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We report the first confirmed breeding record of the pygmy cormorant Microcarbo pygmaeus within the province of Pesaro e Urbino, in a recently discovered heronry located along the Metauro river, where at least 4 nests were found occupied in 2021. In the same year, a further breeding attempt occurred at Miralfiore urban park in the city of Pesaro, proving the species’ distribution expansion at regional level and affirming its breeding status.

The soil erosion in the vineyards is a critical issue that could affect their productivity, but also, when the cultivation is organized in terraces, increase the risk due to derived slope failure processes. If terraces are not correctly designed or maintained, a progressively increasing of gully erosion affects the structure of the walls. The results of this process is the increasing of connectivity and runoff. In order to overcome such issues it is really important to recognize in detail all the surface drainage paths, thus providing a basis upon which develop a suitable drainage system or provide structural measures for the soil erosion risk mitigation. In the last few years, the airborne LiDAR technology led to a dramatic increase in terrain information. Airborne LiDAR and Terrestrial Laser Scanner derived high-resolution Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) have opened avenues for hydrologic and geomorphologic studies (Tarolli et al., 2009). In general, all the main surface process signatures are correctly recognized using a DTM with cell sizes of 1 m. However sub-meter grid sizes may be more suitable in those situations where the analysis of micro topography related to micro changes is critical for slope failures risk assessment or for the design of detailed drainage flow paths. The Terrestrial Laser Scanner (TLS) has been proven to be an useful tool for such detailed field survey. In this work, we test the effectiveness of high resolution topography derived by airborne LiDAR and TLS for the recognition of areas subject to soil erosion risk in a typical terraced vineyard landscape of “Chianti Classico” (Tuscany, Italy). The algorithm proposed by Tarolli et al. (2013), for the automatic recognition of anthropic feature induced flow direction changes, has been tested. The results underline the effectiveness of LiDAR and TLS data in the analysis of soil erosion signatures in vineyards, and indicate the high resolution topography as a useful tool to improve the land use management of such areas. The stability conditions have been analyzed under the influence of the measured geometry alterations of the wall structure.

Anthropic pressure has been proven to be one of the most evident forces able to alter landscapes. Its impact on the surroundings can be easily detectable especially in a high-density populated country such as Italy. Among the most evident anthropic alterations, the most important are the urbanization processes but also changes in cultural techniques that have been occurring in rural areas. These modifications influence the hydrologic regimes in two ways: by modifying the direct runoff production and by having a strong impact on the drainage system itself. The main objectives of this work are to evaluate the impact of land cover changes in the Veneto region (north-east Italy) on the minor drainage network system, and to analyze changes in the direct runoff in the last 50 years. The study area is a typical agrarian landscape and it has been chosen considering its involvement in the major flood of 2010 and considering also the availability of data, including historical aerial photographs, historical information, and a high resolution LiDAR DTM. The results underline how land cover variations over the last 50 years have strongly increased the propension of the soil to produce direct runoff (increase of the Curve Number value) and they have also reduced the extent of the minor network system to the detriment of urbanized areas and changes of plots of land boundaries. As a consequence, the capacity of the minor network to attenuate and eventually laminate a flood event is decreased as well. These analysis can be considered useful tools for a suitable land use planning in flood prone areas.

Small portable rainfall simulators are considered a useful tool to analyze soil erosion processes in cultivated lands. European research groups in Spain (Valencia, Málaga, Lleida, Madrid and La Rioja), France (Reims) and Germany (Trier) have used different rainfall simulators (varying in drop size distribution and fall velocities, kinetic energy, plot forms and sizes, and field of application) to study soil loss, surface flow, runoff and infiltration coefficients in different experimental plots (Valencia, Montes de Málaga, Penedès, Campo Real and La Rioja in Spain, Champagne in France and Mosel-Ruwer valley in Germany). The measurements and experiments developed by these research teams give an overview of the variety of methodologies used in rainfall simulations to study the problem of soil erosion and describe the erosion features in different climatic environments, management practices and soil types. The aims of this study are: (i) to investigate where, how and why researchers from different wine-growing regions applied rainfall simulations with successful results as a tool to measure soil erosion processes; (ii) to make a qualitative comparison about the general soil erosion processes in European terroirs; (iii) to demonstrate the importance of the development of standard method for measurement of soil erosion processes in vineyards, using rainfall simulators; and (iv) and to analyze the key factors that should be taken into account to carry out rainfall simulations. The rainfall simulations in all cases allowed infiltration capacity, susceptibility of the soil to detachment and generation of sediment loads to runoff to be determined. Despite using small plots, the experiments were useful to analyze the influence of soil cover to reduce soil erosion, to make comparisons between different locations, and to evaluate the influence of different soil characteristics. The comparative analysis of the studies performed in different study areas points out the need to define an operational methodology to carry out rainfall simulations, which allows us to obtain representative and comparable results and to avoid errors in the interpretation in order to achieve comparable information about runoff and soil loss.