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Calabria (Italy) is a particularly interesting region of the Mediterranean basin from the perspective of forest management due to the extension of reforestation activities aimed at soil conservation. According to international agreements, these reforestation activities fulfill other functions as well, including carbon storage. Thus, Calabria was selected as a representative area for a study on the different typologies of forest plantations to verify the effects of these functions. Results showed a significant increment in carbon stock compared to the previous land use (i.e. arable land and pastures) and how the average carbon stock per hectare varies in relation to the species considered at the above- and below-ground levels. Carbon stock was higher in conifers (Calabrian pine, Douglas fir) and lower in broad-leaved trees (Turkey oak, European chestnut). The study analyses demonstrate how, based on different intensities of thinning, the carbon eliminated by trees is reconstituted over time in quantities larger than those eliminated by cutting. This latter aspect is relevant, as forest management allows the partial removal of biomass produced without negatively affecting carbon stock. Consequently, reforestation and sustainable forms of forest management are powerful strategies for mitigating the effects of climate change.

Forests play an important role in the mitigation of the effects of climate change thanks to their ability to sequestrate carbon dioxide from atmosphere. The assessment of the carbon fixed by forest ecosystems (stocks) and the carbon accumulated over a period of time (sinks) is focal for environmental protection scopes, as well as for accessing the carbon credits market. The main purpose of this work was to estimate (using the ecosystem-level model CO2FIX v. 3.1) the equivalent carbon dioxide (Mg CO2 eq ha-1 y-1) fixed by a beech stand located in southern Italy during the First Commitment Period (2008-2012) under Forest Management (art. 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol). The model was applied over a forest district using local data obtained from both literature and field analysis. Over the simulated period, sink values of 9.77 Mg C ha-1 (1.95 ± 0.91 Mg C ha-1 y-1 on average) were obtained, corresponding to an accountable value of 5.36 Mg CO2 eq ha-1 and according to the possibility to accredit only the 15% of the real value (Decision 16/CMP.1 UNFCCC). Sink values estimated with the model applied barely diverge from those obtained by similar studies on beech forests, that have been briefly reviewed and discussed here.

Multiple sampling designs are commonly used in forest inventory to combine information collected in very large first-phase samples using remote sensing (satelite or aerial images) with the field data collected on smaller sub-samples. In Italy, during the seventies, double sampling designs were used in some regional forest inventories and, later, multiple sampling was adopted for the second National Forest Inventory and for the Inventory of Forest Carbon Stocks (InFoCarb) in the Province of Trento (Central-Eastern Alps). In this paper the main aspects of the design adopted for InFoCarb are discussed and the results of this inventory are compared with those obtained from the NFI for the same area. The estimates for the above-ground phytomass and the annual increment produced by the two inventories do not differ significantly, while the forest area estimates are significantly different as a consequence of differences in the dates of orthophotos used for the photointerpretation and in the classification procedure.

Will Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems be affected by the expected changes in precipitation regimes? If so, by how much and in which direction? These questions are at the basis of the research performed in context of the EU MIND project, whose key objectives were: i) to investigate the potential effects of increasing drought on Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems at the process, ecosystem and regional scales and ii) to assess ecosystem vulnerability to changes in rainfall patterns. A network of experimental study sites has been created in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, where field manipulations alter the amount of water available to the ecosystem. The most up-to-date methods of ecophysiology, micrometeorology, soil ecology and remote sensing have been used to elucidate the mechanisms that regulate the response of vegetation and soil to changes in water availability. This information is providing the basis for the implementation and validation of simulation models capable of predicting the drought response of Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems, and their vulnerability to future climate change, on a larger scale. The out-coming results are elucidating how water availability affects plant ecophysiological processes, the dynamics of soil carbon and the overall exchange of mass and energy between the land and the atmosphere. This paper focuses on some of the important, yet preliminary, results on C and energy fluxes that have been obtained at the large scale troughfall manipulation experiment (Tolfa, Italy), in a forest dominated by Arbutus unedo L.

Given the importance of deadwood as temporary carbon storage, the present paper reports preliminary results on the application of a method to quantify carbon content of standing and lying deadwood in the forest. The investigation, carried out in the Province of Trento, has been addressed to three important forest species in the local and Italian context: spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.), fir (Abies alba Miller) and beech (Fagus sylvatica L.). Wood analysis has concerned the assessment of the main qualitative characteristics. The variables considered were: volume, decay class and category (log or snag). After a laboratory step, data collected in the field allowed to estimate fresh wood density, basic wood density and carbon stock for the three species in the different decay classes. The present study allowed the method used to be tested on a partial collection of deadwood samples, with the perspective of its application to the deadwood volumetric data collected during the third phase of the current National Inventory of Forests and Forest Carbon Sinks (INFC).

Based on recent experimental evidence, a comment is made on the importance of snow depth in controlliing soil temperature and decomposition rate of soil organic matter, with special reference to mountain ecosystems.