Federico Preti

• prof. eng, PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Florence

In the last few years, vegetated rivers have been managed with the main purpose of achieving water drainage and improving conveyance through vegetation removal. However, this leads to peak discharge augmentation and wave travel time reduction. This study assesses vegetation shredding and selective cut impacts on flood risk management. Flow resistan...

Landscape restoration projects are among the most extensive conservation actions at the global level that have been promoted in the last three decades. Such projects, however, cannot exclusively be based on the restoration of natural and semi-natural ecosystems, but should focus on a cultural landscape approach balancing environmental and socio-eco...

Water harvesting with Small Agricultural Reservoirs (SmAR) represents a solution for sustainable water management in different contexts. However, many technical challenges are still open despite its widespread application. One of the most relevant, for the sustainable management of SmAR, is represented by the loss of storage volume caused by the in...

Soil and Water Bioengineering (SWBE) represents a suitable solution. This study describes the first-ever application of SWBE in the country, realized within the World Bank's Burundi Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project (PRRPB). An experimental installation of SWBE was implemented in the hilly Isare municipality (Colline) using the training...

The sustainable mitigation of hydrogeological hazard through the geotechnical stabilization of natural and artificial slopes is an ethical and technical goal of increasing global relevance. In this context, "gray" geotechnical stabilization solutions involving the use of inert materials, injections of cement mixtures and steel elements, have been p...

Vegetation growth along rivers may have effects on water resistance and velocity distribution. Roughness evaluation is crucial in constructing river stage-discharge curves, due to its great importance in river management and risk assessment. Usually, land managers mechanically remove vegetation to increase flow conveyance and reduce flooding risk,...

Soil and water bioengineering (SWBE) measures in fire-prone areas are essential for erosion mitigation, revegetation, as well as protection of settlements against inundations and landslides. This study’s aim was to detect erosive areas at the basin scale for SWBE implementation in pre- and post-fire conditions based on a wildfire event in 2019 in s...

Evaluating the results of large‐scale land and water management project is key to ensuring their replicability and long‐term sustainability. The present work was developed within the Burundi Landscape Restoration and Resilience Project by the WorldBank (PRRPB), active from 2019 to 2024, where slow‐forming terraces were implemented together with rai...

Wildfires are an increasingly alarming phenomenon that affects forests and agroecosystems, generating several cascade effects among which soil erosion is one of the most deleterious. A robust body of data-based evidence on post-fire soil erosion and sediment yield at the watershed scale is, thus, required, especially when dealing with areas where w...

Riparian vegetation and its management on vegetated bank and flood-plains can affect hydraulic and hydrologic characteristics of the river flow and can reduce or increase hydraulic risk, especially in downstream urban areas in small catchments.In the present work, roughness estimation has been carried out by applying models that take into account r...

In the last decades, the Rif area in Morocco has been frequently affected by soil erosion due to intense rainfall events. In order to help farmers improve their lives and avoid damages caused by this phenomenon, a management project (the MCA Project) aiming to grow fruit trees has been realized. The objective of this study was to evaluate, in three...

Over the last centuries streams and rivers were managed with the main purpose of achieving drainage and flood control, with the reduction of hydraulic roughness and minimally obstruction of the flow, removing and impoverishing native riparian vegetation, causing flood peaks increase and flood wave travel time decrease. This study focuses on the eva...

Marble has been extracted from the Carrara quarries (Apuan Alps, Italy) for over two millennia. This cultural landscape is characterised by singular landforms called ravaneti, causing environmental problems due to debris flow, thus imperilling human settlements and natural heritage. Geomorphological and vegetation analyses have highlighted that in...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play a key role for improving the implementation of sustainable forest management at local, regional, and global level. The ICT potential to easily exploit a wider and more up-to-date set of information on the economic, environmental, and social value of forests is of relevant help for the daily work...

In wildfire areas, earth observation data is used for the development of fire-severity maps or vegetation recovery to select post-fire measures for erosion control and revegetation. Appropriate vegetation indices for post-fire monitoring vary with vegetation type and climate zone. This study aimed to select the best vegetation indices for post-fire...

The ongoing climatic change is forcing animal species to cope with global warming and to use different resources to improve their survival. Several species have been favoured by global warming, particularly the alien ones adapted to thrive in tropical and subtropical areas. As to Italian mammals, the crested porcupine Hystrix cristata, a large rode...

Wildfires are an increasingly alarming phenomenon that affects forests and agro-ecosystems, generating several cascade effects among which soil erosion is one of the most deleterious. A robust body of data-based evidence on post-fire soil erosion and sediment yield at watershed scale is thus required, especially dealing with areas where wildfires a...

Nature-based solutions (NBS) is a collective term for solutions that are based on natural processes, in healthy or restored ecosystems, and their services to address the three pillars of sustainability, including climate-related challenges. Soil and Water Bioengineering (SWB or SWBE) is a hazard mitigation and restoration discipline formally establ...

Snow cover is a key hydrological variable, critical to understanding water cycles and informing management decisions around resource extraction and recreational activities. Remote sensing open-access data and cloud-based computing platforms are two innovative tools for snow cover estimation. In this paper, we present SnowWarp, a processing framewor...

Leonardo's rule (Lrule) applied to below-ground systems defines a simple topological scheme that describes how the branches of root architectures develop within the soil. The approach does not consider the soil-climate-root interactions. From another hand, eco-hydrological approaches exploit physically-based formulations to derive the dynamic evolu...

The optimal design of a portion of terraced territory capable of guaranteeing a reduction in soil loss has for centuries been a challenge of agricultural engineering, in many parts of the world. Following this challenge, our research group is currently involved in the study and revision of the design techniques to be carried out in the transformati...

Root cohesion (Cv) represent a fundamental component for the tree stability and vegetation contribuction of the slope stability. Therefore, the finding of information concerning the root presence becomes mandatory to perform realistic predictions. A precise root detection is commonly practiced by a direct analysis of the root system carried out by...

The increasing role of climate change in the analysis and the design of flooding risk management in agricultural, forestry, and urban areas highlighted the importance of adopting hydraulic engineering solutions that could account for the protection of ecosystems' environmental quality. It was possible demonstrating in this work that the proposal of...

Flood hazard mitigation in urban areas crossed by vegetated flows can be achieved through two distinct approaches, based on structural and eco-friendly solutions, referred to as grey and green–blue engineering scenarios, respectively; this one is often based on best management practices (BMP) and low-impact developments (LID). In this study, the hy...

One of the main purposes of Ecohydraulics is to predict the effects of riparian vegetation on aquatic ecosystems within real water channels. The interaction between water flow and riparian plants significantly affects flow dynamics, hydraulic conveyance, and water quality of vegetated water bodies. This study aimed at quantifying analytically the u...

Bankfull discharge estimation is a crucial step in river basin management. Such evaluation can be carried out using hydrological and hydraulic modelling to estimate flow-depths, flow velocities and flood prone areas related to a specific return period. However, different methodological approaches are described in the scientific literature. Such app...

In the last few years, terraced landscapes have been receiving renovated interest all over the world (e.g., dry-stone walls named UNESCO heritage in November 2018). Terracing was recognized as a fundamental component of agricultural systems, both for its cultural value as well as for its importance in guaranteeing food production in unfavorable env...

Abstract Most studies concerning root reinforcement on slopes and riverbanks are conducted on natural soils, while on anthropogenic substrates the knowledge is much more limited. The present study was carried out in the largest marble extraction site of the world, Carrara. The Carrara marble extraction site represents an interesting case study conc...

• Application of soil and water bioengineering techniques for watershed management; • Soil Stabilization and erosion control using traditional and innovative solutions; • Vegetation additional reinforcement along a slope; • In situ and Lab experiments for monitoring and modelling of soil and water bioengineering techniques (e.g. live cribwalls, gri...

The preliminary outcomes of this study aim at the identification of the best scenario of vegetation management for assuring the mitigation of flooding risk of an Italian vegetated creek called Morra, located downstream of a narrow bridge. We simulated the growth of Common reed colonizing plants in the upstream portion of the creek by varying the ba...

Agricultural terraces are an important element of the Italian landscape. However, abandonment of agricultural areas and increase in the frequency of destructive rainfall events has made it mandatory to increase conservation efforts of terraces to reduce hydrological risks. This requires the development of new approaches capable of identifying and m...

The present work describes a transferability analysis for soil and water bioengineering techniques as an instrument for sustainable erosion control in Central and South America based on an empirical data base from the last decades. In total, 31 case studies in Mexico, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador and Brazil generated a database from an a...

Please feel free to leave us a comment to the presentation at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2020/EGU2020-16844.html

The region of Corridor Seco (Dry Corridor, including parts of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) has been facing multiple food crises caused by extreme weather events, water scarcity and land degradation phenomena. In this situation, Rooftop Water Harvesting (RWH) systems can effectively enhance local livelihoods, especially in marginalized commu...

A hydraulic model was implemented for interpreting the real-scale hydraulic tests conducted in a vegetated drainage channel, colonized by dormant Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. (common reed), located in the San Rossore-Migliarino-Massaciuccoli Regional Park (Tuscany, Italy). The hydraulic tests encompassed six flow rates and three vege...

This study presents a methodology for improving the efficiency of Baptist and Stone and Shen models in predicting the global water flow resistance of a reclamation channel partly vegetated by rigid and emergent riparian plants. The results of the two resistance models are compared with the measurements collected during an experimental campaign cond...

MetroAgriFor 2019 - Poster

Field hydraulic experiments have been conducted in an abandoned drainage channel colonized by dormant Phragmites australis (common reed) riparian plants. Hydrodynamic measurements (3D water flow velocity fields and water level at bankfull) were taken under stationary hydraulic conditions for a partial reed coverage scenario. Reed canopy cover has b...

Real scale hydraulic tests were conducted to evaluate the impact of riparian plants on flow dynamics and global flow resistance in two drainage channels in a land reclamation area of northern Tuscany (Italy). The vegetation covering the channels was composed by Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. (common reed), under both submerged and emer...

Drainage channels are a widespread component of agricultural and urbanized lowland landscapes. Management of instream and riparian vegetation along drainage channels must be planned by reconciling the need to ensure channel hydraulic efficiency with the need to preserve the riparian habitat. The present paper reports the experimental results of a s...

Understanding how catchment streamflow response varies in time and at different spatial scales is critical to assess runoff production and water availability in mountain areas. Very little work on comparing runoff generation processes in catchments of increasing size has been done in Dolomitic areas. In this research, we adopted a nested catchment...

Italian dry-stone wall terracing represents one of the most iconic features of agricultural landscapes across Europe, with sites listed among UNESCO World Heritage Sites and FAO Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). The analysis of microclimate modifications induced by alterations of hillslope and by dry-stone walls is of partic...

During 25 October 2011, an extremely intense rainfall event occurred in Eastern Liguria and Northern Tuscany. Severe damages were registered in the Monterosso and Vernazza basins, located in the famous area of Cinque Terre, which have been affected by hundreds of landslides, mud flows, and erosions. The main feature of the Cinque Terre landscape is...

Poster at AGU FALL MEETING 2018 - Ecohydraulics

- Specific streamflow in Dolomitic nested catchments decreases with increasing spatial scales. - Snowmelt significantly controls streamflow response in the catchment with the highest elevations. - Analogous factors explain most of the variability of streamflow response at the different scales. - The first-order catchment was not always represent...

Soil and water bioengineering is a technology that encourages scientists and practitioners to combine their knowledge and skills in the management of ecosystems with a common goal to maximize benefits to both man and the natural environment. It involves techniques that use plants as living building materials, for: (i) natural hazard control (e.g.,...

An experimental campaign was implemented along a 300 m stretch of a drainage channel, with the purpose of estimating the roughness coefficients of vegetated channels at the real scale for different management scenarios. The study was carried out in an agricultural area where the ordinary vegetation management consists in the total removal of natura...

The aim of this work is to test the Optical Trapezoidal Method (OPTRAM) developed by Sadeghi et al. (2017) for the remote sensing monitoring of soil moisture, at high resolution, in a terraced landscape. The objectives of the work are to: • check the water retention potential of terraced landscapes at spatial level, • assess the hypothesis of a uni...

Terraces systems around the world have been proven to support multiple Ecosystem Services, including erosion control, runoff reduction, biomass accumulation, nutrient enhancement and soil water recharge. Their effect in terms of water retention can support climate regulation and mitigate meteorological droughts, especially in arid areas. Most of th...

Dry-stone wall agricultural terraces are widespread all over the world, and represent an effective retaining structure for farming purposes. However, dry-stone walls can be subjected to degradation and damages, with complex and expensive maintenance. Such high costs are the most relevant drivers of land abandonment in many agricultural areas of Eur...

The region of Corridor Seco, Guatemala, is facing a severe food crisis caused by extreme weather events, land degradation phenomena and water scarcity. In this situation, the adoption of Rooftop Water Harvesting systems can effectively support local livelihoods, especially in marginalised communities. We present a Participatory Design approach, rea...

Session Proposal: EP43B Ecohydraulics and Ecogeomorphology: From Basic Interactions to Management Techniques III Posters Section: Earth and Planetary Surface Processes Link: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm17/meetingapp.cgi/Person/647132

Guatemala is facing a severe food crisis caused by extreme weather events, land degradation phenomena and water scarcity. Most of smallholder farmers do not have access to stable and sufficient water resources. In 2014, the project “PIR 2011 Gruppo Guatemala” assembled 34 household rooftop water harvesting (RWH) systems composed by a rooftop collec...

Keywords: Biomechanics, tree bending moment, tree overturning, damping ratio

In addition to increasing temperatures and exacerbating meteorological extreme events, climate change affects the frequency of windstorms, which impact the stability of trees in urban and periurban environments. Therefore, there is growing interest in developing models for predicting how root anchorage could influence tree stability. Root anchorage...

This study proposes a new methodology for estimating the additional shear strength (or cohesion) exerted by vegetation roots on slope stability analysis within a coupled hydrological-stability model. The mechanical root cohesion is estimated within a Fiber Bundle Model framework that allows for the evaluation of the root strength as a function of s...

An experimental field camapign aimed at estimating the average channel roughness from direct flow measures.

Although landslides are frequent natural phenomena in mountainous regions, the lack of data in emerging countries is a significant issue in the assessment of shallow landslide susceptibility. A key factor in risk-mitigation strategies is the evaluation of deterministic physical models for hazard assessment in these data-poor regions. Given the lack...

keywords: ERT, Root Area Ratio, Water content, Soil moisture, Slope stability

The two abstracts present the design and setup of an experimental campaign which aims at supporting the modeling (conceptual and numerical) of water circulation in a terraced slope, and its influence on stability of retaining dry stone walls. The case study is located at " Fattoria di Lamole " (Greve in Chianti, Firenze, Italy). At Lamole site both...

The two abstracts present the design and setup of an experimental campaign which aims at supporting the modeling (conceptual and numerical) of water circulation in a terraced slope, and its influence on stability of retaining dry stone walls. The case study is located at " Fattoria di Lamole " (Greve in Chianti, Firenze, Italy). At Lamole site both...

Vineyard landscapes are a relevant part of the European culture, and several authors concluded that they are the agricultural practice that causes the highest soil loss. Grape quality depends on the availability of water, and soil erosion is an important parameter dictating the vineyard sustainability; therefore, soil and water conservation measure...

Terraces are among the most evident human signatures on the landscape, and they cover large areas of the Earth. Terraces are generally built to retain more water and soil, to reduce both hydrological connectivity and erosion, to allow to work in better conditions, to facilitate cultivation on steep slopes, and to promote irrigation (Tarolli et al.,...

Plant rooting systems affect slope stability through the soil reinforcement given by the root network. The vertical root distribution in particular is crucial for the assessment of the critical slip surface in slope stability analyses. We propose here an expeditious way to assess the major characteristics of the root system at landslide slopes. Mor...

Among the most evident landscape signatures of the human fingerprint, the terraces related to agricultural activities are of great importance. This technique is widely used in various parts of the world under various environmental conditions. In some areas, terraced landscapes can be considered a historical heritage and a cultural ecosystem service...

Background Plants alter their environment in a number of ways. With correct management, plant communities can positively impact soil degradation processes such as surface erosion and shallow landslides. However, there are major gaps in our understanding of physical and ecological processes on hillslopes, and the application of research to restorati...

The potential use of protection forests to combat shallow slope instabilities is becoming increasingly important and considerable, especially in the light of the recent landslides and debris/mud flows in regions triggered by rainfalls with increased intensity. Tree vegetation has been constantly subjected to silvicultural activity both in exclusive...

The soil erosion in the vineyards is a critical issue that could affect their productivity, but also, when the cultivation is organized in terraces, increase the risk due to derived slope failure processes. If terraces are not correctly designed or maintained, a progressively increasing of gully erosion affects the structure of the walls. The resul...

The GESAAF Department of the UNIFI has been involved in the project “Gestione ambientale e del rischio nel dipartimento di Sololà” in the period 2011-’12 aiming at guaranteeing water access to people leaving in rural areas in the Sololà Department in Guatemala, in collaboration with the two NGOs Movimento Africa ’70 and Oxfam Italia. Appropriate te...

The soil erosion in the vineyards is a critical issue that could affect their productivity, but also, when the cultivation is organized in terraces, increase the risk due to derived slope failure processes. If terraces are not correctly designed or maintained, a progressively increasing of gully erosion affects the structure of the walls. The resul...

The GESAAF Department of the UNIFI has been involved in the project “Gestione ambientale e del rischio nel dipartimento di Sololà” in the period 2011-’12 aiming at guaranteeing water access to people leaving in rural areas in the Sololà Department in Guatemala, in collaboration with the two NGOs Movimento Africa ’70 and Oxfam Italia. Appropriate te...

We examine the role of vegetation on the stability of shallow soils under unsaturated transient regime. Two main positive effects of the vegetation on slope stability are discussed: i) a geo-mechanical effect, i.e., the reinforcement of soil by plant roots; ii) a soil-hydrological effect, i.e., the soil suction regime affected by root water uptake....

Among the most evident landscape signatures of human fingerprint during the Holocene, the terraces related to agricultural activities deserve a great importance. Landscape terracing probably represents one of the oldest best practice primarily for crop production, but also for mitigating soil erosion and stabilizing hillslopes in landforms dominat...

Riparian vegetation plays a crucial role on affecting the floodplain hydraulic roughness, which in turn significantly influences the dynamics of flood waves. This work explores the potential accuracies of retrieving vegetation hydrodynamic parameters through satellite multispectral data. The method is focused on estimation of vegetation height and...

In recent decades the institutions responsible for land management and civil protection have showed a great interest in relation to the use of more environmentally friendly techniques to mitigate the risk of landslides and floods. Soil bioengineering has responded to this need and several research groups are carrying out experimentations using the...

This study deals with surveys operated on crib walls in Casentino and Versilia (Tuscany), where Salix alba cuttings did not develop as expected from literature data. After more then 10 years since realization and and an initial very high survival rate, a few plants are yet alive among those put in place and the root strengthening is localized in th...

Vegetation significantly influences the hydrological and mechanical properties which are relevant for the stability of shallow soils along sloping surfaces. In view of the complexity of soil plant hydrological interactions, the quantification of root mechanical reinforcement remains a challenge. In this paper we couple root reinforcement models wit...

This paper reports a soil bio-engineering technical assessment program conducted in the Santo Domingo, Ecuador region. Autochthonous plant species survivorship and vegetative growth was evaluated in a short-term palisade experimental regime. Among the four species evaluated, Brugmansia versicolor, Malvaviscus penduliflorus, and Trichanthera gigante...

The variety of Soil bioengineering techniques usable for disaster mitigation, environmental restoration and poverty reduction is nowadays little known in developing countries. Research on authochtonal plants suitable for this kind of works is the essential first step for the divulgation of this discipline. The present paper is focused on this issue...

Background and Aims The quantification of root reinforcement function is important for landscape managers and engineers. The estimation of root mechanical reinforcement is often based on models that do not consider the potential interaction between neighbouring roots. Root-soil mechanical interactions related to the root spacing and bundle geometry...

The presence of terraced areas in Italy is known since a long time. Terraced areas are found all over in Italy, from the Alps to the Apennines and in the insular Italy, both in the hilly and mountainous zones, representing distinguishing elements of the cultural identity of the country, in particular of the rural areas. From the 50’s, the progressi...

Vegetation significantly influences the hydrological and mechanical properties which are relevant for the stability of shallow soils along sloping surfaces. In view of the complexity of soil plant hydrological interactions, the quantification of root mechanical reinforcement remains a challenge. In this paper we couple root reinforcement models wit...

The vertical plant-root distribution within the soil is strongly affected by the hydrological and pedological characteristics of a site. In turn, the root profile influences the stability of a slope through the root anchorage to deeper layers and consequent soil reinforcement. The purpose of this study is to determine an approximated root profile b...

The vertical plant-root distribution within the soil is strongly affected by the hydrological and pedological characteristics of a site. In turn, the root profile influences the stability of a slope through the root anchorage to deeper layers and consequent soil reinforcement. The purpose of this study is to determine an approximated root profile b...

Riparian vegetation plays a crucial role in affecting the floodplain hydraulic roughness, which in turn significantly influences the dynamics of flood waves. Systematic detection, identification and assessment of flow resistance factors using conventional field sampling is often unfeasible as these techniques are time-consuming and expensive. As in...

The paper aims at evaluating to what extent the forest cover can explain the component of runoff coefficient as defined in a regional flood frequency analysis based on the application of the rational formula coupled with a regional model of the annual maximum rainfall depths. The analysis is addressed to evaluate the component of the runoff coeffic...