Piermaria Corona

• Director at Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria (CREA - Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Italy)

While forest statistics are currently released at NUTS-1 (macro-regions) or NUTS-2 (administrative regions) levels, advancements in remote sensing technology may improve their accuracy at smaller spatial units. To explore the potential contribution of remote sensing in downscaling forest cover rates to finer administrative levels, we run a quantita...

Trees in urban environments play a crucial ecological role, helping to mitigate air pollution, reduce urban heat islands, improve stormwater drainage, and provide essential ecosystem services such as biodiversity conservation. Street trees, in particular, form an interconnected network within the urban fabric, offering the potential to link various...

La viabilità forestale rappresenta un tema di grande interesse per le principali istituzioni nazionali e regionali con competenze in materia di foreste e ambiente. Il Testo Unico delle Foreste e Filiere Forestali ha definito una disciplina minima uniforme per tutte le Regioni italiane. In questo contesto, un successivo Decreto Ministeriale ha emana...

Afforestation and reforestation are integral components of the wider field of land management. When these initiatives integrate the diverse eco-biological, landscape, cultural, and socioeconomic characteristics of the intervention area they can achieve substantial environmental improvements also by improving ecosystem functions, commonly referred t...

For the first time, spatially explicit representation of classification errors of land use/land cover (LULC) maps is approached from a design-based perspective. Since LULC maps are typically derived from non-probabilistic training samples, these maps, like the true LULC map, are fixed in a design-based scenario so that the error maps achieved by co...

Environmental Sustainability and Global Change: Forests, Agriculture, and Soils vis à vis Human Disturbance offers an integrated approach to the socio-environmental dynamics of the ecological-economic nexus characteristic of Mediterranean landscapes. Evidencing the role of policies targeting sustainable development goals in Southern Europe, case st...

This note presents the application of the maximum stand basal area concept from the Assmann's theory to determine the intensity of thinning of even-aged forest stands. The proposed procedure is based on the observation that, all other factors being equal, the current annual increment of wood volume tends to increase as the ratio between the stand b...

Based on the evidence from the recently updated list of the most influential forestry researchers worldwide from a bibliometric perspective, along with other analyses, this note offers some reflections in the form of a brief, commented discussion on the need for greater recognition of experimental research in silviculture. 1. È stato recentemente p...

Starting from five significant events that have occurred in the past two years, this note provides an overview of the global situation regarding forests and forestry. Specifically, it highlights the need to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation through sustainable forest management, afforestation, reforestation, and ecosystem restor...

The Bosnian pine is a relict species of the Tertiary Oro-Mediterranean forests, with a distribution mainly extended over the Balkan peninsula and disjunct Italian populations on the mountain ranges between the regions of Basilicata and Calabria. The ability to adapt to harsh climatic conditions, to survive in difficult environments and the wide alt...

Il Testo Unico in materia di Foreste e Filiere forestali (decreto legislativo n. 34/2018) ha dato centralità alla pianificazione per la gestione delle foreste. Nel rispetto dei ruoli e delle competenze istituzionali, all’art. 6 viene definita la gerarchia della programmazione e pianificazione forestale. Nel 2021 è stato emanato il decreto intermini...

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...

Consumers are increasingly interested in chestnuts for their health benefits and also for their organoleptic qualities. It is therefore very important to enhance the chestnut from a sensorial point of view. The sensorial characteristics of commercial chestnuts from three Italian Marrone cultivars (M1 ‘Marrone di Antrodoco’; M2 ‘Marrone dei Monti Ci...

La recente Legge 9 ottobre 2023, n. 136 si è posta l'obiettivo di adeguare il regime autorizzativo sotto il profilo paesaggistico per gli interventi di gestione selvicolturale dei boschi di notevole interesse pubblico a quelli tutelati ex lege ai sensi del Decreto Legislativo 22 gennaio 2004, n. 42, eliminando il cosiddetto «doppio vincolo paesaggi...

In Italy, the area of reforestations amounts to approximately half a million hectares, a large part of which is dominated by conifers. In recent decades, problems have emerged related to the potential instability of these stands, often caused by lack of silvicultural management. This communication summarizes the results of a study on silvicultural...

The current demand for wood products is growing globally. Hybrid poplars are fast growing trees and it is beneficial to expand their cultivation area. Digital mapping techniques based on land suitability assessment can effectively support land use decision-making processes in this perspective. The aim of this study was to develop a model to produce...

Due to their health benefits, the interest in chestnuts is increasingly evident from consumers, who also greatly appreciate their organoleptic taste. For this reason, it is of great importance to recognize chestnuts as valuable from a sensorial point of view. In this study, Castanea sativa nuts from Italy (Marrone vs. “Chataigne” cultivars) are eva...

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...

Plant science is entering a new paradigm for engagement and interactions enabled by the metaverse. Standing on the pillars of advanced technologies like extended reality (XR), a catchall term for augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR), the plant science metaverse actively supplements brick-and-mortar campuses. It engag...

In Italia, la consociazione tra alberi forestali, seminativi, colture orticole, prati, pascoli, alberi da frutto, olivi e vite hanno dato luogo a veri e propri paesaggi agricoli arborati, di particolare qualità anche estetica. I sistemi agroforestali determinano un più efficiente uso delle risorse naturali rispetto a quelli monocolturali, tuttavia,...

Negli ultimi decenni le foreste hanno dovuto affrontare rischi crescenti a livello globale. Eventi estremi hanno danneggiato molti ecosistemi forestali. La gestione forestale deve prendere in considerazione la variabilità delle condizioni naturali e considerare le mutevoli possibilità con cui gli eventi possono verificarsi. Scopo di questa nota è i...

Forest landscapes are increasingly valued from an environmental and cultural point of view and a change of scientific paradigm has been promoted by the definition of silvosystemics which, by abandoning the output-oriented vision of forest management, favors the conservation of forests as complex ecosystems, rich in not only economic but also enviro...

premessa La percezione dei boschi è molto cambiata nel corso degli ultimi due secoli nel nostro Paese, determinando un quadro normativo e istituzionale dinamico, e a tratti complesso. Questi cambiamenti avvengono come risultato di interazioni composite, di grande interesse per l'analisi in una prospettiva storica. Alla luce di ciò, il presente sagg...

La percezione dei boschi in Italia è cambiata nel corso dei secoli determinando un quadro normativo e istituzionale molto dinamico, e a tratti complesso. La nascita dell’amministrazione forestale dello Stato coincide con la promulgazione nel 1822, nel Regno di Piemonte e Sardegna, delle Regie Patenti che istituiscono l’amministrazione per la custod...

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...

In time, forests have been both reserve and resource, but starting from the Enlightenment, forest utilization became the object of scientific enquiry and forestry turned to mathematics and geometry to organize wood production, adopting a reductionist and determinist scientific paradigm. In the last decades forests are increasingly valued from the...

Il decreto legislativo n. 34 del 3 aprile 2018 (Testo Unico in materia di Foreste e Filiere forestali, TUFF) dispone che il sistema di pianificazione forestale gestito dalle Regioni e Province Autonome sia, in una certa misura, uniformato a scala nazionale. In questa prospettiva, al fine di uniformare anche gli elaborati della pianificazione, l’art...

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...

Fuel management for wildfire risk prevention generally lacks economic sustainability. In marginal areas of southern Europe, this limits fuel treatment programs from reaching the critical mass of required treated area to modify landscape flammability, the fire regime and its impacts. This study investigates key fuel management initiatives for wildf...

Using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, environmental benefits in terms of CO2 stored in chestnut wood in Italy have been calculated. Using one of the methodologies proposed under the LCA umbrella, a physical and formal balance sheet of CO2 has been built. Chestnut forests (Castanea sativa Mill.) are one of the most critical forest types in...

La necessità di gestire il dinamismo del paesaggio forestale italiano, significativamente segnato dalla crescente estensione delle superfici boschive, e, al contempo, la fruizione delle utilità ecosistemiche fornite dal bosco ha condotto all’aggiornamento della legislazione forestale con specifico riferimento anche al tema del paesaggio: in partico...

La necessità di gestire il dinamismo del paesaggio forestale italiano, significativamente segnato dalla crescente estensione delle superfici boschive, e, al contempo, la fruizione delle utilità ecosistemiche fornite dal bosco ha condotto all’aggiornamento della legislazione forestale con specifico riferimento anche al tema del paesaggio: in partico...

Scientific publishing is a crucial way to communicate research, as well as being a means of demonstrating individual merit and institutional potential in science. Scientific journal editors are the main gatekeepers in such processes. As Editor-in-chief and Vice-Editor-in-chief of Annals of Silvicultural Research (ASR, indexed on Scopus and ranked s...

In recent decades the need for new legislative and technical tools to counter the main threats to the world's forests has been increasingly felt. Currently, the European Union (EU) has moved towards the implementation of the new deforestation-free products Regulation (EUDR) which builds on the experience gained by Member States and EU institutions...

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...

Questo studio nasce a supporto della pianificazione territoriale in campo energetico e si propone i seguenti obiettivi: i) quantificare l’estensione delle aree marginali (AM) potenzialmente coltivabili con colture da biomassa ad uso energetico; ii) stimare le quantità di acqua necessaria alla produzione di dette colture; iii) stimare le quantità di...

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...

Pyrosilviculture and understory fuel management to reduce forest stand and landscape flammability represent loss-making interventions from an economic point of view. Consequently, prevention is carried out above all on public property and with public funds (e.g. Rural Development Programs), while the interest of the private individual for preventio...

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...

Spadoni GL, Moris JV, Vacchiano G, Elia M, Garbarino M, Sibona E, Tomao A, Barbati A, Sallustio L, Salvati L, Ferrara C, Corona P, Marchetti M, Motta R, Ascoli D. 2022. Active land management mitigates wildfires impacts in Italy. Fire Ecology Across Boundaries, 4-7 October, Florence (Italy).

The recent forestry law in Italy (TUFF) provides that the forest planning system managed by the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces should be, to a certain extent, standardized on a national scale. In this perspective, in order to standardize also the forest planning documents, a specific implementing decree, issued at the end of 2021, provides fo...

A completely data‐driven, design‐based sampling strategy is proposed for mapping a forest attribute within the spatial units tessellating a survey region. Based on sample data, a model is selected, and model parameters are estimated using least‐squares criteria for predicting the attribute of interest within units as a linear function of a set of a...

Le reti di imprese possono rappresentare un efficace strumento di promozione e valorizzazione delle potenzialità selvicolturali e delle filiere forestali. Dopo una presentazione del contratto di rete quale strumento di cooperazione tra imprese, questo lavoro analizza la disciplina specifica dettata per le reti agricole, per poi illustrare la rispos...

The European Union Rural Development Program (RDP) is a major driver of landscape change over time in Europe. In a context of climate and land use changes and consequent fire risk exacerbation, understanding the possible contribution of RDP measures to wildfire risk mitigation could help planning subsidies allocation criteria in a more efficient wa...

This paper presents the application of a recently proposed modelling strategy to yield high spatial resolution estimates of net forest carbon fluxes in Tuscany (Central Italy). The simulation of forest net primary production (NPP) and net ecosystem production (NEP) is based on the combination of remotely sensed and ancillary data which describe the...

The European Union aims to provide as much as one quarter of its transportation fuels via biofuels derived from renewable sources by 2030. To put this into perspective, the Italian government has recently established an ambitious goal to support the wider uptake of advanced second-generation biofuels, including cellulosic biofuels for the transport...

NASAs Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting space-borne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDIs footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a descript...

is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (~25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final...

Wildfire risk prevention through fuel management generally lack of economic sustainability. In marginal areas of southern Europe, this limits fire prevention programs to reach the critical mass of interventions required to modify landscape flammability, the fire regime and its impacts.This study investigates key fuel management initiatives for wild...

Forests represent the largest green infrastructure worldwide, and their protection and enhancement are a responsibility of the whole society, being a common good, linked to history and culture. The future of our planet depends on how we perceive, protect, and manage this heritage. Forests are saved if they are at the center of society's interest. C...

The quality of research is the lifeline to get a good wood science, as science generally; embracing a 'publish but don't perish' stance might be a valuable insight to stride this science forward. A focus on quality rather than quantity of published material would greatly reinvigorate our science and entrepreneurial capabilities, ensure continued pu...

The world production of chestnuts has significantly grown in recent decades. Consumer attitudes, increasingly turned towards healthy foods, show a greater interest in chestnuts due to their health benefits. Consequently, it is important to develop reliable methods for the selection of high-quality products, both from a qualitative and sensory point...

Poplars are one of the most widespread fast-growing tree species used for forest plantations. Owing to their distinct features (fast growth and short rotation) and the dependency on the timber price market, poplar plantations are characterized by large inter-annual fluctuations in their extent and distribution. Therefore, monitoring poplar plantati...

Tree-related microhabitats (hereafter TreMs) are structures occurring on trees, such as rot holes, cavities, large nests, mould, fruiting bodies and myce-lia of decomposer fungi. TreMs have been widely recognized as important sub-strates and structures useful for biodiversity conservation in forest ecosystems , and they can be used as indicators fo...

Model-assisted estimation of forest wood volume is approached exploiting the wall-to-wall information available from satellite data and partial information achieved from airborne laser scanning (ALS) covering a portion of the survey area. If the portion covered by ALS is selected by a probabilistic sampling scheme, two-phase estimators are consider...

L’importanza dei boschi misti è sempre più riconosciuta a livello scientifico per la loro maggiore multifunzionalità rispetto ai popolamenti puri. Tuttavia, la mappatura dei popolamenti misti a scala di dettaglio rappresenta, al momento, una operazione non semplice con procedure semi-automatiche. Questa nota ha come obiettivo la presentazione di un...

Site conditions and forest management affect dendrometric parameters of chestnut ( Castanea sativa Mill.) coppices, but there is modest knowledge on the effect of stand dendrometric characters on physical and mechanical wood characteristics. The aim of this study was to verify these relationships in chestnut coppices that were 12–14 years old. Wood...

Science has recently been accelerating at a fast rate (∼3.5% per year in the compound annual growth rate of the number of papers published in scientific journals, according to Scopus source). There are now more scholarly communications than ever before, and scientists have too many choices of journals to read, refer, and where to submit: therefore,...

Accurate estimates of canopy cover (CC) are central for a wide range of forestry studies. As direct measurements are impractical, indirect optical methods have often been used to estimate CC from the complement of gap fraction measurements obtained with restricted-view sensors. In this short note we evaluated the influence of the image pixel resolu...

In the recent decades, growing demand for wood products, combined with efforts to conserve natural forests, has supported a steady increase in the global extent of planted forests. In this paper, a two-phase sampling strategy for large-scale assessment of hybrid poplar plantations in Northern Italy was implemented. The first phase was performed by...

In recent history, both a growing awareness of how scientific and societal uncertainty impacts management decisions and of the intrinsic value of nature have suggested new approaches to forest management, with a growing debate in forest science over the need for a paradigmatic shift from the classic conventional world view, based on determinism, pr...

Cities are responsible for more than 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Sequestration of air pollutants is one of the main ecosystem services that urban forests provide to the citizens. The atmospheric concentration of several pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO 2), tropospheric ozone (O 3), and particulate matter (PM) can be reduced by urba...

In Italy, forest tree crops cover an area of about 100,000 hectares of farmland: more than half are represented by specialized poplar plantations, while the remaining consists mainly of hardwood broadleaves plantations. The profitability of poplar and hardwood broadleaved plantations, assessed by field data collected on a representative number of p...

In the Mediterranean region, the coupled effect of recent changes in climatic features and an increase in human-related water demand induced a progressive reduction in the water level of many lakes. Consequently, intense withdrawals for public supply can affect the health of lake ecosystems and increase trees’ vulnerability to predicted drought int...

Key message The adoption of new silvicultural methods and approaches requires an understanding of the differences between those and “old” or “conventional” approaches, along with extensive training to break previous knowledge bias. Context Forestry is in transition towards ecosystem-based management, and new silvicultural approaches are appearing w...

The estimation of individual values (marks) in a finite population of units (e.g., trees) scattered onto a survey region is considered under 3P sampling. For each unit, the mark is estimated by means of an inverse distance weighting interpolator. Conditions ensuring the design‐based consistency of maps are considered under 3P sampling. A computatio...

Sustainability and ecotoxicity issues call for innovations regarding eco-friendly adhesives in the production of biocomposite wood materials, and solutions involving nano-scale and bio-based compounds represent a valid and promising target. One possible approach is to increase the performance of adhesives such as polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) or melamin...

This technical note describes a quick methodology to classify the phytodepurative potential of riparian forest stands. Some municipalities located within landscapes characterized by both intensive agricultural and industrial activities in Central Italy are considered as test areas. Starting from the on-screen interpretation of high-resolution digit...

The inland and mountain areas are territories characterized by conditions of infrastructural and socio-economic disadvantage, but at the same time rich in environmental and cultural resources. The Italian strategy for inland areas aims to enhance their natural and human capitals. In this context, this work aims to investigate whether and how the te...

Growing demand for wood products, combined with efforts to conserve natural forests, have supported a steady increase in the global extent of planted forests. Here, a two-phase sampling strategy for large-scale assessment of the total area and the total wood volume of fast-growing forest tree crops within agricultural land is presented. The first p...

Cork oak forests (Quercus suber L.) are one the most interesting forest ecosystems in the western Mediterranean Basin. The aim of this technical note is the presentation of the results of a recent survey carried out in the Calabria region (southern Italy) on the current distribution of cork oak forests. At present , there are few isolated forest st...

Plant traits—the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants—determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research sp...

Research Highlights: Chestnut trees’ (Castanea sativa Mill.) growth and their responses to climate are influenced by stand-characteristics and managements. This study highlighted that chestnut tree-ring growth is not particularly influenced by climate, while minimum temperature showed a positive relation with both intrinsic water-use efficiency (WU...

La strategia nazionale per le aree interne contempla, tra gli obiettivi diretti a promuovere lo sviluppo, la valorizzazione dei sistemi agricoli e forestali mediante la costituzione di forme partenariali in grado di garantire una stretta cooperazione tra produzione primaria, trasformazione e commercializzazione e l’attivazione di filiere di energie...

Water availability is a major limiting factor in plant productivity and plays a key role in plant species distribution over a given area. New technologies, such as terahertz quantum cascade lasers (THz-QCLs) have proven to be non-invasive, effective, and accurate tools for measuring and monitoring leaf water content. This study explores the feasibi...

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...

L’analisi delle citazioni è un metodo bibliometrico comunemente utilizzato per valutare l’attività scientifica svolta da ricercatori e istituzioni in uno specifico campo di ricerca. In questo lavoro sono valutate e confrontate le riviste forestali italiane peer-reviewed - Annals of Silvicultural Research, Dendronatura, Forest@, iForest, L’Italia Fo...

Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) is an important exotic tree species that was planted across a large part of Europe during the last century. In both experimental trials and conventional forest plantations, the trees grow at a high rate and produce high-quality timber. The present study investigated climate-growth relationships of...

Three quarters of the European population live in urban areas, which is expected to increase to over 80% by 2050. The well-being of urban citizens appears to be closely linked to the correlation between the growth of urban areas and to the availability of green spaces. The conservation and the enhancement of the Green Infrastructure (GI) can be con...

Key message ICP Forests relies on a representative pan-European network based on a 16 × 16 km grid-net covering around 6000 plots. Dead wood volumes for 3243 plots, related to 19 European Countries, are presented in this data paper as a result of harmonised sampling procedure, and under compliance with FAIR Data Principles. Dataset access is at htt...