Salvatore Eugenio Pappalardo

• PhD in Geography, PhD in Agronomy
• Researcher at University of Padua

The transition to renewable energy is crucial for combating climate change but faces challenges like local socio-environmental impacts and territorial conflicts. Scientific research on mapping renewable energy suitability areas and identifying socio-culturally and environmentally sensitive zones is essential to guide project siting appropriately. T...

There are many examples of projects and activists whose efforts to achieve environmental and spatial justice have been strengthened by digital participatory mapping methodologies and tools (Albagli and Iwama, 2022; Brown and Kyttä, 2018; Cochrane and Corbett, 2019; Haklay et al., 2018; Rawat and Wie Yusuf, 2020; Sletto et al., 2020). Increased acce...

In recent decades, the phenomenon of urban heat islands has intensified due to the increased frequency, magnitude, and duration of extreme weather and climate events. The study of urban microclimates plays a crucial role in implementing actions to reduce thermal stress caused by urban heat islands. Typically, urban heat islands are identified throu...

Extreme events related to climate change are increasing in intensity, frequency, and duration worldwide. Europe is identified as a heatwave hotspot, with trends three-to-four time faster than the northern mid-latitudes; effects of heatwaves are combined in urban contexts with the heat island phenomenon, making cities critical for climate risk preve...

The influence of climatic factors on landslides triggers and displacement rates is a crucial research topic, especially due to the growing need to understand the evolution of climate change in historical periods of intense precipitation and anomalous temperature increases. Italy, highly prone to hydrogeological instability, extremely its mountainou...

Recent GIS technologies are shaping the direction of Precision Agriculture and Viticulture. Sentinel-2 satellites and UAVs are key resources for multi-spectral analyses of vegetation. Despite being extensively adopted in numerous applications and scenarios, the pros and cons of both platforms are still debated. Researchers have currently investigat...

The interconnection of urban contexts represents the baseline for the quality of life within them. An efficient urban mobility system ensures environmental, economic and social sustainability. It promotes inclusivity by fostering access to urban facilities and services. Moreover, it enables improvement to the organisation of urban space by allowing...

Recent times have witnessed wildfires causing harm to both ecological communities and urban-rural regions, underscoring the necessity to comprehend wildfire triggers and assess measures for mitigation. This research hones in on Cartagena del Chairá, diving into the interplay between meteorological conditions and land cover/use that cultivates a con...

Climate change has led to a dramatic increase in extreme events worldwide. Predictions for a + 1.5 ◦C world indicate that 13.8% of the global population will be exposed to heat waves (HWs), a proportion rising to 36.9% in a + 2 ◦C scenario. At present, about 9.6 M people in the EU and UK are exposed to extreme heat every year. Overheating has vario...

Impacts of climate change and air pollutants are a growing concern. Reliable and accessible monitoring systems to assess air quality and climate extremes are essential to inform decision-makers and increase awareness of citizens. Approaches from Volunteered Geography play a pivotal role both in research and empowerment by new low-cost technologies....

Urban Green Spaces (UGS) contribute to the sustainable development of the urban ecosystem , positively impacting quality of life and providing ecosystem services and social benefits to inhabitants. For urban planning, mapping and quantification of UGS become crucial. So far, the contribution of private green spaces to ecosystem services in urban ar...

Nitrogen (N) deposition significantly affects forest dynamics, carbon stocks and biodiversity, and numerous assessments of N fluxes and impacts exist in temperate latitudes. In tropical latitudes, however, there are few such assessments. In this study, we measured the inorganic N concentration (wet deposition) deposited in rainfall and rainfall pH...

Despite the ongoing impacts of climate change around the world, fossil fuels continue to drive the global economy. The socio-environmental impacts of oil development at the local level are widely recognized, especially in high biocultural diversity areas, highlighting the need to develop and implement effective policies that protect both biodiversi...

Freshwater ecosystems are the most vulnerable environments worldwide and the most biodiverse, providing essential ecosystem services. The role of land management in agriculture is paramount with the dramatic increase in pesticides: two million tonnes used worldwide (47.5% herbicides, 29.5% insecticides, and 17.5% fungicides) are jeopardising freshw...

This work intends to lay the foundations for identifying the prevailing forest types and the delineation of forest units within private forest inventories in the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT), using currently available remote sensing solutions. In particular, data from LiDAR and hyperspectral surveys of 2014 made available by PAT were acquire...

Freshwater ecosystems are the most vulnerable environments worldwide and the most biodiverse, providing essential ecosystem services. The role of land management in agriculture is paramount with the dramatic increase in pesticides: two million tonnes used worldwide (47.5% herbicides, 29.5% insecticides, and 17.5% fungicides) are jeopardising freshw...

This work intends to lay the foundations for identifying the prevailing forest types and the delineation of forest units within private forest inventories in the Autonomous Province of Trento (PAT), using currently available remote sensing solutions. In particular, data from LiDAR and hyperspectral surveys of 2014 made available by PAT were acquire...

The mitigation of urban heat islands (UHIs) is crucial for promoting the sustainable development of urban areas. Geographic information systems (GISs) together with satellite-derived data are powerful tools for investigating the spatiotemporal distribution of UHIs. Depending on the availability of data and the geographic scale of the analysis, diff...

The last two decades have seen the development and diffusion of new technologies that can help in managing geographic information. This has led to a proliferation of grassroots processes for exploring, creating and sharing geographical data as a way for citizens to take part in decision making in different kinds of processes.However, these ongoing...

Weeds are one of the major issues in agricultural production and they are present in most agricultural systems. Due to the heterogeneity of weed distribution, understanding spatial patterns is paramount for precision farming and improving sustainability in crop management. Nevertheless, limited information is currently available about the differenc...

Soil degradation is one of the main environmental issues within the international agendas on sustainability and climate adaptation. Among degradation processes, soil sealing represents the major threat, as ecosystem services dramatically decrease or are even nullified. The increasing use of big open data from satellites combined with AI algorithms...

In the Ecuadorian Amazon - one of Earth's last high-biodiversity wilderness areas and home to uncontacted indigenous populations – 50 years of widespread oil development is jeopardizing biodiversity and feeding environmental conflicts. In 2019, a campaign to eliminate oil-related gas flaring, led by Amazonian communities impacted by fossil fuel pro...

Veneto, one of the most densely populated, industrialized and tourist regions in Italy, also has the sad distinction of being one of the ftrst to have seen Covid-19 arrival in its territory. The maps and reflections produced far the Veneto region have brought out some aspects related to the analysis of the pandemie and the consequences of the lockd...

Land use and land cover change (LULC) is an essential component for the monitoring environmental change and managing natural resources in areas of high natural and cultural biodiver�sity, such as the Amazon biome. This study was conducted in in the northern Amazon of Ecuador, specifically in the Diversity and Life Zone (DLZ) of the Yasuní Biosphere...

The rising environmental issues on contemporary cities urgently calls for sustainable planning policies. Implementation of nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, and green infrastructures associated to green spaces management is at present of paramount importance. In contrast to policies mainly focused on public greenery, the inclusion of priv...

Weed management is a crucial issue in agriculture, resulting in environmental in-field and off-field impacts. Within Agriculture 4.0, adoption of UASs combined with spatially explicit approaches may drastically reduce doses of herbicides, increasing sustainability in weed management. However, Agriculture 4.0 technologies are barely adopted in small...

The main objective of this research was to critically examine the concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in an oil concession of the Ecuadorian Amazon inhabited by indigenous villages. In this paper we present the qualitative data of the semi-structured interviews and the household survey with village residents. The main findings revealed the i...

The purpose of this research was to critically analyze the social license to operate (SLO) for an oil company operating in Block 10, an oil concession located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The specific study area is an important biodiversity hotspot, inhabited by indigenous villages. A mixed-methods approach was used to support a deeper understanding o...

Soil sealing is a worldwide phenomenon of covering of natural or seminatural soil with impervious surfaces, such as built-up or paved surfaces. It is widely recognized as a major environmental issue which drives landscape fragmentation and ecosystem services degradation and loss. Italy is one of European countries with the highest extent of soil se...

Focusing on a sustainable and strategic urban development, local governments and public administrations, such as the Veneto Region in Italy, are increasingly addressing their urban and territorial planning to meet national and European policies, along with the principles and goals of the 2030 Agenda for the Sustainable Development. In this regard,...

Con il rapido sviluppo delle tecnologie digitali per la raccolta, gestione e diffusione di dati spaziali, la ricerca geografica ha beneficiato in anni recenti di numerosi contributi basati sulla partecipazione o collaborazione di cittadini, singolarmente o in gruppo, facilitata da tecnologie dell'informazione geografica, geotool, geoapp. Processi d...

Over the last few years, soil sealing has been recognized as one of the major threats in terms of soil degradation and loss of ecosystem services. Although many efforts have been promoted to increase the awareness of safeguarding soil for stakeholders, its value as a non-renewable resource as well as soil-related services in urban ecosystems is not...

In the Amazon Rainforest, a unique post-carbon plan to mitigate global warming and to protect the exceptional bio-cultural diversity was experimented in 2007-2013 by the Ecuadorian government. To preserve the rainforest ecosystems within the Yasuní-ITT oil block, the release of 410 million metric tons of CO2 would have been avoided. The neologism "...

Riassunto Abstract Negli ultimi vent'anni le ricerche scientifiche sui sistemi agricoli ter-razzati si sono intensificate, ponendo l'attenzione sia sulle caratte-ristiche biofisiche che sull'importanza del recupero per la gestione e valorizzazione del patrimonio territoriale. Se da un lato numerosi studi hanno permesso di cartografare, quantificare...

Agricultural lands are the widest Human-modified ecosystems, making crop production the most extensive form of land use on Earth. However, in conventional agricultural land management, soil erosion may be boosted up to 1–2 orders of magnitude higher than the natural rates of soil production, making unproductive about the 30% of the world’s arable....

LS factor map. Map showing LS factor values in the Prosecco DOCG: reduction of LS values is visible along terraced landforms, and 0 values along the main stream networks. (TIF)

Data set and RUSLE calculation. Description of R, LS and K factors. (DOCX)

R factor map. Map showing R factor values and weather stations in the Prosecco DOCG. (TIF)

Prosecco, one of the most widespread sparkling wine in the world, is produced in Northeast Italy by a rate of 400 M bottles per year, with the fastest growing demand in the global market at present. A production of 90 M bottles year-1 is currently running in the historical Prosecco sector (215 km2), defined as the Controlled and Guaranteed Designat...

Since the 1980s, Italian terraced landscapes have become the object of scientific attention, with a significant increase in systematic studies only in the last twenty years. However, the state of knowledge is still fragmentary. The studies were initially concentrated in limited areas considered particularly significant from an environmental or hist...

Agricultural terraced systems and their geographical distribution are not often represented in maps, even if they play an important role in hydro-geological hazard: Moreover, detailed cartography of these features could improve understanding and valuing their environmental, social, and economic complexity. The general aim of the MAPTER project is t...

Dal primo Summit sul cambiamento climatico nel 1992, il dibattito sociale, politico e scientifico sulla relazione tra global warming ed utilizzo di combustibili fossili ha avuto un crescendo esponenziale, evidenziando come le politiche di sviluppo vadano coniugate sempre più con sostenibilità ambientale ed energetica. Nel periodo compreso tra il 20...

La Geographic Information Science è stata considerata la “causa comune per la ricerca interdisciplinare” (Onsrud, Kuhn, 2015). Nell'era dei sistemi aerei a pilotaggio remoto, l’Università di Padova ha avviato con l’anno accademico 2015/2016 un nuovo master di secondo livello in “GIScience e Sistemi a Pilotaggio Remoto (SAPR) per la gestione integra...

Climate change currently represents the tip of the iceberg of the human footprint on the Biosphere, showing social and environmental impacts both on local and global scales. McGlade and Ekins (2015) argued that to keep the temperature from increasing by 2 °C, more than 80% of coal, 50% of gas and 30% of oil reserves must remain "unburnable" undergr...

Gli obiettivi di sostenibilità al 2030 del settore del oil & gas indicano come prioritario l'impegno delle compagnie petrolifere nella promozione dello sviluppo sostenibile delle comunità presenti nei territori in cui esse operano. In questo modo l'impresa può raggiungere più facilmente la cosiddetta Social Licence to Operate (SLO), ovvero il livel...

Riassunto Abstract Il bacino del Mediterraneo, uno dei più importanti hotspot di biodi-versità a livello mondiale, è interessato da attività di ricerca ed estra-zione di petrolio e di gas, con il potenziale rischio di effetti negativi sui suoi delicati ecosistemi. Nonostante le importanti implicazioni, in letteratura le relazioni spaziali fra opera...

b) Master di secondo livello in GIScience e SPR per la gestione integrata del territorio e delle risorse naturali, Abstract Gli obiettivi di sostenibilità al 2030 del settore del oil & gas indicano come prioritario l'impegno delle compagnie petrolifere nella promozione dello sviluppo sostenibile delle comunità presenti nei territori in cui esse ope...

Nel Nordest italiano, e in special modo in Veneto e a Padova, il fenomeno del consumo di suolo e dei suoi effetti negativi sull'ecosistema urbano possiede dimensioni rilevanti: come affermano i dati del rapporto ISPRA 2018, il Veneto è al secondo posto tra le regioni italiane con maggior suolo consumato e circa la metà del territorio comunale padov...

Nel 1999 l'Ecuador, primo paese al mondo, istituiva una zona Intangibile riservata al diritto all'autodeterminazione dei popoli incontattati Tagaeri-Taromenane. Nel 2007 la Zona Intangibile Tagaeri-Taromenane (ZITT) veniva finalmente delimitata occupando un'area di 7500 km 2 della regione amazzonica ai confini con il Peru, perpetuamente vietata ad...

L'estrazione di combustibili fossili è un'attività che ha ormai raggiunto aree remote ad alta diversità biologica e culturale, tra le quali desta gran preoccupazione l'espansione della frontiera petrolifera in Amazzonia occidentale, specialmente nella Riserva della Biosfera Yasunì (YBR), uno dei luoghi più biodiversi del pianeta e casa ancestrale d...

The purpose of this research, still ongoing, is to put forward and test a model to measure the concept of Social Licence to Operate (SLO), analysing benefits, limits and possibilities of adopting this tool in the oil context of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The study area is Block 10, an important biodiverse hotspot inhabited by four indigenous groups and...

1 ABSTRACT With the advent of climate-related issues and low-carbon economy, networks of cycle paths and tracks are becoming a more and more relevant mobility infrastructure for cities. However, mapping their critical points in order to fix them to improve liveability and accessibility can be difficult. One solution may be to combine digital techno...

L’aumento di consumo di suolo rappresenta, oggigiorno, una problematica sempre più urgente che coinvolge principalmente le aree urbane e peri-urbane: cemento, asfalto, nuove costruzioni e infrastrutture limitano, o sovente annullano, il corretto svolgimento delle funzioni ecologiche ed idrauliche del suolo. Tale fenomeno incide sui servizi ecosiste...

"Droni in viticoltura e frutticoltura: geoinformazione per agroecosistemi 4.0 in Veneto e Trentino" è il progetto finanziato dal bando FSE 2017 della Regione Veneto (DGR 2216/2016) denominato "La ricerca a sostegno della trasformazione aziendale; innovatori in azienda”. Obiettivo del progetto è mettere a disposizione delle aziende agricole venete,...

Precision viticulture (PV) requires the use of technologies that can detect the spatial and temporal variability of vineyards and, at the same time, allow useful information to be obtained at sustainable costs. In order to develop a cheap and easy-to-handle operational monitoring scheme for PV, the aim of this work was to evaluate the possibility o...

Nel Nordest italiano, e in special modo in Veneto e a Padova, il fenomeno del consumo di suolo e dei suoi effetti negativi sull'ecosistema urbano possiede dimensioni rilevanti: come affermano i dati del rapporto ISPRA 2018, il Veneto è al secondo posto tra le regioni italiane con maggior suolo consumato e circa la metà del territorio comunale padov...

L'utilizzo di satelliti commerciali o sensori prossimali ad alta risoluzione, incontra ancora grosse difficoltà di utilizzo al di fuori degli ambiti della ricerca. In ambito commerciale le analisi effettuate con tali strumenti, a causa dei costi e della poca conoscenza degli stessi, si riducono spesso ad utilizzi sporadici, diminuendone drasticamen...

Il progetto qui presentato è stato sviluppato a partire da giugno 2017 dall’Università degli Studi di Padova, attraverso il sostegno della Regione Veneto nell’ambito di un bando POR-FSE, con l‘obiettivo di mettere a disposizione delle aziende agricole venete competenze e conoscenze avanzate nell’impiego di Sistemi a Pilotaggio Remoto (SPR), di dati...

La Geographic Information Science è stata considerata la "causa comune per la ricerca interdisciplinare" (Onsrud, Kuhn, 2015). Nell'era dei sistemi aerei a pilotaggio remoto, l'Università di Padova ha avviato con l'anno accademico 2015/2016 un nuovo master di secondo livello in "GIScience e Sistemi a Pilotaggio Remoto (SAPR) per la gestione integra...

Scopo del lavoro è sperimentare l’uso di rilievi eseguiti con tecnologia MMS per valutare la potenziale attrattiva paesaggistica di una strada. Lo studio è stato condotto in via sperimentale su un unico tratto di strada in provincia di Treviso. Il rilievo della strada è stato visionato, identificando e mappando i tratti di strada per i quali la vis...

The increase of soil sealing is presently affecting urban areas by concrete surfaces, asphalt, new buildings, and infrastructures. This phenomenon is eroding important urban ecosystem services provided by the soil system: carbon sequestration, micro-climate regulation, mitigation of hydrogeological risk, water and air purification, cultural and aes...

Wetlands are a cornerstone of beneficial ecosystem services, especially in intensive agricultural landscapes characterised by nutrient loss, and shallow and surface water bodies. Water-purification services can trap 80–90% of the sediments and eliminate 70–90% of the entering nitrogen. An experimental wetland of 3.2 ha was created within the Veneti...

Para liberar los territorios de su destino y descubrir nuevos caminos posibles, tenemos que desarrollar dos exploraciones geográficas paralelas: una. en relación con mapas que distorsionan el terreno; y otra, para entender lo que está sucediendo. Esto es especialmente importante en lugares que no son inmediatamente accesibles, para hacer visible lo...

Direct and indirect ecological impacts of roads and their expansion are well documented: habitat degradation, ecosystem fragmentation, changes in natural drainage systems and water quality. Important landscape scale impacts concern roads about direct and indirect effects on deforestation and land use land cover change, that lead to habitat loss and...

Assessing ecosystem services (ES) and mapping their values are of paramount importance. Here we present two case studies where the participatory mapping of social values of landscape ecosystem services is used in territories with high levels of cultural and biological diversity (Adamello Brenta Natural Park in Italy and the Alto Mayo basin in the W...

Among the human activities characterized by higher negative effects on biodiversity conservation, there is the hydrocarbons extraction, with all the connected phases. The production of hydrocarbons, in fact, can lead to a wide range of effects on ecosystems including contamination of soil, water and air pollution, deforestation and habitat fragment...

Liguria Region is known to be a territory characterized by the presence of wide terraced areas. Of course, the most famous Ligurian terraced area is Cinque Terre, but all the regional territory registered the presence of terraced that a study of the University of Genova estimated in 30%. The use of LiDAR for the identification of terraced is a topi...

In intensive agricultural systems runoff is one of the major potential diffuse pollution pathways for pesticides and poses a risk to surface water. Ditches are common in the Po Valley and can potentially provide runoff mitigation for the protection of watercourses. The effectiveness depends on ditch characteristics, so there is an urgent need for s...

Analytical procedure. (DOCX)

Physical-chemical parameters of applied herbicides. (DOCX)

Modelling of the vegetated ditch. (DOCX)

Calculation of herbicides repartition in the vegetated ditch using the fugacity model. (DOCX)

Original data. (XLSX)

Traditional agricultural terraced landscapes presently embody an important cultural value to be deeply investigated , both for their role in local heritage and cultural economy and for their potential geo-hydrological hazard due to abandonment and degradation. Moreover, traditional terraced landscapes are usually based on non-intensive agro-systems...

The increasing availability of geographic information and the rapid development of new technologies for the management of geographic data (from drones, to WebGIS, to Mobile-GIS) require the updating, the reorganization and the development of decision-making processes in many sectors of the economy, public administration and the non-profit. At the...

La crescente disponibilità di informazioni geografiche e il rapido sviluppo di nuove tecnologie per la gestione dei dati geografici (dai droni, al WebGIS, al Mobile-GIS) richiedono l'aggiornamento, la riorganizzazione e lo sviluppo dei processi decisionali in molti settori dell'economia, dell’amministrazione pubblica e del non-profit. Allo stesso t...

El Estado Ecuatoriano en 1999 se ha comprometido en delimitar una Zona Intangible para los pueblos en aislamiento Tagaeri Taromenane, que debería vedar “a perpetuidad a todo tipo de actividad extractiva”. Pero hay una movilidad de los pueblos en aislamiento y se asiste a una movilidad de la frontera petrolera. Este trabajo utilizando el papel de la...