Special Session 16

Soil conservation is a key issue in maintaining the balance of both natural and agricultural ecosystems. Accelerated soil water erosion is one of the main forms of soil degradation and can lead, in a relatively short time, to environmental conditions unsuitable for plant growth and for crop production, which are difficult to reverse. There are several onsite and offsite impacts due to soil erosion, such as yield losses in agricultural lands, thinning and crusting of topsoil, reduced water infiltration, displacement of pollutants via runoff, loss of reservoir storage, sedimentation into channels leading to flooding and modification of sediment regime that can strongly influence river morphology and water quality. Despite the progress made in recent years in monitoring the variables involved in soil erosion processes and in modelling soil loss at different temporal and spatial (plot, hillslope, basin) scales, it is still necessary to improve the knowledge about these complex processes. Therefore, measuring soil loss, sediment yield, and the controlling variables by accurate methods and cutting-edge technologies and tools is a current and urgent issue, especially in the perspective of an increased anthropic and climatic pressure on the soil resource.

Contributions are expected to focus on, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Rainfall simulations in laboratory- and field-based studies on erosion processes;
• Instruments and technologies to measure rainfall kinetic energy and rainfall erosivity;
• Proximal and remote sensing tools and methods for measuring sheet and channelized (rill and gully) erosion at plot, hillslope, and basin scales;
• Instruments and methods for measuring and monitoring bed and suspended sediment load at basin scale;
• Use of radionuclides for spatially distributed measurements.

Lorenzo Vergni is an Associated Professor at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences of the University of Perugia and has a Ph.D. in Sustainable Rural Development. His research mainly focuses on measuring and modelling soil erosion at plot and basin scales and on developing agro-hydrological models for agricultural drought monitoring and irrigation planning and management. He is the author of several papers in scientific journals with impact factor and conference proceedings with international diffusion.

Vincenzo Pampalone is Assistant Professor at the Department of Agricultural, Food and Forest Sciences of the University of Palermo and Ph.D. in Environmental Hydronomy. His research activity mainly focuses on measuring and modeling soil erosion and sediment yield, resistance law of overland and rill flows, and open-channel flows (hydraulic jump, stream restoration works, outflow processes, flow measurement). Author of more than 120 papers published in journals with impact factor or conference proceedings, many of which concern soil water erosion. He is inventor, together with other colleagues, of the Italian patent “Device and method for measuring the rainfall kinetic power”.

Giovanni Francesco Ricci is a Researcher at the Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Bari, Italy, and is Ph.D. in Biodiversity, Agriculture and Environment. His research mainly focuses on modeling soil erosion and sediment transport and field activities aming at measuring streamflow and sediment transport at the basin scale. He also investigates the effect of the watershed management policies and the implementation of Best Management Practices on soil erosion. He is the author of several papers published in journals with impact factor and conference proceedings most of which focused on soil erosion.