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Systematic, mandated facilitation of school transitions is an important but understudied aspect of the Reggio-Emilia approach to early childhood education admired internationally as best practice. We studied the links between Northern Italian transition practices and academic achievement, school liking, cooperativeness, and problem behaviors. We followed 288 students across a transition from preschool to elementary school. Schools varied in their implementation of transition practices. High implementation of Reggio-type transition practices was related to significantly more school liking and significantly fewer problem behaviors after the transition. At follow-up at the end of the post-transition year, high-implementation schools were still characterized by lower levels of problem behavior. These data indicate that the facilitation of school transitions in the Reggio-Emilia tradition is associated with successful post-transition adjustment.

A comprehensive and reliable water balance of snow‐dominated alpine catchments is required for a holistic analysis of the hydrological and hydrogeological processes. A major limitation to the elaboration of this balance in alpine terrain is the difficulty of data acquisition as well as the limited presence of meteorological stations. Remotely sensed data can provide valuable information for the water balance assessment on a regional scale. We exploited Sentinel‐satellite data to estimate the groundwater storage for one hydrologic year in an extensive Alpine catchment located in northern Italy by means of the residual water balance approach. In particular, Evapotranspiration (ET) and Snow Water Equivalent were estimated with the combined use of Sentinel data, at a spatial resolution of 20 and 30 m, respectively. The results show that the adopted satellite‐based methods allow obtaining consistent and physically realistic values to describe the groundwater storage dynamics. In the period 2018–2020, a positive storage occurred only during the snowmelt period and the overall storage was negative, leading to a net lowering of the groundwater level in the floodplain. In addition, the influence of physiographic parameters (altitude, slope, and aspect) and seasonality on the estimates of ET and snow‐depth were investigated. Key Points: A new methodology to quantify groundwater storage dynamics in snow‐dominated catchments by the residual water balance approach is presentedHydrological components are estimated with a high temporal and spatial resolution by a novel approach based on synergistic use of Sentinel dataResults contribute to the understanding of hydrological processes in Alpine areas and the expected effects of climate change [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the interactions between natural and anthropogenic risks is necessary for quantitative risk assessment in areas affected by active natural processes, high population density and strong economic activities. We present a multiple quantitative risk assessment on a 420 km² high risk area (Brescia and surroundings, Lombardy, Northern Italy), for flood, seismic and industrial accident scenarios. Expected economic annual losses are quantified for each scenario and annual exceedance probabilityloss curves are calculated. Uncertainty on the input variables is propagated by means of three different methodologies: Monte-Carlo-Simulation, First Order Second Moment, and point estimate. Expected losses calculated by means of the three approaches show similar values for the whole study area, about 64 000 000 € for earthquakes, about 10 000 000 € for floods, and about 3000 € for industrial accidents. Locally, expected losses assume quite different values if calculated with the three different approaches, with differences up to 19 %. The uncertainties on the expected losses and their propagation, performed with the three methods, are compared and discussed in the paper. In some cases, uncertainty reaches significant values (up to almost 50% of the expected loss). This underlines the necessity of including uncertainty in quantitative risk assessment, especially when it is used as a support for territorial planning and decision making. The method is developed thinking at a possible application at a regional-national scale, on the basis of data available in Italy over the national territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-risk assessment is becoming a valuable tool for land planning, emergency management and the deployment of mitigation strategies. Multi-risk maps combine all available information about hazard, vulnerability, and exposed values related to different dangerous phenomena, and provide a quantitative support to complex decision making. We analyse and integrate through an indicator-based approach nine major threats affecting the Lombardy Region (Northern Italy, 25 000 km2), namely landslide, avalanche, flood, wildfire, seismic, meteorological, industrial (technological) risks; road accidents, and work injuries. For each threat, we develop a set of indicators that express the physical risk and the coping capacity or system resilience. By combining these indicators through different weighting strategies (i.e. budgetary allocation, and fuzzy logic), we calculate a total risk for each threat. Then, we integrate these risks by applying AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) weighting, and we derive a set of multi-risk maps. Eventually, we identify the dominant risks for each zone, and a number of risk hotspot areas. The proposed approach can be applied with different degree of detail depending on the quality of the available data. This allows the application of the method even in case of non homogeneous data, which is often the case for regional scale analyses. Moreover, it allows the integration of different risk types or metrics. Relative risk scores are provided from this methodology, not directly accounting for the temporal occurrence probability of the phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rockfall risk analysis for mitigation action design requires evaluating the probability of rockfall events, the spatial probability and intensity of impacts on structures, their vulnerability, and the related expected costs for different scenarios. These tasks were integrated in a quantitative risk assessment procedure supported by 3D rockfall numerical modelling performed by the original code HY-STONE. The case study of Fiumelatte (Varenna, Italy), where a large rockfall in November 2004 resulted in 2 casualties, destruction of several buildings and damage to transportation corridors, is discussed. The numerical model was calibrated by a back analysis of the 2004 event, and then run for the whole area at risk by considering scenarios without protection (S0), with a provisional embankment (S1), and with a series of long-term protection embankments (S2). Computed impact energy and observed damage for each building impacted in 2004 were combined to establish an empirical vulnerability function, according to which the expected degree of loss for each element at risk was computed. Finally, costs and benefits associated to different protection scenarios were estimated, in order to assess both the technical performance and the cost efficiency of different mitigation options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The SHETRAN model for determining the sediment yield arising from shallow landsliding at the scale of a river catchment was applied to the 180-km² Valsassina basin in the Italian Southern Alps, with the aim of demonstrating that the model can simulate long term patterns of landsliding and the associated sediment yields and that it can be used to explore the sensitivity of the landslide sediment supply system to changes in catchment characteristics. The model was found to reproduce the observed spatial distribution of landslides from a 50-year record very well but probably with an overestimate of the annual rate of landsliding. Simulated sediment yields were within the range observed in a wider region of northern Italy. However, the results suggest that the supply of shallow landslide material to the channel network contributes relatively little to the overall long term sediment yield compared with other sources. The model was applied for scenarios of possible future climate (drier and warmer) and land use (fully forested hillslopes). For both scenarios, there is a modest reduction in shallow landslide occurrence and the overall sediment yield. This suggests that any current schemes for mitigating sediment yield impact in Valsassina remain valid. The application highlights the need for further research in eliminating the large number of unconditionally unsafe landslide sites typically predicted by the model and in avoiding large overestimates of landslide occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]