Gherardo Chirici

University of Florence | UNIFI · Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agrarie Alimentari Ambientali e Forestali (DAGRI)

Key message This work analyses the rate of recovery of the spectral signal from clearcut areas of coppice Mediterranean forests using Landsat Time Series (LTS). The analysis revealed a more rapid rate of spectral signal recovery than what was found in previous investigations in boreal and temperate forests. ContextThe rate of post-disturbance veget...

Strong winds may uproot and break trees and represent a major natural disturbance for European forests. Wind disturbances have intensified over the last decades globally and are expected to further rise in view of the effects of climate change. Despite the importance of such natural disturbances, there are currently no spatially explicit databases...

Spatial predictions of forest variables are required for supporting modern national and sub-national forest planning strategies, especially in the framework of a climate change scenario. Nowadays methods for constructing wall-to-wall maps and calculating small-area estimates of forest parameters are becoming essential components of most advanced Na...

The lack of multi-dimensional data is one of the major gaps which limit the knowledge and the assessment possibilities of European forests. Nowadays, the most extensive and complete data on the European forest statuses are given by National Forest Inventories (NFIs) which provide information about the extent of forest’s resources and their composit...

Spatially and temporally discontinuous canopy height footprints collected by NASA's GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation) mission are accessible on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud computing platform. This study introduces an open-source, user-friendly, code-free GEE web application called Canopy Height Mapper (CH-GEE), available at htt...

Increased awareness of the importance of urban green spaces has led to an interest in studying ecology and biodiversity protection in populated areas. Urban environments face challenges such as the removal of dead wood, which threaten ecosystem functions. This study examines biodiversity indicators in the urban environments of three Italian cities...

Introduction: Biodiversity monitoring represents a major challenge to support proper forest ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. The latter is indeed shifting in recent years from singlespecies to multi-taxon approaches. In this context, remote sensing is a powerful tool, continuously providing consistent and open access data at diff...

Assessing the biodiversity (B), naturalness (N), and old-growth status (OG) of forests is essential in establishing sustainable forest management plans and achieving worldwide preservation objectives. In this context, National Forest Inventories (NFIs), the official source of statistics on the status and trends of forests at the national level, may...

The role of forests in providing multiple goods and services has been recognized worldwide. In such a context, reliable spatial predictions of forest attributes such as tree volume and current increment are fundamental for conducting forest monitoring, improving restoration programs, and supporting decision-making processes. This article presents t...

Stand age significantly influences the functioning of forest ecosystems by shaping structural and physiological plant traits, affecting water and carbon budgets. Forest age distribution is determined by the interplay of tree mortality and regeneration, influenced by both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Unfortunately, human-driven alteration...

Carbon assimilation and wood production are influenced by environmental conditions and endogenous factors, such as species auto-ecology, age, and hierarchical position within the forest structure. Disentangling the intricate relationships between those factors is more pressing than ever due to climate change's pressure. We employed the 3D-CMCC-FEM...

In European mountains most beech forest areas have been managed for timber production. This practice has reduced the availability of biomass for the whole forest-dwelling species assemblage and of deadwood for the saproxylic community. Despite most of Italy's beech stands having a long history of management, its effects on forest species remain poo...

Remote sensing products are typically assessed using a single accuracy estimate for the entire map, despite significant variations in accuracy across different map areas or classes. Estimating per-pixel uncertainty is a major challenge for enhancing the usability and potential of remote sensing products. This paper introduces the dataDriven open ac...

Cities accommodate most of the global population making urban environment one of the most impacted by anthropogenic activities. The monitoring of biodiversity indicators in urban areas is therefore a sensible topic that generates significant interest. Even in an urban environment the approach the multi-taxon approach is frequently applied to correl...

A recently proposed modelling strategy predicts the net primary production (NPP) of forest ecosystems by combining the outputs of a NDVI-driven model, Modified C-Fix, and a bio-geochemical model, BIOME-BGC. This combination strategy takes into account the effects of forest disturbances but still assumes the presence of a mixture of differently aged...

At the end of 2014, the tortoise pine scale Toumeyella parvicornis (Cockerell) was recorded in Italy (Napoli) for the first time (Garonna et al., 2018). The insect rapidly spread attacking stone pine trees Pinus pinea L., a species representative of the Mediterranean landscape. In 2018, T. parvicornis was reported also in Rome and led to the decay...

Carbon assimilation and wood production are influenced by environmental conditions and endogenous factors, such as species auto-ecology, age, and hierarchical position within the forest structure. Disentangling the intricate relationships between those factors is more pressing than ever before due to the pressure of climate change. Yet, our underst...

Negli ambienti urbani, l’intensa gestione del territorio, l’inquinamento e la rimozione del legno morto dalle foreste urbane rappresentano una minaccia per numerose specie e per il funzionamento degli ecosistemi. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è di esaminare gli indicatori di biodiversità (struttura forestale, microhabitat degli alberi, coleotteri e ucc...

The quantification of tree-related microhabitats (TreMs) and multi-taxon biodiversity is pivotal to the implementation of forest conservation policies, which are crucial under the current climate change scenarios. We assessed the capacity of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data to quantify biodiversity indices related to both forest beetle and bird c...

Accurate structural information about forests, including canopy heights and diameters, is crucial for quantifying tree volume, biomass, and carbon stocks, enabling effective forest ecosystem management, particularly in response to changing environmental conditions. Since late 2018, NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission has m...

Tree age plays an essential role in forest ecosystems' functioning by affecting structural and physiological plant traits that modulate the water and carbon budgets. On the other hand, tree age distribution in forests depends on population dynamics and, therefore, on the balance between tree mortality and regeneration events, which are ultimately c...

Forest types are key factors to consider when monitoring forests, particularly in consideration of the increasing need to assess how climate change is affecting different forests in Europe and beyond. A comprehensive classification system is indeed essential for understanding the diverse forest ecosystems, tracking their changes over time and acros...

Stand age significantly influences the functioning of forest ecosystems by shaping structural and physiological plant traits, affecting water and carbon budgets. Forest age distribution is determined by the interplay of tree mortality and regeneration, influenced by both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Thus, human-driven alteration of tree...

Process-based Forest Models (PBFMs) offer the possibility to capture important spatial and temporal patterns of both carbon fluxes and stocks in forests, accounting for ecophysiological, climate and geographical variability. Yet, their predictive capacity should be demonstrated not only at the stand-level but also in the context of large spatial an...

Assessing forest biodiversity, naturalness and old-growth status (B-N-OG) is crucial for supporting sustainable forest planning, yet comprehensive monitoring networks specifically designed for such purposes are lacking in many countries. National Forest Inventories (NFIs) are the official source of statistics on status and trends of forests. While...

In the context of the potential future use of unmanned ground vehicles for forest inventories, we present the first experiences with SPOT, a legged robot equipped with a LiDAR instrument and several cameras that have been used with a teleoperation approach for single-tree detection and measurements. This first test was carried out using the default...

Le Strategie Europee per le Foreste per la Biodiversità e per il Suolo, insieme alla Strategia Forestale Nazionale, riconoscono l'importanza cruciale della gestione forestale sostenibile nell'affrontare nuove sfide. Queste sfide comprendono l'aumento della gravità e della frequenza di eventi di disturbo naturali, come tempeste di vento, siccità e p...

The purpose of this chapter is to provide necessary context and demonstrate different approaches for image composite generation when using data quality flags, using an initial example of removing cloud cover. We will examine different filtering options, demonstrate an approach for cloud masking, and provide additional opportunities for image compos...

In this study we evaluated the effects that currently in-use sylvicultural practices have on the tree features affecting biodiversity indicators in high beech forests in the Tuscan Apennines. The field work was carried out in five study areas: three areas with different age managed with the uniform shelterwood system, one area managed with the sing...

We selected 47 points in mixed silver fir-beech forest in the Nature Reserve of Vallombrosa (Central Italy) to assess the level of biodiversity and the relationship between forest age and structure, tree-related microhabitats (TRMs), insect community (saproxylic species) and bird community (cavity nesters). Bird were surveyed using a standardized a...

Osmoderma eremita and Cerambyx cerdo are saproxylic beetle species, included in the IUCN Red List and in the EU/92 Habitats Directive. Their occurrence has been recorded, through appropriate traps, in several localities in Italy, including urban and peri-urban parks, mostly associated with veteran trees. In this study, traps were tested over 17 vet...

Process-based Forest Models (PBFMs) offer the possibility to capture important spatial and temporal patterns of both carbon fluxes and stocks in forests, accounting for ecophysiological, climate and geographical variability. Yet, their predictive capacity should be demonstrated not only at the stand-level but also in the context of large spatial an...

The attention of the new EU Forest Strategy for 2030 is focused on developing sustainable strategies to revert biodiversity loss in managed forests. In the managed beech forests of Central Italy (Molise), the diversity of saproxylic species is under threat by intensive management and interventions are needed to revert this negative trend. To evalua...

Forest ecosystems with complex structures provide a wide variety of habitats and ecological niches that guarantee high levels of biodiversity. Remote sensing techniques have been widely used to quantify the heterogeneity and complexity of forest ecosystems. In particular, airborne laser scanning (ALS) by providing three-dimensional information of t...

Forests provide many services to society but climate change, biotic, and abiotic forest disturbances are altering ecological systems. Among these, Mediterranean pine forests, distinctive environmental elements of the Italian coastal area for both natural and historical reasons, are particularly susceptible. As evidenced by numerous wind damages, dr...

Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and intensity, posing a threat to forest ecosystems and eliciting forest-pest outbreaks. In the southern Italian Alps, a dramatic windthrow called Vaia occurred in October 2018, shifting populations of the European spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus) from an endemic to an epidemic phase. Remote-se...

Wildfire regimes affected by global change have been the cause of major concern in recent years. Both direct prevention (e.g., fuel management planning) and land governance strategies (e.g., agroforestry development) can have an indirect regulatory effect on wildfires. Herein, we tested the hypothesis that active land planning and management in Ita...

Il settore forestale in Italia si trova ad affrontare problematiche legate alla necessità di valorizzare le opportunità ambientali, territoriali e socio-economiche. La ricerca è chiamata a tradurre i progressi tecnologici in applicazioni pratiche. Un ambito in forte sviluppo è quello della geomatica e delle tecnologie dell'informazione e comunicazi...

A change in local environmental characteristics may: favour the abundance of species with special traits, while other species decline; or favour species with different traits at the same time, without andiamo increase in average species abundances. In this work, we analysed the beetle assemblage over five forest sites located protected areas along...

Biodiversity monitoring represents a major challenge to support forest ecosystems. In this context, remote sensing is a powerful tool, continuously providing free data at a different range of spatial and temporal scales. In particular, Sentinel-2 (S2) mission has great potential to produce reliable proxies for biological diversity. In the Gran Sass...

La gestione delle foreste e la programmazione del settore forestale necessitano di informazioni aggiornate e affidabili. In Italia non è ancora disponibile una mappa forestale a scala nazionale. In parte delle Regioni e Province Autonome sono state realizzate in modo indipendente carte forestali seguendo specifiche esigenze e normative locali. Nel...

Afforestation is one of the most effective processes for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and combating global warming. Landsat data and machine learning approaches can be used to map afforestation (i) indirectly, by constructing two maps of the same area over different periods and then predicting changes, or (ii) directly, by constructi...

Afforestation processes, natural and anthropogenic, involve the conversion of other land uses to forest, and they represent one of the most important land use transformations, influencing numerous ecosystem services. Although remotely sensed data are commonly used to monitor forest disturbance, only a few reported studies have used these data to mo...

Biodiversity monitoring represents a major challenge to supporting proper forest ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation. The latter is indeed shifting in recent years from single-species to multi-taxon approaches. However, multi-taxonomic studies are quite rare due to the effort required for performing field surveys. In this context, re...

Background Gradients in local environmental characteristics may favour the abundance of species with particular traits, while other species decline, or favour species with different traits at the same time, without an increase in average species abundances. Therefore, we asked: do variations in species and traits differ along gradients of deadwood...

Forest ecosystems’ structure and biomass monitoring are crucial for understanding the contribution of forests to the global greenhouse gas balance. NASA’s Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission collects waveform lidar data to estimate Above Ground Biomass Density (AGBD). While of great interest, GEDI data are challenging to download...

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...

Several political initiatives aim to achieve net-zero emissions by the middle of the twenty-first century. In this context, forests are crucial as a carbon sink to store unavoidable emissions. Assessing the carbon sequestration potential of forest ecosystems is pivotal to the availability of accurate forest variable estimates for supporting interna...

The model-assisted difference and regression estimators are increasingly used with forest inventory and remotely sensed data to increase the precision of estimates of inventory parameters. Although these estimators date back at least 50 years and appear in multiple current sampling textbooks, the associated terminology is inconsistently defined, ev...

Within the Paris Agreement's Enhanced Transparency Framework, consistent data collections are the prerequisite for a successful reporting of GHG emissions. For such purposes, NFIs are usually the primary source of information, even if they are frequently not designed for producing estimations on a yearly basis and in the form of wall-to-wall high-r...

Forests provide many services to society but climate change, biotic, and abiotic forest disturbances are altering ecological systems. Among these, Mediterranean pine forests, distinctive environmental elements of the Italian coastal area for both natural and historical reasons, are particularly susceptible. As evidenced by numerous wind damages, dr...

1. Introduction Forests play a pivotal role in climate change mitigation since they act as a relevant carbon sink, absorbing a relevant amount of human carbon emissions. Natural disturbances, such as fires, insect outbreaks, and windthrows are an integral part of ecosystem dynamics in forests around the globe. However, due to climate change, forest...

Introduction Biodiversity monitoring represents a major challenge in forest ecosystems and where conservation strategies have shifted from single-species protection toward a multi-taxon approach. Multitaxonomic studies linking biodiversity to forest structural variables are quite rare, due to the effort required for field surveys. In this context,...

Introduction Forests have provided human societies with essential ecosystem services and great economic values for centuries. Particularly, forests play a key role in mitigating greenhouse gases and fighting climate change. However, several environmental stressors threaten the integrity and ecological functionalities of forests. In recent decades,...

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...

Chestnut coppices are among the formation most affected by fires in the Mediterranean environment. In the absence of cultivation treatments, the structure of the stands appears without vertical and horizontal interruptions in the canopy, with a considerable expansion of the fuel load. In this study, we showed the importance of silvicultural interve...

The study of afforestation is crucial to monitor land transformations and represents a central topic in sustainable development procedures, in terms of climate change, ecosystem services monitoring, and planning policies activities. Although surveying afforestation is important, the assessment of the growing forests is difficult, since land cover h...

Forests cover 30% of the Earth's landmass, host 80% of the biodiversity on land, and represent one of the main sinks of carbon. Studying forest ecosystems and dynamics is more crucial than ever now that the climate is changing. On the other hand, forest structural attributes and microhabitats data acquisition is challenging, and require huge effort...