Fausto Tomei

Arpa Emilia-Romagna | ARPA · Servizio Idro-Meteo-Clima

This innovative study presents concepts and problems in soil physics, and provides solutions using original computer programs. It provides a close examination of physical environments of soil, including an analysis of the movement of heat, water and gases. The authors employ the programming language Python, which is now widely used for numerical pr...

We present a numerical, catchment-scale model that solves flow equations of surface and subsurface flow in a three-dimensional domain. Surface flow is described by the two-dimensional parabolic approximation of the St. Venant equation, using Manning’s equation of motion; subsurface flow is described by the three-dimensional Richards’ equation for t...

Wheat is a major winter crop in northern Italy. Italian agricultural markets and government agencies would undoubtedly benefit from the early availability of wheat yield forecasts at the regional and national scales as useful support in decision making. In this study we tested the skill of seasonal weather forecasts, in combination with observed we...

A hydroclimatic regional atlas for the period 1961-2008 was produced in the framework of the Eraclito project, funded by the Italian region Emilia-Romagna (22,000 km2). The data used for the atlas come from a unified regional database, completed in 2009 after collecting data from different sources. Daily data were spatially interpolated on a triang...

La falda ipodermica è lo strato di terreno saturo nei primi metri di suolo, indotta dalla presenza di un substrato impermeabile, che può influenzare l’apparato radicale delle piante sia direttamente che per risalita capillare. La finalità di questo studio è la presentazione di un’equazione empirica per la stima dell’altezza di falda ipodermica risp...

Facing global warming's consequences is a major issue in the present times. Regarding the climate, projections say that heavy rainfalls are going to increase with high probability together with temperature rise; thus, the hazard related to rainfall-induced shallow landslides will likely increase in density over susceptible territories. Different mo...

Facing global warming consequences is a major issue of present times. For what concerns climate, projections say that heavy rainfalls are going to increase with high probability together with temperature rise, thus also the hazard related to rainfall induced shallow landslides will likely increase in density over susceptible territories. Different...

This paper presents the implementation of a slope stability method for rainfall-induced shallow landslides in CRITERIA-1D, which is an agro-hydrological model based on Richards’ equation for transient infiltration and redistribution processes. CRITERIA-1D can simulate the presence and development of roots and canopies over space and time, the regul...

Assessing the information provided by co-produced climate services is a timely challenge given the continuously evolving scientific knowledge and its increasing translation to address societal needs. Here we propose a joint evaluation and verification framework to assess prototype services that provide seasonal forecast information based on the exp...

The Italian territory is located at the heart of one of the global hot spots of climate change, where the implementation of climate‐smart land management practices is imperative to guarantee the present and future maintenance of ecosystem functions as well as the sustainability of human socioeconomic activities. The project HIGHLANDER (HIGH perform...

article describing the critical situations observed in Bologna during the May 2023 flooding in Emilia-Romagna, with particular reference to the flooding of the Ravone torrent in the city and the management of the various warning phases. In Italian. published on Ecoscienza Numero 5 • Anno 2023

The objective of this study is to present the CAMBIA library, created by ARPAE, which collects more than 100 measures of adaptation of the agricultural sector to climate change, together with their evaluation, developed by CREA PB, in terms of costs and benefits to encourage their adoption by Italian farmers. The study was conducted as part of the...

Emilia-Romagna is a region of Northern Italy whose land use is mainly devoted to agriculture, especially over the plain area. Since the region is characterized by summer water shortages and recurrent drought conditions, a summer irrigation water demand forecast system has been developed, operating both at regional and Land Reclamation and Irrigatio...

In this study, new non-invasive soil moisture sensors have been installed and calibrated at three experimental sites. The sensors have been easily installed and data is regularly transmitted to an on-line platform. At the specific conditions of the sites, the measurements represent average soil moisture over an area of around 5 hectares down to 25...

One of the major challenges in soil hydrological modelling is due to the fact that soils are heterogeneous at all spatial scales. The identification and accurate representation of such heterogeneity can be crucial for quantifying the subsurface hydrological states and water fluxes. This work presents the results of an integrated approach for proces...

Time domain reflectometry can be applied to measure soil bulk density. Monitoring of bulk density over large areas for geo–statistical analysis requires a fast and effective method allowing for acquisition of many data points. Methods are available in the literature to obtain density from TDR. However, algorithms for simultaneous measurements of de...

Water availability is strongly variable in space and time, also due to the climate change. Agriculture is a sector specially affected by the water scarcity problem considering that is one of the main users. Irrigation scheduling simulation models play an important role in this context by estimating plant water requirements and supporting best water...

In Europe, 25% of groundwater has poor chemical status. One of the main stressors is agriculture, with nitrates and plant protection products (PPPs) causing failure in 18% and 6.5%, respectively, of groundwater bodies (by area). EU legislation for the placement of the PPPs on the market is one of the most stringent in the world. However, recent mon...

In recent decades, water scarcity has become a frequent and widespread phenomenon. Intensification of water scarcity will have economic impact on the main water-using sectors. The highest pressure on the water resources is exerted by agriculture. Irrigation is the largest consumer of the agriculture sector and the efficient use of water is of utmos...

Many urban areas face an increasing flood risk, which includes the risk of flash floods. Increasing extreme precipitation events will likely lead to greater human and economic losses unless reliable and efficient early warning systems (EWS) along with other adaptation actions are put in place in urban areas. The challenge is in the integration and...

La stagione invernale 2017-'18 è stata caratterizzata da temperature mediamente superiori alla norma 1961-'90 paragonabili, in tempi recenti, a quelle osservate nell'inverno 2014-'15 ed è stata accompa-gnata da precipitazioni abbondanti. In particolare, il manto nevoso sulle Alpi è risultato generoso e ben distribuito. The winter season 2017-'18 w...

A gridded daily precipitation observational analysis has been produced by the ARCIS (ARchivio Climatologico per l'Italia centro-Settentrionale) Working Group, over the territory covered by the administrations who subscribed the convention. At present the dataset extends to North-Central Italy over the period 1961-2015. The dataset accepts as input...

La stagione invernale 2016-2017, pur non avendo eguagliato l'eccezionalità dell'inver-no precedente in termini di anomalia termica positiva e di scarsità di precipitazioni nel centro-nord Italia, ha continuato comunque la serie di inverni caldi e secchi osservati nell'ultimo quinquennio, con conseguenti impatti sul territorio e sulla popolazione.

Proximal soil sensors are taking hold in the understanding of soil hydrogeological processes involved in precision agriculture. In this context, permanently installed gamma ray spectroscopy stations represent one of the best space-time trade off methods at field scale. This study proved the feasibility and reliability of soil water content monitori...

Proximal soil sensors are taking hold in the understanding of soil hydrogeological processes involved in precision agriculture. In this context, permanently installed gamma ray spectroscopy stations represent one of the best space-time trade off methods at field scale. This study proved the feasibility and reliability of soil water content monitori...

A gridded daily precipitation observational analysis has been produced within the project ARCIS, which has the aim of producing a climatological analysis of surface parameters over the territory covered by the administrations who subscribed the convention. At present the dataset extends to North-Central Italy over the period 1961-2015. The dataset...

MOSES is an Horizon 2020 innovation action (2015-2018) aiming at the development of climate services for adaptation of agriculture to climate change, in the form of an integrated decision support system (DSS) devoted to irrigation water agencies and consortia, with the objectives of managing and reducing the risks of droughts, saving irrigation wat...

La stagione invernale 2015-16 è stata una stagione dai due volti: inzialmente caratteriz-zata da importanti anomalie nella circolazione a larga scala, guidate da un episodio in-tenso di El Niño, che si sono concretizzate sul Centro-Nord Italia con temperature ben al di sopra della norma e precipitazioni scarse, intervallate da lunghi periodi siccit...

This paper concerns the analysis of the snow accumulation and melt model applied by ARPAE-SIMC (Regional Environmental Protection Agency – Hydro-Meteo-Climate Service) to monitor snow cover and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in the Emilia-Romagna region. Snow measurements acquired by the Meteomont Service for the avalanche risk assessment may represen...

During the year 2015, the global climate presented several intense anomalies, observed by the monitoring networks. In particular it was noted that 2015 was the hottest year on records, globally speaking, with very intense monthly thermal anomalies. The meteorological offices of the regions contributing to the Working Group on Climate ARCIS present...

This work aims to assess the impact of climatological increment of temperature on the tropospheric ozone concentration in the Po Valley (Italy). Creation, destruction, and transport of ozone is not only governed by the sun, via photochemical reactions, but also by atmospheric conditions. Air quality is therefore significant, and its connection with...

Aiming at developing real time water balance modelling for irrigation scheduling, this study assesses the accuracy of the soil water balance model CRITERIA, developed by the hydro-meteorological service of the Emilia-Romagna region (Italy). The model consists of (i) an algorithm for coupling the surface flow components (i.e. Richards equation), and...

A daily high-resolution gridded climatic data set, for the period 1961-2010, is presented for Emilia-Romagna region, Italy. Precipitation and temperature daily data, from 254 and 60 locations respectively, are first checked for quality, temporal homogeneity and synchronicity. Temperatures are interpolated with a daily best-performing detrending pro...

A daily high-resolution gridded climatic data set is presented for Emilia-Romagna, Italy, covering the period 1961–2010. Time series of precipitation and temperatures, from 254 and 60 locations, respectively, were first checked for quality, temporal homogeneity and synchronicity, then interpolated on a grid. For temperature, a daily best-performing...

Over the regions of North-Central Italy, winter 2014-’15 presented less pronounced climate anomalies than the previous year, but with very strong intra-seasonal variability and with meteorological conditions that, locally, produced relevant impacts on infrastructures, roads and tourism. In particular, the past winter has been milder than average, w...

The performance of a water balance model is also based on the ability to correctly perform simulations in heterogeneous soils. The objective of this paper is to test CRITERIA and AquaCrop models in order to evaluate their suitability in estimating evapotranspiration at the field scale in two types of soil in the Mediterranean region: non-stony and...

The year 2014 had a mild and extremely rainy start when the Alps were covered with the thickest snow depth since the 50ies. Then the year continued with a rainy spring and a cool and extremely rainy summer, with snow flakes outside alpine huts on the 15th of August. Autumn has been extremely rainy, but warm. During this last season, the usual daily...

Summer 2014 in north-central Italy has been generally fresh, with a limited number of sunny days due to the reduced frequency of occurrence of high pressure ridges, and temperature lower than the 1961-’90 climatological values for two thirds of the seasons. The precipitation exceeded, often abundantly, the expected climatological values. In particu...

The CRITERIA model simulates crop development and water dynamics in agricultural soils at different spatial scales. The objective of this paper was to test CRITERIA in order to evaluate the suitability of the model as a tool for scheduling irrigation at field scale. The first step of the work was to validate this hypothesis, by means of calibration...

In Italy, growing urbanization is leading to a higher risk of flooding of small water courses, especially in steep catchments of limited area, where severe flash flood events can occur. The assessment of flash flood hazard requires new modelling tools that can reproduce both the rainfall-runoff processes in the catchment, and the flow processes in...

Exceptional precipitation amounts and mild temperatures: these are the main characteristics of the winter season 2013-’14, making it one of the most anomalous winters of the last 60 years over North-Central Italy. The heavy snowfall on the Alps, in many cases exceeding event the already exceptional snow amounts observed in 1950-’51, caused several...

This paper describes in detail the operational production of summer irrigation water demand probabilistic forecasts for the Emilia-Romagna region, in the Po river plain. The methods used include field survey, satellite crop classification, statistical downscaling, weather generation and soil water balance modelling. Products include a crop classifi...

Il tema delle flash flood (alluvioni lampo) sui torrenti che scorrono nei territori urbani è diventato particolarmente rilevante per le città, che sono esposte sempre più spesso a piogge improvvise e molto intense. Questo lavoro, nato dalla collaborazione fra diverse aree del Servizio IdroMeteoClima e l'Università di Bologna, indaga il tema del ris...

Monitoring and description of the observed climate are extremely important not only on the scientific point of view, but also for their contribution to decision making at political level. In fact, they represent both a crucial contribution to the assessment of the climatological characteristics of a region, and a starting point for all activities r...

COLT is an operational chain to predict summer (June, July, August) crop irrigation needs in Emilia-Romagna (Northern Italy) at the regional and lower scales. Set up by ARPA-SIMC in 2010, it has been applied since with good results. COLT predicts summer irrigation needs in May, i.e. at the beginning of the irrigation season in Emilia-Romagna. COLT...

This paper describes the operational chain developed at Arpa-Simc based on the Criteria model, the regional soil use data and the operational seasonal forecasts and mid-term climate change projections, in order to improve the irrigation management in agriculture for Emilia-Romagna region. Remote sensing associated with field surveys is used to map...

In Italy, growing urbanization is leading to a higher risk of flooding of small water courses, especially in steep catchments of limited area, where severe flash flood events can occur. The assessment of flash flood hazard requires new modelling tools that can reproduce both the rainfall-runoff processes in the catchment, and the flow processes in...

Pressure plates apparatus are very common experimental devices utilized to measure the soil water retention curve. Many studies have demonstrated the lack of reliability of pressure plates apparatus when they are used to measure the soil water retention curve in the dry range, due to low plate and soil conductance, lack of hydrostatic equilibrium,...