Maria Teresa Melis

Maria Teresa Melis
Università degli studi di Cagliari | UNICA ·  Department of Chemical and Geological Science

Professor

About

107
Publications
51,585
Reads
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697
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2016 - June 2017
Università degli studi di Cagliari
Position
  • Scientific responsible for TeleGIS Lab, University of Cagliari of the research line on features extraction from remote sensing data Remote Sensing and GIS Expert
Description
  • Europlanet Transnational Access Project: The Azrou Plateau (middle Atlas, Morocco): A Perfect Terrestrial Analogue For Studying Both Karst And Lava Tube Collapses With Remote Sensing Techniques And Field Geology.
July 2016 - July 2016
Università degli studi di Cagliari
Position
  • Professor
Description
  • 24 hours for the students of the course of Earth Sciences
June 2016 - present
Università degli studi di Cagliari
Position
  • Project Manager
Description
  • H2020 Project: FLOWERED (de-FLuoridation technologies for imprOving quality of WatEr and agRo-animal products along the East African Rift Valley in the context of aDaptation to climate change).

Publications

Publications (107)
Article
Full-text available
A comparison between the ASI-PRISMA (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana-PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) DLR-EnMAP (German Aerospace Center—Environmental Mapping and Analysis Program) data and field spectrometer measurements has been performed. The test site, located at the “Sale ‘e Porcus” pond (hereafter SPp) in Western Sardinia, Italy...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
L'altopiano vulcanico quaternario di Azrou (Medio Atlante, Marocco) si estende per 2 (De Waele, Melis, 2009). Tali basalti coprono i calcari e le dolomie del Mesozoico, un esteso acquifero carsico che dà origi-nomeni di crollo nei basalti utilizzando aeree (Martin, 1981). Williams le de-caprock" presenza di vuoti carsici sottostanti. Tuttavia, in q...
Article
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In this study, the presence of permafrost layer and its potential variation in the last three decades will be examined through the multitemporal analysis of satellite data in the area of the Deosai Plateau (Northern Pakistan). In the area, only global maps on the potential presence of permafrost layer are known. The results are based on the evaluat...
Article
Full-text available
ABSTRACT: This study aims to introduce a semi-automatic classification workflow for the production of a land use/land cover (LULC) map of the island of Sardinia (Italy) following the CORINE legend schema, and a ground spatial resolution compatible with a scale of 1:25.000. The classification is based on free high-resolution satellite imagery from S...
Thesis
Full-text available
MSc thesis dealing with the potentialities of classification algorithms emerging from the study and modelling of glaciers systems along the Himalaya chain.
Article
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Hundreds of large and deep collapse dolines dot the surface of the Quaternary basaltic plateau of Azrou, in the Middle Atlas of Morocco. In the absence of detailed topographic maps, the morphometric study of such a large number of features requires the use of remote sensing techniques. We present the processing, extraction, and validation of depth...
Article
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Accurate estimates of spatial and temporal distribution of groundwater recharge are of utmost importance to protect groundwater systems. In coastal areas, the fragility of the systems makes such estimates critical for the correct management and protection of water resources from saltwater intrusion. The Muravera coastal plain, in the south-eas...
Article
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Forest ecosystems have a crucial role for biodiversity conservation, providing a large set of ecosystem services. Understanding and assessing forest disturbance regimes on a large spatial and temporal scale is a prerequisite setting up sustainable forest management solutions. In this context, Remote Sensing is an efficient tool frequently used in l...
Article
Even if the ecological role of trees outside forests (TOF) is acknowledged, few studies provide an exhaustive census and define their principal characteristics, considering not only the patch size but also the effect of the surrounding land-use type on TOF biodiversity. Using a multiphase sampling design, we provided a map showing the spatial distr...
Article
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The mechanical strength is a fundamental characteristic of rock masses that can be empirically related to a number of properties and to the likelihood of instability phenomena. Direct field acquisition of mechanical information on tall cliffs, however, is challenging, particularly in coastal and alpine environments. Here, we propose a method to eva...
Article
As a semi-enclosed crater basin on the northwest rim of Imbrium basin, Sinus Iridum is a key site to investigate the geological characteristics at the intersection of two basins. For this reason, we focused on model age determination in Sinus Iridum basin using Chang’E−2 high-resolution images coupled with compositional maps from the Clementine dat...
Article
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Deosai plateau, in the Gilgit-Baltistan Province of Pakistan, for its average elevation of 4,114 meters, is the second highest plateau in the world after Changtang Tibetan Plateau. Two biogeographically important mountain ranges merge in Deosai: the Himalayan and Karakorum–Pamir highlands. The Deosai National Park, with its first recognition in 199...
Article
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Coastal retreat is a non-recoverable phenomenon that—together with a relevant proneness to landslides—has economic, social and environmental impacts. Quantitative data on geological and geomorphologic features of such areas can help to predict and quantify the phenomena and to propose mitigation measures to reduce their impact. Coastal areas are of...
Article
Full-text available
On the surface of the Moon a large number of linear features are recognizable. Long and narrow depressions are defined as lunar rilles. Their morphology has different characteristics, related to their origin. Among these, the sinuous rilles represent lineaments considered remnants of shallow lava channels. In this study, a quadrant of the Moon has...
Article
The assessment of cliffs instability to understand the dynamics of erosive phenomena and the dynamics of coastlines, in relation to the geomorphological and hydrodynamic characteristics of the coast is an important challenge worldwide, mainly where coastal retreat imply an economic impact. The MAREGOT Project (MAnagement des Risques de l'Erosion co...
Chapter
The assessment of cliffs instability to understand the dynamics of erosive phenomena and the dynamics of coastlines, in relation to the geomorphological and hydrodynamic characteristics of the coast is an important challenge worldwide, mainly where coastal retreat imply an economic impact. The MAREGOT Project (MAnagement des Risques de l'Erosion co...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Riassunto Lo studio proposto è parte della realizzazione di un prodotto innovativo per la integrazione in un unico ambiente di lavoro dei dati di monitoraggio acquisiti da satellite e da proximal sensing e dei dati legati alla gestione del territorio. In particolare si presentano i primi risultati del progetto SardOS-Sardegna Osservata dallo Spazio...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Riassunto Lo studio proposto ha l'obiettivo di integrare in un unico ambiente di interpretazione i fenomeni di instabilità rilevati sul campo e le misure di umidità del terreno elaborate da dati radar, in un settore della Sardegna centrale. In particolare, viene proposta una cartografia multi-temporale in cui, alla specifica fenomenologia franosa l...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Riassunto Il monitoraggio attraverso tecnologie di rilevamento remoto del territorio, è considerata un'attività strategica dei consorzi di bonifica, in quanto permette di sviluppare programmi di controllo sull'utilizzo delle risorse idriche, sull'individuazione di eventuali punti di dispersione nella rete di distribuzione e sul monitoraggio dello s...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Cliffs instability affects most coastal environment worldwide. Different approaches have been applied to understand the dynamics of erosive phenomena to respond to planning needs of risk-mitigation, mainly where coastal retreat implies an economic impact. In this study an integrated geological approach is proposed, which considers the emerged and s...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Although based on the same basic principles as on Earth, planetary geological-geomorphological mapping has some peculiarities which needs to be addressed in order to standardize the technical and scientific approach. Planetary mapping is data-dependent (i.e., images resolution, availability of spectral data, etc.), which implies differences between...
Conference Paper
Cliffs instability affects most coastal environment worldwide. Different approaches have been applied to understand the dynamics of erosive phenomena to respond to planning needs of risk-mitigation, mainly where coastal retreat implies an economic impact. In this study an integrated geological approach is proposed, which considers the emerged and s...
Article
Full-text available
The increasing availability of satellite data is a real value for the enhancement of environmental knowledge and land management. Possibilities to integrate different source of geo-data are growing and methodologies to create thematic database are becoming very sophisticated. Moreover, the access to internet services and, in particular, to web mapp...
Article
Full-text available
Landslides have been observed on several planets and minor bodies of the solar System, including the Moon. Notwithstanding different types of slope failures have been studied on the Moon, a detailed lunar landslide inventory is still pending. Undoubtedly, such will be in a benefit for future geological and morphological studies, as well in hazard,...
Article
Full-text available
Aeolian processes in drylands often transcend into sand encroachment, a common form of land degradation. Highly reflective desert features, hence sandy areas, often cause spectral confusion, and mapping through remote sensing techniques can be challenging. This work aims at designing an efficient classification method that minimises spectral confus...
Article
Full-text available
This study is part of the EU H2020 research Project FLOWERED (de-FLuoridation technologies for imprOving quality of WatEr and agRo-animal products along the East African Rift Valley in the context of aDaptation to climate change). FLOWERED project aims to develop technologies and methodologies at cross-boundary catchment scales to manage the risks...
Chapter
In this paper, we present the comparison and validation of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Version 3.0 Global 1 Arc-Second (SRTMGL1) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model Version 2 (ASTER GDEM2) applied to two areas of Maghreb region (Biskra, Algeria...
Article
Land cover, land use, soil salinization, and sand encroachment, which are desertification-indicating features, were integrated in a diachronic assessment, obtaining quantitative and qualitative information on the ecological state of the land, particularly degradation tendencies. In arid and semi-arid study areas of Algeria and Tunisia, sustainable...
Article
Abstract. In the Wadi Biskra arid and semiarid areas, sustainable development is restricted by land degradation processes such as secondary salinization of soils. Being an important high-quality date production region of Algeria, this area needs continuous monitoring of desertification indicators, hence highly exposed to climate-related risks. Give...
Article
Full-text available
The Italian national project, NEXTDATA, is focused to favour the implementation of measurements networks in remote mountain and marine areas and develop efficient database structure to archive and access meteoclimatic and paleoclimatic proxies derived from ice core, marine core, tree ring and pollen. They give precious information about the evoluti...
Article
The assessment of slope instability in small drainage basins is relevant because their impacts affecting population and infrastructure are usually very fast and sometimes destructive. This study presents the methodological approach to assess the stability of a small granitic river basin located in the South-West of Sardinia (Italy). In the drainage...
Article
Full-text available
Geological slope failure processes have been observed on the Moon surface for decades, nevertheless a detailed and exhaustive lunar landslide inventory has not been produced yet. For a preliminary survey, WAC images and DEM maps from LROC at 100 m/pixels have been exploited in combination with the criteria applied by Brunetti et al. (2015) to detec...
Article
Full-text available
The research project ‘Moon Mapping’ has been established in 2014 between the Italian and Chinese Governments to promote cooperation and exchange between undergraduate students from both countries. The operational phase of the project started in early 2015, and will end in 2017, for a total length of three years. The main aim is to train new scholar...
Article
Full-text available
Geological slope failure processes have been observed on the Moon surface for decades, nevertheless a detailed and exhaustive lunar landslide inventory has not been produced yet. For a preliminary survey, WAC images and DEM maps from LROC at 100 m/pixels have been exploited in combination with the criteria applied by Brunetti et al. (2015) to detec...
Article
Full-text available
The research project ‘Moon Mapping’ has been established in 2014 between the Italian and Chinese Governments to promote cooperation and exchange between undergraduate students from both countries. The operational phase of the project started in early 2015, and will end in 2017, for a total length of three years. The main aim is to train new scholar...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper presents the preliminary results of a research carried out in the Medenine area, Southern Tunisia, aimed at the spectral characterization of salt-affected and sand encroachment areas, as restrictive factors for agro-pastoral activities. Spectral data was acquired in situ using a handheld spectroradiometer and samples were taken for X-ray...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In the Wadi Biskra arid and semi-arid area, sustainable development is limited by land degradation, such as secondary salinization of soils. As an important high quality date production region of Algeria, it needs continuous monitoring of desertification indicators, since the bio-physical setting defines it as highly exposed to climate-related risk...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The exploration of the Moon has become an important goal for several countries in order to set up foundations for future exploration of mineral resources. In the framework of the cooperation project " Moon Mapping " between Italy and P.R. China, a working group has been established to study landslides inside impact craters. So far, WAC (Wide Angle...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The interaction of wind and water over time is arguably the key influence upon the contemporary geomorphology and longer-term landscape development of arid regions of the world. Aeolian processes in arid and semi-arid areas need constant monitoring, as they often translate into sand encroachment, a common form of land degradation. The monitoring of...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Arid regions of Maghreb (North Africa) suffer scarce water conditions and the erratic behaviour of rainfall events over brief intervals often produce short and intense floods events which converge into ephemeral wadi beds. The watershed of wadi Oum Zessar, in South-East Tunisia, is characterized by a rainfall rate of about 200 mm/year, overexploita...
Article
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The implementation of a webGIS service platform dedicated to the management and sharing of climatological data acquired by high elevation stations is the core of the Station at High Altitude for Research on the Environment (SHARE) GeoNetwork project, promoted by the Ev-K2 CNR Committee. The web platform basically will provide three types of service...
Article
Full-text available
Unequivocal delimitation of landforms is an important issue for different purposes, from science-driven morphometric analysis to legal issues related to land conservation. This study is aimed at giving a new contribution to the morphometric approach for the delineation of the boundaries of volcanic edifices, applied to 13 monogenetic volcanoes (sco...
Conference Paper
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This study is dedicated to the development of a webGIS service platform for the environment data sharing, which is carrying out in the framework of the Italian national project NextData. This project is supported by Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and a part is mainly dedicated to the study of climate change in the last 2000 years...
Conference Paper
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Dust storm is a complex process influenced by the interaction of earth-atmosphere system, mainly caused by high wind speed, bared soil and dry air condition. It often takes place in arid and semi-arid areas caused usually by dry and cold front, resulting in ascending airflows and in turn raising dust to upper levels of atmosphere (Omidvar K. and Kh...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
In a context of climate change and fragile environmental and economic background, the arid and semi-arid land of Tunisia faces great challenges as vulnerability of productive land to degradation is accelerated by human interventions. Thus, there is a strong need of continuous temporal and spatial monitoring of land cover/land use change and the dyn...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This study is dedicated to the development of a webGIS service platform for the environment data sharing. This new service is integrated into national and international projects supported by EvK2-CNR Committee and mainly focused on climate change studies. The system is based on the integration of the metadata catalogue Geonetwork and a dedicated da...
Article
Full-text available
Unequivocal delimitation of landforms is an important issue for different purposes, from science-driven morphometric analysis to legal issues related to land conservation. This study is aimed at giving a new contribution to the morphometric approach for the delineation of the boundaries of volcanic edifices, applied to 13 monogenetic volcanoes (sco...
Conference Paper
The European Landscape Convention, recently adopted in Italy, indicates specific landforms to be selected as special protected sites. Active and inactive volcanic edifices, defined as the products of evolution of aggradational (lava effusion, pyroclastic deposition, magma intrusion) and degradational processes (erosion, deformation, gravitative phe...
Conference Paper
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The Ria of Malfatano is the site of the most important maritime structures from the Punic-Roman times in the Mediterranean, whereby the bay’s two opposing monumental structures have been preserved between - 7 and - 2 meters due to the rising sea levels. Piscinnì quarries have recently been recognized together with other archaeological finds belongi...
Article
Full-text available
A new project was recently initiated for the realization of the "Land Unit and Soil Capability Map of Sardinia" at a scale of 1:50,000 to support land use planning. In this study, we outline the general structure of the project and the methods used in the activities that have been thus far conducted. A GIS approach was used. We used the soil-landsc...
Chapter
Full-text available
Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. By reducing air pollution levels, it is possible to reduce the global burden of disease from respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer. Air pollution is a major environmental health problem able to produce ser...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Autonomous Region of Sardinia has recently funded the first batch of the " Land Unit and Soil Capability Map of Sardinia " at scale 1:50,000, as a support tool for spatial planning in coastal areas. The morphometric study carried out within the project starts from the need to develop thematic maps describing the physiographic units defined as a...
Conference Paper
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The study is part of the project activities WADIS -MAR, a demonstration project funded by the European Commission through the Sustainable Water Integrated Management (SWIM) Programme http://www.wadismar.eu). The overall objective is to achieve an integrated system of aquifer recharg , also based on the enhancement of the traditional methods of wate...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The study was developed as part of the "Project of Strategic Interest - PNR 2011-2013 NextData." The project provides for the creation of a national system for the collection, preservation, accessibility and dissemination of environmental and climate data. A specific database has been developed for the collection of paleo-climatological data from i...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The paper presents the application of a new methodology for geomorphological analysis for the recognition of shapes that define the bed of watercourses. The proposal addresses the need legislation to protect the watercourses as Article 142, paragraph 1, letter c of D. Decree 42/2004, Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape, which incorporates prote...