Adige River Research Articles

Genetic relationships and introgression events between wild and cultivated grapevines (Vitis vinifera L.): focus on Italian Lambruscos

Research efforts on genomic structure and ecology of wild populations of Vitis vinifera L. offer insights on grape domestication processes and on the assortment evolution of the cultivated forms. Attention is also paid to the origin of traditional, long-cultivated varieties, often producing renowned and valuable wines. The genetic relationships between 283 Vitis vinifera cultivated varieties (subsp. sativa) and 65 individuals from 9 populations of the sylvestris subspecies mainly from northern Italy were explored by means of molecular markers (27 nuclear and 4 chloroplastic microsatellites). Several episodes of contamination of the wild germplasm by the pollen of specific grape cultivars were detected, implying concern for maintaining the purity of the wild form. At the same time, events of introgression from the wild subspecies resulted playing a crucial role in the emergence of several cultivated varieties with a clear admixed genome ancestry sativa-sylvestris. These included Lambruscos originated from the flat areas crossed by the Po and Adige rivers in northern Italy, while other cultivars still called Lambrusco but typical of hilly areas did not show the same admixed genome. Historical and ecological evidences suggesting an adaptative recent post-domestication process in the origin of several Italian Lambruscos are discussed.

Temperature monitoring in levees for detection of seepage

Improving knowledge of existing levees through investigation and monitoring is an important step in evaluating their safety and that of the surrounding area. Nevertheless, these activities are complex due to the considerable levee length and the high spatial variability of soil composing the body and foundation, especially when paleo-rivers are present. In order to investigate the reliability of new advanced techniques proposed for characterizing the soil stratigraphy and the seepage condition within the levee foundation, a new test site was realized along the Adige River in Bolzano Province (Italy). Here, five boreholes, drilled in a 20-m-side square area straddling the embankment, host four different types of monitoring equipment, among which some are Distributed Fiber Optical Sensors (DFOS), here used for detecting the temperature variations along the well. The present paper focuses on the critical analysis of the preliminary results obtained with DFOS and their comparison with data obtained using traditional pressure and temperature probes. The monitoring data collected in the field during the passage of a flood that occurred on 5th August 2021 are used to better understand the hydraulic behavior and the safety conditions of the levee but also to fully assess the reliability and potential of DFOS.

Celto-Venetica: Indo-European Names from North-Eastern Italy and the Dialectal Classification of Venetic

This work tries to cast some light on a number of indigenous names of north-eastern Italy. It specifically addresses a selected number of names from Brixia and its environment, which lies in the west of Venetia et Histria, and close to the border of the Gallia Transpadana, covering an area that runs from the Oglio to the Adige rivers, around the Garda Lake. Most of these names have one thing in common: they are hardly ever found anywhere else, and, as a consequence, they have obtained a label: Jürgen Untermann called them Brescianisch, thus tacitly paving the way for considering them as a trace of an independent, unknown and unclassified dialect. That these names are not attested outside this area is not necessarily diagnostic of their not being Celtic or Italic, though the path leading to their classification may prove winding and indirect. Their etymology and attribution to either Celtic or Venetic will be thoroughly discussed. The study of the Venetic name fersimo comes to confirm the evolution of the complex superlative suffix *-is-m̥(H)o- > -izʊmo- > -īmo- is common to Sabellic and Venetic, where only the name meitima provided evidence for this change. Some misidentified or overlooked derivational and compositional patterns are addressed, such as the superlatives in -umus, the Celtic compounds in -gassi- and the probably both Italic and Celtic compounds whose first member is an Indo-European root-noun *ḱlu- ‘hearing.’ The personal names qverra, dievpala, endvbro, rvtvba, rvtvmanne, barbarvtae, aprofennivs are Venetic and decidedly bely the widespread notion that Italic did not preserve Indo-European compounds as personal names. The Celtic personal name vorvodisivs and the personal or divine name boxarvae are considered as belonging to a very ancient layer of Indo-European composition and, when possible, are connected to other compounds belonging to the same “semantic paradigms.” The analysis shows that it is premature to label these forms as Brescianisch — a new Indo-European dialect not attested in indigenous sources, which is in fact little more than a label for an onomastic landscape whose members are otherwise unattested but can be unproblematically linked to Continental Celtic and Italic.

Hydrological digital twin model of a large anthropized italian alpine catchment: The Adige river basin

Understanding and simulating the hydrological cycle, especially in a context of climate change, is crucial for quantitative water risk assessment and basin management. The hydrological cycle is complex as it is a combination of non-linear natural processes and anthropogenic influences that alter landforms and water flows. Human-induced changes of relevance, including changes in land uses, construction of dams and artificial reservoirs, and diversion of the river course, lead to changes in water flows throughout the basin. These should be explicitly accounted for a realistic representation of the anthropogenically altered hydrological cycle. Such a realistic representation of the hydrological cycle is a necessary input for the water risk assessment in a particular region. In this paper, we present a hydrological digital twin (HDT) model of a large anthropized alpine basin: the Adige basin located in the northeast of Italy.Most catchments model often overlook land-uses changes over time and forget to model reservoir operation and their influence over time on water flow. Yet, for example, the Adige basin has>30 reservoirs affecting the water flow. We therefore use the GEOframe modeling framework to demonstrate the ability to create a hydrological twin model accounting for these anthropogenic changes.Specifically, we model each component of the water cycle over 39 years (1980–2018) at daily timescale through calibration of the Adige HDT with a multi-site approach using discharge data of 33 stations, based on a high-resolution (1 km) temperature and precipitation dataset and a calculated crop potential evapotranspiration (PETc) dataset, which accounts for human-induced change of the land cover over time. The modeling system also includes the simulation of artificial reservoirs and dams by the dynamically zoned target release (DZTR) reservoir model.The Adige HDT is assessed/validated/compared through a variety of hydrological processes (i.e., river and reservoir discharges, PETc and actual evapotranspiration, snow, and soil moisture) and data sources (i.e., observations and remote sensing data).Overall, the HDT reproduces well the measured discharge in space and time with a Kling Gupta Efficiency (KGE) above 0.7 (0.8) for 30 (23) of the 33 gauge-stations. For 7 artificial reservoirs with available data, the reservoir turbinated discharges are successfully reproduced with an average KGE of 0.92. A comparison between modeled and MODIS remote sensing snow data showed an average error of < 10% across the entire basin; the model also presented a good spatio-temporal agreement both with GLEAMS potential (and actual evapotranspiration) with an average KGE of 0.63 (0.60) and a high-level of correlation (0.5 on average) with the ASCAT satellite retrieved soil moisture.The findings of this paper demonstrate the potential of the open-source, component-based, GEOframe system to build a HDT, to provide a reliable and long term (39 years) estimation of all the water cycle components in a complex anthropized river basin at high spatial resolution. Spatially detailed HDT models results of this type can be used to inform basin-wise adaptation policy decisions and better water management practices in a time of changing climate.

Scale Dependence of Errors in Snow Water Equivalent Simulations Using ERA5 Reanalysis over Alpine Basins

This study aims to evaluate the potential of ERA5 precipitation and temperature reanalysis for snow water equivalent (SWE) simulation by considering the role of catchment spatial scale in controlling the errors obtained by comparison with corresponding SWE simulations from ground stations. This is obtained by exploiting a semi-distributed snowpack model (TOPMELT) implemented over the upper Adige River basin in the Eastern Italian Alps, where 16 sub-catchments of varying sizes are considered. The comparison is carried out from 1992 to 2019. The findings show that ERA5 precipitation overestimated low-intensity rainfall (drizzle problem) and underestimated high-intensity rainfall, while ERA5 temperature underestimated observations. The overestimation of low-intensity rainfall created fictitious low-intensity snowfall events, which, when combined with colder ERA5 temperature, resulted in delayed snowmelt and increased fictitious snow-cover days over the study area. The quantile mapping (QM) technique was used to remove errors in ERA5 variables. It was shown that ERA5 could struggle to resolve the orographic enhancement in precipitation, which may be particularly important during high-SWE years. This reduces the positive precipitation bias during those years, thus reducing comparatively the ability of the quantile mapping technique to correct for bias homogeneously during all years. This study highlighted the importance of temperature correction over precipitation correction in SWE simulation, particularly for smaller basins.

Unprecedented snow-drought conditions in the Italian Alps during the early 2020s

Snow represents a fundamental water resource for mountain and lowland areas. Changes in the frequency and magnitude of snow droughts can significantly impact societies and ecosystems that rely on snowmelt to satisfy their water demands. Here we documented and quantified the snow drought that affected the Italian Alps during the early 2020s. We used 15 long-term snow-depth series (period 1930–2023, elevation range: 864–2200 m a.s.l.) to simulate the snow water equivalent (SWE), in conjunction with climatic reanalysis data and river discharge observations. We found that the March SWE anomaly in 2022 reached the lowest value in the last century, due to an unprecedented combination of drier- and warmer-than-normal conditions in the period December 2021–March 2022. This event contributed to causing critical hydrological conditions in the Po and Adige rivers which, during summer 2022, experienced the worst hydrological drought ever recorded. Despite its unprecedented magnitude, the snow drought in 2022 is part of a recent pattern of increased intensity and frequency of snow-drought events since the 1990s, due to the combined increasing occurrence of warmer- and drier-than-normal climatic conditions during the snow season. Remarkably, three out of the five most severe snow-drought events occurred in the last five years, with exceptional snow-drought conditions even occurring in the last two consecutive winters, 2022 and 2023. The snow-drought conditions that occurred in the early 2020s in the Italian Alps warn of the pressing need for the implementation of impact mitigation measures to adapt to the fast changing snow and climatic conditions.

IT-SNOW: a snow reanalysis for Italy blending modeling, in situ data, and satellite observations (2010–2021)

Abstract. We present IT-SNOW, a serially complete and multi-year snow reanalysis for Italy (∼ 301 × 103 km2) – a transitional continental-to-Mediterranean region where snow plays an important but still poorly constrained societal and ecological role. IT-SNOW provides ∼ 500 m daily maps of snow water equivalent (SWE), snow depth, bulk snow density, and liquid water content for the initial period 1 September 2010–31 August 2021, with future updates envisaged on a regular basis. As the output of an operational chain employed in real-world civil protection applications (S3M Italy), IT-SNOW ingests input data from thousands of automatic weather stations, snow-covered-area maps from Sentinel-2, MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), and H SAF products, as well as maps of snow depth from the spatialization of over 350 on-the-ground snow depth sensors. Validation using Sentinel-1-based maps of snow depth and a variety of independent, in situ snow data from three focus regions (Aosta Valley, Lombardy, and Molise) show little to no mean bias compared to the former, and root mean square errors are of the typical order of 30–60 cm and 90–300 mm for in situ, measured snow depth and snow water equivalent, respectively. Estimates of peak SWE by IT-SNOW are also well correlated with annual streamflow at the closure section of 102 basins across Italy (0.87), with ratios between peak water volume in snow and annual streamflow that are in line with expectations for this mixed rain–snow region (22 % on average and 12 % median). Examples of use allowed us to estimate 13.70 ± 4.9 Gm3 of water volume stored in snow across the Italian landscape at peak accumulation, which on average occurs on 4 March ± 10 d. Nearly 52 % of the mean seasonal SWE is accumulated across the Po river basin, followed by the Adige river (23 %), and central Apennines (5 %). IT-SNOW is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7034956 (Avanzi et al., 2022b) and can contribute to better constraining the role of snow for seasonal to annual water resources – a crucial endeavor in a warming and drier climate.

Fortune and Decay of Lexical Expletives in Germanic and Romance along the Adige River

Lexical expletives can be divided into two main classes: (i) CP expletives required by the V2 constraint and, hence, by the necessity to lexicalize the position on the left of the inflected verb and (ii) TP expletives connected with the negative value of the pro-drop parameter and, therefore, with the necessity to lexicalize the ’structural‘ subject position, specifically, [Spec, TP]. The latter can, in turn, be divided into two subclasses: impersonal subjects and positional expletives, which occur with postverbal/low subjects and extraposed subject clauses. While CP expletives only appear in Germanic varieties that maintain V2, the subclassification of TP expletives yields interesting results when comparing Cimbrian and the Venetan varieties in Nord-East Italy, where the gradual disappearance of the positional expletive in free inversion structures and the residual maintenance of impersonal subjects from North to South along the Adige River confirms the distinction between two classes of subject expletives; furthermore, the resilience of impersonal subjects and their distribution in the northwestern part of the area under consideration sheds light on the role of language contact which is confirmed along the same axis—but crucially in the opposite direction—by the increasing employment of cleft constructions in WH-clauses replacing enclisis (i.e.,: pronominal subject inversion with the finite verb).

Review: On the Importance of Military Geoscience

Review: On the Importance of Military Geoscience

High-resolution sediment analysis reveals Middle Bronze Age byre-houses at the site of Oppeano (Verona province, NE Italy).

High-resolution sediment analysis allowed us to identify two Middle Bronze Age (MBA 1, 1650–1550 cal a BCE) byre-houses at the waterlogged site of Oppeano “4D”, south of Verona (Veneto region, NE Italy). The site lies in a low-lying valley incised by the Adige River in its LGM alluvial fan. In this fluvio-palustrine environment burial and taphonomic conditions were such that the archaeological record was extremely well preserved. The wooden elements making up basal parts of nine ‘huts’ were in fact exposed at Oppeano, and so were their internal accretion deposits. These featured finely laminated dung units deriving from the stalling of small herbivores, possibly ovicaprids, intercalated with repeated accumulations of wood ash. This was produced in large and multi-stratified hearths that were exposed within each hut. Organic petrology provided evidence of the production of wood tar inside one of the studied structures. At Oppeano 4D it was thus demonstrated that these structures were not just byres or stables, but spaces that housed humans together with animals at least during some periods of the year, hence byre-houses. The identification of byre-houses in a Middle Bronze Age settlement is key for the reconstruction of socio-economic aspects of Bronze Age economy and production systems.

Streamflow Reconstructions Using Tree-Ring Based Paleo Proxies for the Upper Adige River Basin (Italy)

The Adige River Basin (ARB) provides a vital water supply source for varying demands including agriculture (wine production), energy (hydropower) and municipal water supply. Given the importance of this river system, information about past (paleo) drought and pluvial (wet) periods would quantity risk to water managers and planners. Annual streamflow data were obtained for four gauges that were spatially located within the upper ARB. The Old World Drought Atlas (OWDA) provides an annual June–July–August (JJA) self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) derived from 106 tree-ring chronologies for 5414 grid points across Europe from 0 to 2012 AD. In lieu of tree-ring chronologies, the OWDA dataset was used as a proxy to reconstruct both individual gauge and ARB regional streamflow from 0 to 2012. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to the four ARB streamflow gauges to generate one representative vector of regional streamflow. This regional streamflow vector was highly correlated with the four individual gauges, as coefficient of determination (R2) values ranged from 85% to 96%. Prescreening methods included correlating annual streamflow and scPDSI cells (within a 450 km radius) in which significant (p ≤ 0.01 or 99% significance) scPDSI cells were identified. The significant scPDSI cells were then evaluated for temporal stability to ensure practical and reliable reconstructions. Statistically significant and temporally stable scPDSI cells were used as predictors (independent variables) to reconstruct streamflow (predictand or dependent variable) for both individual gauges and at the regional scale. This resulted in highly skillful reconstructions of upper ARB streamflow from 0 to 2012 AD. Multiple drought and pluvial periods were identified in the paleo record that exceed those observed in the recent, historic record. Moreover, this study concurred with streamflow reconstructions in nearby European watersheds.

Faunal renewals during the Early Pleistocene on the northern Italian Peninsula: Climate and environment reconstructions inferred from the Rivoli Veronese small mammal assemblage (Adige River valley, Verona, Italy)

The Early Pleistocene is an epoch where wide environmental changes, driven by climate instabilities, were registered by multiple lines of evidence in different chronostratigraphic records, both continental and marine. Among these records, small mammals are one of the most reliable for understanding how faunal assemblages responded to the climate shifts. One of the key regions for this epoch in the European framework is the north-eastern Italian Peninsula, which was long considered as an ecotonal zone and crossroad between Central and Mediterranean Europe.In this region, Rivoli Veronese (Verona, north-eastern Italy), an Early Pleistocene site with a highly diversified assemblage, has always been considered one of the most important sites for the biochronology of the Italian Peninsula. Here we present the taxonomic study of the Early Pleistocene insectivores, bats, and rodents from this site, as well as the environmental and climatic reconstruction using the Taxonomical Habitat Index, the Habitat Weighting, and the Bioclimatic model.In the rich Rivoli Veronese assemblage, composed of 27 taxa, important biochronology markers, such as Mimomys pitymyoides, Mimomys tornensis, and Mimomys pliocaenicus were recognized. The earliest occurrences in Europe of Sorex praealpinus and Dinaromys genus were also documented as well as a new fossil mole species, Talpa sp. nov. Comparison with other European small mammal assemblages of the Early Pleistocene have allowed us to relate Rivoli Veronese to the early Late Villanyian Age.The persistence of Pliocene relicts, such as Rhagapodemus cf. frequens, and Pliopetaurista cf. pliocaenica, together with Early Pleistocene species is a remarkable feature of this site. This is also reflected in the environment which was still mainly forested but with spreading open areas and wetlands mainly in the form of water streams. The climate values show that the conditions were similar to the current ones but the comparison with the near and recent Monte La Mesa assemblage, dated to Early Biharian (beginning of the Calabrian Stage), and the appearance of several taxa related to open landscapes show that a cooling and arid trend in climate was already settled in the region during the Gelasian.

Synorthocladiusfedericoi sp. nov., a new species occurring in the middle basin of the Adige River, northern Italy (Diptera, Chironomidae, Orthocladiinae).

An adult male Synorthocladius was collected in the middle basin of the Adige River in the city of Verona, northern Italy. A combination of atypical characters for the genus signalled a new species. Synorthocladiusfedericoisp. nov. is here diagnosed and described. The new species is known only from its type locality and is presumed to be a local biogeographical representative of the Italian Pre-Alps. An emended generic diagnosis, a key to known Synorthocladius from Europe and comments on the taxonomic position of the new species are given.

Combining Hydrologic Simulations and Stream‐network Models to Reveal Flow‐ecology Relationships in a Large Alpine Catchment

AbstractFlow regimes profoundly influence river organisms and ecosystem functions, but regulatory approaches often lack the scientific basis to support sustainable water allocation. In part, this reflects the challenge of understanding the ecological effects of flow variability over different temporal and spatial domains. Here, we use a process‐based distributed hydrological model to simulate 23 years of natural flow regime in 100 bioassessment sites across the Adige River network (NE Italy), and to identify typical nivo‐glacial, nivo‐pluvial, and pluvial reaches. We then applied spatial stream‐network models (SSN) to investigate the relationships between hydrologic and macroinvertebrate metrics while accounting for network spatial autocorrelation and local habitat conditions. Macroinvertebrate metrics correlated most strongly with summer, winter, and temporal variation in streamflow, but effects varied across flow regime types. For example (i) taxon richness appeared limited by high summer flows and high winter flows in nivo‐glacial and pluvial streams, respectively; (ii) invertebrate grazers increased proportionally with the annual coefficient of flow variation in nivo‐glacial streams but tended to decline with flow variation in pluvial streams. Although local land‐use and water quality also affected benthic communities, most variation in macroinvertebrate metrics was associated with spatial autocorrelation. These findings highlight the importance of developing environmental flow management policies in ways that reflect specific hydro‐ecological and land use contexts. Our analyses also illustrate the importance of spatially‐explicit approaches that account for auto‐correlation when quantifying flow‐ecology relationships.

An optical fiber-based monitoring system to study the seepage flow below the landside toe of a river levee

The development of innovative monitoring systems to mitigate the risk associated to river levee failure is a recent challenge involving synergic effort of public institutions, specialized companies and academics. The present study examines a 350 m stretch of Adige river levees, located in the Province of Bolzano (Italy) close to the village of Salorno, interested in the recent past by moderate piping phenomena and subjected to subsequent interventions for seepage control (cut-off diaphragm wall). As is customary, the levee body and its foundation soil were investigated through geophysical and geotechnical surveys. The arising results provided a multi-dimensional characterization of the levee and the nearby soil water-meadows likely to be affected by preferential paths for piping. The detection of those paths entailed the joined use of piezometers and distributed optical fiber sensing (DFOS) system, the latter installed in a shallow trench on the landside. In the last days of October 2018, Northeastern Italy was hit by a tremendous storm and the Adige river was subjected to a relevant double flooding event. This exceptional circumstance, entirely recorded by the monitoring system, gives the chance to provide insight into the seepage process undermining the levee stability.

Structural and Functional Variations of the Macrobenthic Community of the Adige Basin along the River Continuum

Since the publication of the River Continuum Concept (RCC), the capacity of the longitudinal dimension to predict the distribution of species and ecological functions in river networks was discussed by different river theories. The taxonomic structures and functional attributes of macrobenthic communities were investigated along the river continuum in the river Adige network (Northern Italy), with the aim to test the reliability of RCC theory and clarify the relation between structural and functional features in lotic systems. Distance from the spring was found to be most representative proxy among environmental parameters. The analysis highlighted the decrease of biodiversity levels along the river continuum. The decrease of taxonomic diversity corresponded to the loss in functional richness. The abundances of predator and walker taxa, as well as semelparous organisms, declined along the longitudinal gradient, suggesting variations in community complexity and granulometry. Regression models also depicted the presence of disturbed communities in the central section of the basin, where intensive agricultural activities occur, that affected environmental gradients. Overall, results offered evidences that the river continuum may predict macrobenthic community structures in terms of taxonomic diversity, thus confirming the general validity of RCC. Nonetheless, the functional analysis did not provide equally clear evidences to support the theory. After four decades from its postulation, the RCC is still a reliable model to predict the general macroinvertebrates distribution. However, community functions may respond to a number of local factors not considered in RCC, which could find a declination in other theories. The relations between structural and functional features confirmed to be complex and sensitive to disturbances and local conditions.

Community waterborne outbreak linked to a firefighting response during the COVID-19 emergency.

On 6 March 2020, a big fire in a village forced the firefighters to draw water simultaneously from many sources, including the Adige river. From 9 March, an increasing number of inhabitants reported gastrointestinal symptoms. We describe the outbreak and the challenges linked to the concurrent COVID-19 spread. Residents with enteric symptoms and their relatives were interviewed and samples from some of the patients and public water pipelines were tested for enteric pathogens with microbiological and molecular methods. By 20 March, 182 people reported symptoms and 131 met the case definition. Norovirus GI/GII and other pathogens were found in human and water samples. Contamination of the public water network with sewage-contaminated river water through the firefighters pressurized water tank was the suspected source of the outbreak. The investigation was partly hampered due to the SARS-CoV-2 emergency. Control measures included avoiding tap water, alternative water supplies and chlorination of public water.

An assessment of ERT as a method to monitor water content regime in flood embankments: The case study of the Adige River embankment

Stability of flood embankments is strongly affected by the water flow taking place in the saturated and unsaturated soil. Monitoring of the water flow in flood embankments is therefore essential in the context of flood risk management to predict and prevent failures of embankments. Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) is gaining popularity for its ability to monitor water regime in the subsoil more quickly, cost-effectively and on a larger scale compared to traditional geotechnical monitoring systems that rely on local sensors. This paper presents the application of ERT to the monitoring of water content in a flood embankment on the Adige River in Italy. The resistivity profiles obtained from the ERT measurements were converted into water content profiles via a laboratory-derived relationship between resistivity and water content. At the same time, local sensors to monitor pore water pressure were installed in the saturated and unsaturated zone of the embankment and this allowed reconstructing the water content regime in the embankment via inverse analysis of water flow. This offered the chance to benchmark ERT-derived water content against independent indirect measurements of water content in the field.ERT-inferred water content profiles based on laboratory calibration could capture the water content profiles derived from water flow analysis only qualitatively. This was attributed to artefacts in the ERT data inversion arising from the high contrasts in resistivity between different embankment layers. On the other hand, ERT proved to be a valuable tool to quantify the water content in the soil if field-specific relationship between water content and ERT-measured resistivity is developed.

Land use intensification rather than land cover change affects regulating services in the mountainous Adige river basin (Italy)

Land Cover (LC) and Land Use (LU) changes are usually considered as one change, limiting the understanding of their individual effects on Ecosystem Services (ESs). The aim of this study is to investigate the different effects of LC change and LU intensification on four regulating ESs (carbon storage, water regulation and supply, nitrogen retention) using the InVEST model in the mountainous Adige river basin (Northern Italy) during 1960–2012. The role of establishing protected areas (PAs) in the four regulating ESs was also investigated. The results showed that pasture abandonment and agricultural intensification were the most important LC and LU changes, respectively. The total value of crops’ production raised four times, mainly due to agricultural intensification (increase of fertilization rates), while nitrogen losses increased threefold during 1960–2012. Significant changes on carbon storage and water balance components were not observed due to LC and LU changes at basin scale. The results highlighted the tradeoff between crop production and nitrogen losses that affect water quality regulation. PAs establishment was not enough to mitigate nitrogen losses. The results of the study highlighted that LC change and LU intensification should be considered separately to better understand the consequences of anthropogenic impact on regulating ESs.

Messinian or Pleistocene valley incision within the Southern Alps

Many of the valleys on the southern slope of the Alps are over-deepened, having bedrock valley floors well below sea level. This has typically been attributed to incision that occurred during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) when sea level dropped by hundreds of meters, leading to incision of many of the margins of the Mediterranean. We reassess this interpretation by documenting the correct elevation of the valley floor of the Adige river, one of the major valleys draining the Southern Alps, and by estimating the vertical motion of that valley floor since the end of Messinian incision. We re-evaluated the bedrock incision in the Adige valley using existing borehole data and seismic profiles. We estimate the vertical post-Messinian uplift using thermochronometric data that reveal the removed rock mass and then infer the expected isostatic uplift. These data are combined to reconstruct paleo-river gradients and to test viability of incision profiles. We find that the erosive surfaces in the drill holes restore to a paleo-elevation well below estimates of the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) sea level. Restored valley gradients are often reversed compared to todays river gradients, as the uplift correction is higher upstream. A Messinian age of the erosional unconformities within the Alps can therefore be excluded based on the current best estimates of Messinian Mediterranean sea level and post-Messinian rock uplift. Pleistocene glacial erosion left a major signature on the geomorphology of the valleys, which is documented by glacially over-deepended valleys in the northern Alps. These valleys are not influenced by the Messinian sea-level drawdown. Therefore, it is suggested that the over-deepened valleys on the southern slope of the Alps are also glacial in origin.