practice,could represent for some regions historical heritages and cultural ecosystem services.For this reason,they deserve to be protected.The complex morphology that characterises them,however,makes these areas intrinsically susceptible to hydrogeological instability,such as soil loss due to surface erosion or more severe mass movements.We can identify three major critical factors for such landscapes.The first is related to the socio-economic evolution of contemporary civilization,that increased the land abandonment of several rural regions,leading therefore to a lack of maintenance.A second element is the unsustainable agricultural practices,such as excessive heavymechanization that cause soil compaction thus accelerating degradation.Finally,the climate change forcing,with the increasing of the extreme rainfall.In this complex framework,it is necessary to find innovative solutions for the mitigation of hydrogeological risk and to respond in a well-prepared way to the possible future critical scenarios.Therefore,the use of sustainable agricultural practices,which allow the production of quality agricultural products in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment,becomes crucial.Suitable solutions must respond to the criterion of multidisciplinary,where the various stakeholders collaborate by offering their specific knowledge in a shared intention of problem-solving.The discipline of geography may become a valuable asset in this framework.In particular,thanks to the recent technological advances in the topographic survey(e.g.innovative remote sensing techniques such as drones and airborne laser scanning),it is possible to exploit digital terrain analysis to synthesize key information for decision-makers,in order to plan sustainable interventions.Moreover,thanks to the high-resolution and accuracy offered by digital topography and the advanced morphometric algorithms,it is possible to tackle the problem of hydrogeological risk from a unique and privileged perspective:that of prevention.

Geometrical feature analysis and disaster assessment of the Xinmo landslide based on remote sensing data

At 5:39 am on June 24, 2017, a landslide occurred in the village of Xinmo in Maoxian County, Aba Tibet and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture(Sichuan Province, Southwest China). On June 25, aerial images were acquired from an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV), and a digital elevation model(DEM) was processed. Landslide geometrical features were then analyzed. These are the front and rear edge elevation, accumulation area and horizontal sliding distance. Then, the volume and the spatial distribution of the thickness of the deposit were calculated from the difference between the DEM available before the landslide, and the UAV-derived DEM collected after the landslide. Also, the disaster was assessed using high-resolution satellite images acquired before the landslide. These include Quick Bird, Pleiades-1 and GF-2 images with spatial resolutions of 0.65 m, 0.70 m, and 0.80 m, respectively, and the aerial images acquired from the UAV after the landslide with a spatial resolution of 0.1 m. According to the analysis, the area of the landslide was 1.62 km2, and the volume of the landslide was 7.70 ± 1.46 million m3. The average thickness of the landslide accumulation was approximately 8 m. The landslide destroyed a total of 103 buildings. The area of destroyed farmlands was 2.53 ha, and the orchard area was reduced by 28.67 ha. A 2-km section of Songpinggou River was blocked and a 2.1-km section of township road No. 104 was buried. Constrained by the terrain conditions, densely populated and more economically developed areas in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River basin are mainly located in the bottom of the valleys. This is a dangerous area regarding landslide, debris flow and flash flood events Therefore, in mountainous, high-risk disaster areas, it is important to carefully select residential sites to avoid a large number of casualties.

Sustainable water resource management in steep-slope agriculture

Steep-slope agricultural landscapes are under threat due to climate change.On the one hand,the growing fre-quency of extreme high-intensity rainfall events concentrated in both temporal and spatial scales are causing flash floods or slope failure risk scenarios.On the other hand,future climate projections indicate a significant expansion of arid zones in the steep slope agricultural system.There is evidence that these landscapes face a high risk of growing water scarcity.Considering their unique role in crop production,ecosystem diversity,and crop production,ecosystem diversity,and cultural heritage,understanding sustainable water resource manage-ment for mitigating climate change-induced drought has never been more urgent than today.In these landscapes,unique indigenous knowledge of water conservation is adopted to manage water resources improving their re-silience optimally.It is,therefore,necessary to promote water storage to mitigate floods or increase the resilience to prolonged drought(creating at the same time favourable conditions for biodiversity).Modern technological advances(e.g.,high-resolution remote sensing and GIS-based modelling)are crucial in supporting these activities and understanding earth’s surface processes.

New sciences&technologies in soil conservation and eco-sustainability

Soil conservation is necessary to achieve a sustainable world because soils play a crucial role in the Earth's system.At the same time,the applicable and precise methods are vital to obtaining credible data in soil studies.A collection of 10 articles have been organized to focus on the new technologies regarding soil conservation and eco-sustainability and the results related to the novel approaches.The articles put effort into the innovative works of field investigations,field experiments,model experiments,and nu-merical simulations.Pivotal questions baffling soil scientists have been clarified and solved,and many valuable insights have been aroused.

Agricultural drought severity in NE Italy: Variability, bias, and future scenarios

This study investigated the variability of agricultural drought severity,as depicted by vegetation indices,and the bias in identifying drought events when considering a stationary vs nonstationary climate reference.The work leveraged gridded climate data(NCEP CFSv2,CHIRPS 1981–2022),soil properties(OpenLandMap),satellite imagery(Sentinel2/Landsat,2000–2022),and future climate projections(NEX-GDDP,2050)together with local knowledge of selected farms,to augment drought monitoring techniques and identify potential issues for agriculture.For the study domain,significant differences were observed when comparing drought characteristics using stationary and nonstationary drought indexes,with biases being not ubiquitous in either space or time of year.When developing sustainable drought mitigation and adaptation strategies,decision-makers should carefully address this uncertainty to avoid a possible underestimation of drought magnitude.Results showed a drought increase(∼50%)by the mid and late twenty-first century.Projection of future climate highlighted an even more significant impact(∼80%)with a wide variability of risk across the domain.As drought impact was also related to soil organic carbon(SOC),our results suggest that improving SOC content could be a sustainable strategy for enhancing soil drought resilience,especially in areas commonly characterized by low concentrations of organic carbon and nutrients.The analysis highlighted that drought impacts were also modulated by investment in irrigation infrastructure and irrigation efficiency.Researchers and land managers could apply the proposed analysis design to address historical,current and future indicators of vegetation conditions within irrigated regions.By providing spatio-temporal information on the patterns of drought impacts and their bias,this study supports identifying priority regions for targeted drought risk reduction and adaptation options,including water resources and soil management sustainability criteria,to move towards more resilient agricultural systems.

Multi-temporal modeling of road-induced overland flow alterations in a terraced landscape characterized by shallow landslides

The presence of roads in high steep agricultural systems is often linked with landslides occurrence.This research aims to model multi-temporal overland flow dynamics in a shallow landslides-prone terraced landscape(northern Italy).The combined use of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems(RPAS)and photo-grammetric techniques(e.g.,Structure from Motion-SfM)allowed to elaborate multi-temporal high-resolution Digital Elevation Models(DEMs).Hydrological analyses of water flow's depth alterations due to the road presence were carried out adopting the SIMulated Water Erosion model(SIMWE),focusing on different scenarios considering the presence of the road and assuming its absence through a specific DEM smoothing procedure.The possibility to perform multi-temporal hydrological simulations at a hillslope scale so as to analyse the role played by the road in overland flows alteration is still a challenge to be investigated.Results proved the role played by the road in water flows change above the two observed shallow landslides,with respective maximum water depth values equal to 0.18 m and 0.14 m.On the contrary,no-road simulations not revealed significant water flows deviations towards landslides,with water depth values around 0 m,underlining that the absence of the road would avoid relevant changes in water flow paths toward the collapsed surfaces.This work could be a solid starting point for analyse road impact on runoff dynamics and hillslopes stability also at a wider scale,as well as for planning efficient mitigation intervention so as to reduce the occurrence of similar future scenarios.

Remote sensing vs.field-based monitoring of agricultural terrace degradation

The degradation of agricultural terraces is considered a major challenge to soil and water conservation in steep-slope viticulture.Although terracing is a widespread conservation practice,its sustainability is threatened by adverse climatic and man-made conditions.Previous studies have shown the impact of terrace designs on the formation of runoff pathways,causing degradation processes on terrace platforms(e.g.sheet erosion)and walls(e.g.piping,landslides,collapse).This study evaluates a remote sensing versus a field-based approach to monitor hydrological processes responsible for terrace degradation,as tested in a north-Italian vineyard.The field-based approach was based on spatially measured Soil Moisture Content(SMC)using a Time Domain Reflectometry(TDR)instrument,which clearly revealed saturation hotspots around two damaged terraces in the study area.Moreover,these zones showed a particular cross-sectional SMC profile,with the highest saturation close to the terrace platform edges.The remote sensing approach was based on aerial imagery acquired by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)and photogrammetric reconstruction of the vineyard geomorphology,allowing terrain-based analysis and physical erosion modelling.In this approach,simulations indicated that terrace damages could be partly explained by the formation of preferential runoff pathways caused by the terrace design.This parallel methodology allowed a comparison of the merits and limitations of either approach,as done in light of published work.The occurrence of two SMC hotspots at terrace edges(and their non-typical cross-sectional profiles)could be better understood from simulated surface flow paths.While the causal relationship between heterogeneous soil saturation and terrace instability has been previously reported in literature,the novelty of the presented study is the use of topsoil SMC as an indicator of potential damages,favouring the scalability compared to fixed,local and often intrusive terrace sub-surface ex-periments.Remote sensing based approaches,however,tend to offer the most time-efficient solution on larger scales,and aerial acquisition of SMC distribution could thus potentially offer a powerful integrated methodology.