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The world of viticulture connected to wine making has become a very important activity in many inland areas permitting both the generation of important income and the sustaining of agriculture systems. Recent progress in both crop modeling and Decision Support Systems (DSS) applied to viticulture promises important changes that combine both high quality production and environmental sustainability. However, most of this progress is only addressed at the farm level and does not challenge the viticulture landscape, which is a key issue when facing DOC, DOCG areas, wine growers' cooperatives and consortiums and strategic viticulture planning. Thus, this paper aims to demonstrate that a new type of DSS, which is developed on a Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure (GCI) platform, may provide an important web-based operational tool for high quality viticulture as it connects farm and landscape levels better. The GCI platform supports acquisition, management, processing of both static and dynamic data (e.g. pedological, daily climatic, and vineyard distribution), data visualization, and on-the-fly computer applications in order to perform simulation modeling (e.g. grapevine water stress, evaluation of ecosystem services, etc.). These are all potentially accessible via the Web. This is possible thanks to the implementation of a set of modeling clusters that is strongly rooted in soil-plant-atmosphere and physically based simulation modeling. The DSS tool, applied to an area of 20,000 ha in Southern Italy, is designed to address viticulture planning and management by providing operational support for farmers, farmer associations and decision makers involved in the viticulture landscape. Output of the system includes viticulture planning and management scenario analysis, maps and evaluation of potential and current plant water stress. The tool will also be demonstrated through a short selection of practical case studies.

Water deficit limiting yields is one of the negative aspects of climate change. However, this applies particularly when emphasis is on biomass production (e.g. for field crops), but not necessarily for plants where quality, not quantity is most relevant. For grapevine development, mild water stress occurring during specific phenological phases is an important factor when producing good quality wines. It induces the production of anthocyanins and aroma precursors and then could offer an opportunity to increase winegrower's income. A multidisciplinary study was carried out in Campania region (Southern Italy), an area well known for high quality wine production. Growth of Aglianico grapevine cultivar, with a standard clone population on 1103 Paulsen rootstocks, was studied on two different types of soil: Calcisols and Cambisols occurring along a slope of 90 m length with 11% gradient. The agro-hydrological model SWAP was calibrated and applied to estimate soil-plant water status during three consecutive seasons (2011–2013). Crop water stress index (CWSI), as estimated by the model, was related to leaf water potential, sugar content of grape bunches and wine quality (e.g. content of tannins). For both soils, the correlations between quality measurements and CWSI were high (e.g. − 0.97** with sugar; 0.895* with anthocyanins in the grape skins). The model was also applied to explore effects of future climate conditions (2021–2051) obtained from statistical downscaling of Global Circulation Models (AOGCM) and to estimate the effect of the climate on CWSI and hence on grape quality. Effects of climate change on grape quality indicate: (i) a resilient behavior of Calcisol to produce high quality wine, (ii) a good potentiality for improving the quality wine in Cambisol. The present study represents an example of multidisciplinary approach in which soil scientists, hydro-pedologists, crop modellers, plant physiologists and oenologists have integrated their knowledge and skills in order to deal with the complex interactions among different components of an agricultural system.

Today it is evident that there are many contrasting demands on our landscape (e.g. food security, more sustainable agriculture, higher income in rural areas, etc.) as well as many land degradation problems. It has been proved that providing operational answers to these demands and problems is extremely difficult. Here we aim to demonstrate that a spatial decision support system based on geospatial cyberinfrastructure (GCI) can address all of the above, so producing a smart system for supporting decision making for agriculture, forestry, and urban planning with respect to the landscape. In this paper, we discuss methods and results of a special kind of GCI architecture, one that is highly focused on land management and soil conservation. The system allows us to obtain dynamic, multidisciplinary, multiscale, and multifunctional answers to agriculture, forestry, and urban planning issues through the Web. The system has been applied to and tested in an area of about 20 000 ha in the south of Italy, within the framework of a European LIFE+ project (SOILCONSWEB). The paper reports – as a case study – results from two different applications dealing with agriculture (olive growth tool) and environmental protection (soil capability to protect groundwater). Developed with the help of end users, the system is starting to be adopted by local communities. The system indirectly explores a change of paradigm for soil and landscape scientists. Indeed, the potential benefit is shown of overcoming current disciplinary fragmentation over landscape issues by offering – through a smart Web-based system – truly integrated geospatial knowledge that may be directly and freely used by any end user (www.landconsultingweb.eu). This may help bridge the last very important divide between scientists working on the landscape and end users.

This paper aims to test a new physically oriented approach to viticulture zoning at farm scale that is strongly rooted in hydropedology and aims to achieve a better use of environmental features with respect to plant requirements and wine production. The physics of our approach are defined by the use of soil–plant–atmosphere simulation models, applying physically based equations to describe the soil hydrological processes and solve soil–plant water status. This study (part of the ZOVISA project) was conducted on a farm devoted to production of high-quality wines (Aglianico DOC), located in southern Italy (Campania region, Mirabella Eclano, AV). The soil spatial distribution was obtained after standard soil survey informed by geophysical survey. Two homogeneous zones (HZs) were identified; in each one a physically based model was applied to solve the soil water balance and estimate the soil functional behaviour (crop water stress index, CWSI) defining the functional homogeneous zones (fHZs). For the second process, experimental plots were established and monitored for investigating soil–plant water status, crop development (biometric and physiological parameters) and daily climate variables (temperature, solar radiation, rainfall, wind). The effects of crop water status on crop response over must and wine quality were then evaluated in the fHZs. This was performed by comparing crop water stress with (i) crop physiological measurement (leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence, leaf water potential, chlorophyll content, leaf area index (LAI) measurement), (ii) grape bunches measurements (berry weight, sugar content, titratable acidity, etc.) and (iii) wine quality (aromatic response). This experiment proved the usefulness of the physically based approach, also in the case of mapping viticulture microzoning.

We evaluate modelling solutions built composing different modelling approaches. Modelling of soil temperature was the case study, evaluating modelling solutions against a multi-year, multi-location database of field recorded data. Widely used simulation packages were re-implemented using advanced techniques, and nine new modelling solutions were built hybridizing across the original ones. Multi-metric indices were developed for modelling solution evaluation.The hybrid solution implementing the Parton's approach (surface temperature) and the SWAT (temperature along the soil profile) led to the best compromise between agreement and robustness under the explored conditions. Differently, choices of soil water redistribution models caused a modest variability with respect to the simulation of soil temperature. The methodology presented allows providing clear indications about model choice and should be considered useful practice in model development.The model libraries used to run the analysis are freely available for download, and they allow for further extension of the composition exercise. We develop nine new modelling solutions (MSs) for soil temperature simulation.New MSs were composed by hybridization of models from known modelling packages.Software component libraries allowed the model composition study.The evaluation of MSs was done on a large dataset via a multi-metric procedure.This is a proof of concept for fine-granularity model composition and MS evaluation.

The quantification of the water balance terms within soil-crop-climate systems is required to derive proper management for plant growth and irrigation. A large number of available models use the well known Richards’ equation for the simulation of water redistribution at field scale. Despite their common basis of the representation of water flow in the unsaturated zone, apparently similar hydrological models give different answers if applied in the same pedological, climatic and agronomic scenarios. The objective of the present study was evaluating and comparing the performance of three well known models (SWAP, MACRO and CropSyst) based on the solution of the Richards’ equation: in a structured fine soil (Calciustepts located in Cerese, Mantova, Italy) and in a structured fine loamy over sandy soil (Hapludalf located in Caviaga, Lodi, Italy), both cropped with maize. The models were compared on the basis of their reliability to predict soil water content, measured by TDR, at 10 depths over 2 years. We compared the three models on the basis of difference-based indexes (CRM and RMSE) and correlation statistics (r and EF): at three depths (0–0.15, −0.4 and −1.0 m), in terms of soil water content profile following a drainage process on bare soil and on soil water content over the whole soil profiles. Although water retention and hydraulic conductivity curves were properly measured in laboratory on undisturbed soil samples, all three models required calibration and validation to obtain good quality simulations. The performances of the three models were quite similar: the average of all (models, sites and depths) root mean square error (RMSE) was 0.032 cm3 cm−3 (±0.007). Generally, SWAP had the best performance especially in simulating surface infiltration and drying processes, followed by CropSyst and then MACRO. The better performance of SWAP respect the other two models seemed rely on the hydraulic properties parameterization (van Genuchten-Mualem vs. Campbell equation), and to the different techniques used for the numerical solutions of Richards’ equation close to the bottom and upper boundaries. Moreover, despite its rather good performance, CropSyst, due to its internal numerical constraints in the parameterization of the retention and conductivity functions, needed a very strong calibration then loosing part of its “physical basis” towards an increasing of its empiricism.

An integrated investigation has been carried out over the soils involved in the landslide phenomena occurred in the 2006 at Mt. Vezzi in the Ischia island (southern Italy). Chemical, physical (i.e. particle size distribution, hydrological analyses and direct measurements of soil porosity), mineralogical and micromorphological properties of three soil profiles selected in two of the main detachment crowns were analysed. The studied soils, having a volcanic origin, showed a substantial abrupt discontinuity of all the studied properties in correspondence of the 2C horizon, also identified as sliding surface of the landslide phenomena. With respect to the above horizons, the 2C showed (i) as a grey fine ash, almost pumices free, with a silt content increased by the 20%, (ii) ks values one order of magnitude lower, (iii) a porosity concentrated in the small size (15 to 30 μm modal class) pores characterized by very low percolation threshold (around 15–25 μm), (iv) occurrence of expandable clay minerals and (v) higher Na content in the exchange complex. Therefore, most of these properties indicated 2C as a lower permeability horizon than the above. Nevertheless, only the identification of a thin (6.5 mm) finely stratified ash layer on the top of 2C enabled to assume this interface as an impeding layer to vertical and horizontal water fluxes, as testified by the hydromorphic features (e.g. Fe / Mn concretions) within and on the top of the layer. Despite the Mt. Vezzi soil environment has many properties (high gradient northern facing slope, similar forestry, volcanic origin of the parent material) in common with those of many Campania debris-mud flows, the results of this study did not support the found relationship between Andosols and debris-mudflows, but emphasize the role of vertical discontinuities as landslide predisposing factor.

This paper aims to test a new physically oriented approach to viticulture zoning at the farm scale, strongly rooted on hydropedology and aiming to achieve a better use of environmental features with respect to plant requirement and wine production. The physics of our approach is defined by the use of soil-plant-atmosphere simulation models which applies physically-based equations to describe the soil hydrological processes and solves soil-plant water status. This study (ZOVISA project) was conducted in a farm devoted to high quality wines production (Aglianico DOC), located in South Italy (Campania region, Mirabella Eclano-AV). The soil spatial distribution was obtained after standard soil survey informed by geophysical survey. Two Homogenous Zones (HZs) were identified; in each one of those a physically based model was applied to solve the soil water balance and estimate the soil functional behaviour (crop water stress index, CWSI) defining the functional Homogeneous Zones (fHzs). In these last, experimental plots were established and monitored for investigating soil-plant water status, crop development (biometric and physiological parameters) and daily climate variables (temperature, solar radiation, rainfall, wind). The effects of crop water status on crop response over must and wine quality were then evaluated in the fHZs. This was performed by comparing crop water stress with (i) crop physiological measurement (leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll a fluorescence, leaf water potential, chlorophyll content, LAI measurement), (ii) grape bunches measurements (berry weight, sugar content, titratable acidity, etc.) and (iii) wine quality (aromatic response). Eventually this experiment has proved the usefulness of the physical based approach also in the case of mapping viticulture microzoning.

For the range of volcanic soils investigated, water retention analysis showed that near-saturation and field capacity water contents are more representative of the whole water retention behavior than the most commonly used “wilting point” water content. The Integral Retention Index, IRI, showed a strong relationship with the different environments; the index also showed a clear relationship with the andic properties (as estimated by Alo+1/2Feo; r=0.84), the soils with the lowest Alo+1/2Feo and also a high content in pumice departing from this linear relationship. This is especially relevant because IRI, has a very important physical meaning with respect to ecosystem fertility.