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High-resolution flood monitoring can be achieved relying on multi-temporal analysis of remote sensing SAR data, through the implementation of semi-automated systems. Exploiting a Bayesian inference framework, conditioned probabilities can be estimated for the presence of floodwater at each image location and each acquisition date. We developed a procedure for efficient monitoring of floodwaters from SAR data cubes, which adopts a statistical modelling framework for SAR backscatter time series over normally unflooded areas based on Gaussian processes (GPs), in order to highlight flood events as outliers, causing abrupt variations in the trends. We found that non-parametric time series modelling improves the performances of Bayesian probabilistic inference with respect to state-of-the-art methodologies using, e.g., parametric fits based on periodic functions, by both reducing false detections and increasing true positives. Our approach also exploits ancillary data derived from a digital elevation model, including slopes, normalized heights above nearest drainage (HAND), and SAR imaging parameters such as shadow and layover conditions. It is here tested over an area that includes the so-called Metaponto Coastal Plain (MCP), in the Basilicata region (southern Italy), which is recurrently subject to floods. We illustrate the ability of our system to detect known (although not ground-truthed) and smaller, undocumented inundation events over large areas, and propose some consideration about its prospective use for contexts affected by similar events, over various land cover scenarios and climatic settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfires represent a significant threat to protected areas around the world. This threat has become even more pronounced in recent years due to climate change. These fires can destroy, among other things, natural habitats, cause a loss of biodiversity, and affect air quality. In addition, they can have a significant economic impact on countries that depend on tourism and protected area activities. In this context, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can provide an important solution for fire management in protected areas. In this case study, the Basilicata region (Southern Italy) was taken as an example where data on protected areas and fire events are freely accessible and constantly updated. By exploiting several interoperable GIS tools, it was possible to perform a complex geospatial analysis that provided important information for sustainable and resilient land use planning. In particular, areas with the highest frequency of fires within or close to protected areas emerged, which can therefore be attended to at different planning levels. In addition, in general, the work has made it possible to implement simple methodologies of relational analysis between fires and protected areas that can be easily employed in administrative settings so as to make the territory more resilient to the expected increase in fires due to climatic changes.

Wildfires represent a significant threat to protected areas around the world. This threat has become even more pronounced in recent years due to climate change. These fires can destroy, among other things, natural habitats, cause a loss of biodiversity, and affect air quality. In addition, they can have a significant economic impact on countries that depend on tourism and protected area activities. In this context, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can provide an important solution for fire management in protected areas. In this case study, the Basilicata region (Southern Italy) was taken as an example where data on protected areas and fire events are freely accessible and constantly updated. By exploiting several interoperable GIS tools, it was possible to perform a complex geospatial analysis that provided important information for sustainable and resilient land use planning. In particular, areas with the highest frequency of fires within or close to protected areas emerged, which can therefore be attended to at different planning levels. In addition, in general, the work has made it possible to implement simple methodologies of relational analysis between fires and protected areas that can be easily employed in administrative settings so as to make the territory more resilient to the expected increase in fires due to climatic changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable land management is one of the key actions for the achievement of objectives set by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In particular, land represents a fundamental resource to address issues of climate change, biodiversity preservation, maintaining ecosystem services, and at the same time ensuring shared prosperity and well-being. Therefore, it is necessary to activate strategies to monitor changes in land use and land cover in order to evaluate strategies for proper management. To do this, the new open source geospatial analysis tools and the increasing availability of remote sensed open data can allow the activation of methodologies for monitoring changes in land use and land cover in order to provide data usable in other research areas or, for example, to implement a decision support system for environmental sustainability. In this study, a GIS approach based on open remote sensing data has been used to perform a spatial analysis of land cover changes within the Basilicata region (Southern Italy) that is spatially expeditious yet accurate. The results showed a very evident land transformation with important repercussions on the environmental components. The ease of use of techniques makes this methodology replicable in other territory and can be used as a preliminary approach to sustainable development model.

The rural built heritage constitutes a unique example, due to architectural and technical issues, which plays a central role in the formation of rural landscape. In this research, interactions between rural buildings and the surrounding land have been examined. Two case studies exemplifying some of typical dynamics of some internal mountain areas of Mediterranean region have been considered. These areas are located in Basilicata Region (Southern Italy) and suffer from land and rural buildings heritage abandonment, as well as from the concurrent disappearance of agroforestry systems with high ecological value. A multi-chronological geo-database incorporating different land cover datasets over a period of 62 years (1955–1988–2008–2017) has been implemented into a GIS to assess relationships between some rural buildings and the surrounding land have been then assessed. This has been achieved by integrating different types of remote-sensed geodata: historical aerial photos, digital orthophotos and satellite images. The analyses carried out have shown that the intensity of land abandonment can also be related to the type of rural building and prevalent agricultural activity. Moreover, thanks to this methodology, it has been possible to produce several spatial information useful to support public decisionmakers at different level.

Italy is one of the European countries most affected by landslides. In order to mitigate the risk, the analysis of such phenomena should involve a broad spectrum of studies to understand the geological and geomorphological properties of the unstable areas, the geometric features of the landslides and the causes of their trigger, the evolution over time, and the works of risk mitigation taken as well as their effectiveness over time. This article is concerned with multidisciplinary investigations on a historical earth flow occurred in Montemurro (Basilicata, Southern Italy) in 1907. We analyse unpublished archive sources strictly coupled with new geological and geomorphological surveys. Furthermore, to gain information on the geometrical features of the landslide body, geophysical prospections (ERT) is used alongside the field surveys. Lastly, to gain insight on the landslide triggering factors, we employed historical–climatological analysis: in particular, we made use of the monthly simple daily intensity index (SDII) to evaluate extreme events and the standardised precipitation index (SPI) to consider previous wetness conditions. The earth flow was triggered on 26 February 1907 and the main movement lasted about one week, involving several buildings, including those of cultural interest. Historical documentary investigations and historical climatological analysis both indicate that the earth flow was triggered by a preceding heavy rain period, which independent historical sources suggest also caused the activation of landslides over a wider area around Montemurro. Currently, the earth flow is NE–SW oriented, extends for a length of ~1.1 km, and has an average width of ~220 m. The landslide is in a dormant activity phase. From a methodological point of view, the research stresses the importance of integrated approaches to investigate natural hazards, particularly by the use of historical data. This research may be of interest to academics, practitioners, and policymakers for both the methodological approach followed and results gained, useful in view of both risk mitigation and territorial planning of landslide-prone areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to assess the dynamics of forests and the effectiveness of their management strategies, it is necessary to develop monitoring systems based on qualitative and quantitative tools for their conservation, valorization and restoration. This approach is particularly important for areas that have undergone intense anthropogenic transformations in the last century. In order to do this, it is first necessary to apply a chronological methodology based on historical GIS that allows the integration of different types of geodata. As a result of constantly evolving spatial analysis tools, the monitoring of landscape forest evolution is increasingly more effective and complete. Using as a case study a region representative of common processes of other Mediterranean areas (Southern Italy--Basilicata region), a diachronic analysis of 156 years was applied to evaluate the forest landscape dynamics. Starting from historical cartographies to remotely sensed data available online, a GIS-based approach was implemented to evaluate the spatial and statistical variations of the forest landscape. In this way, it was possible to assess how much, where and how the forest landscape has changed in order to provide a methodology to support more detailed and sectoral studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rural built heritage constitutes a unique example, due to architectural and technical issues, which plays a central role in the formation of rural landscape. In this research, interactions between rural buildings and the surrounding land have been examined. Two case studies exemplifying some of typical dynamics of some internal mountain areas of Mediterranean region have been considered. These areas are located in Basilicata Region (Southern Italy) and suffer from land and rural buildings heritage abandonment, as well as from the concurrent disappearance of agroforestry systems with high ecological value. A multi-chronological geo-database incorporating different land cover datasets over a period of 62 years (1955-1988-2008-2017) has been implemented into a GIS to assess relationships between some rural buildings and the surrounding land have been then assessed. This has been achieved by integrating different types of remote-sensed geodata: historical aerial photos, digital orthophotos and satellite images. The analyses carried out have shown that the intensity of land abandonment can also be related to the type of rural building and prevalent agricultural activity. Moreover, thanks to this methodology, it has been possible to produce several spatial information useful to support public decisionmakers at different level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Basilicata region (Southern Italy) is characterized by a peculiar environmental as well as biological, geological, and cultural heritage features that are evident in national and regional parks as well as places of monumental and archaeological relevance, including the Matera UNESCO Site. Basilicata hosts the highly studied Vulture volcanic complex and the largest hydrocarbon reservoir in continental Europe. Furthermore, the region falls among the Italian regions most prone to landslides and floods and it is located in a seismotectonic background responsible of strong earthquakes. Therefore, the territory of Basilicata can be considered an open-air laboratory, both natural and “human-built”. The laboratory, with its features, has attracted many scientists worldwide and over time. The researchers have focused their attention on manifold studies. That being stated, the article aims to analyse the outputs of the scientific investigations targeting the territory of Basilicata within the last 24 years (1994–2017) with a bibliometric approach. The Thomson Reuters’ Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index were the two bibliographic databases considered. Once the pertinent articles were extracted from the two citation indexes, the authors analysed the publication trends, Web of Science categories, countries, and hot topics.

In the last 10 years, also due to climate change, extreme rain events have affected the Basilicata region (southern Italy) causing landslides and floods that have damaged urban fabric, commercial activities and transport infrastructures. In many of these cases, the civil protection system, involving national (DPC) and regional (DRPC) Civil Protection Departments, was activated to manage the emergency phase in cooperation with local administrations and scientific institutions, which in this context are referred to as competence centres (CdCs). Among the latter, the Institute of Methodologies for Environmental Analysis (IMAA) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) has been frequently involved in carrying out geophysical investigations in landslide areas, especially during the post-event phase. This paper reports the main results of the in-field geophysical surveys carried out in two areas of the Basilicata region affected by significant landslides in the last 10 years. The aim of the surveys was to provide the DRPC technicians with a useful subsoil geophysical model to improve the knowledge of the geological setting of the slope, to reconstruct the geometry of landslide body and to highlight high water content areas, in order to support the decision-making process. At the end of the paper, a discussion follows with the lessons learned from each case study along with recommendations on how to possibly improve the application of geophysical techniques in landslide investigations in order to further increase their impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to assess the dynamics of forests and the effectiveness of their management strategies, it is necessary to develop monitoring systems based on qualitative and quantitative tools for their conservation, valorization and restoration. This approach is particularly important for areas that have undergone intense anthropogenic transformations in the last century. In order to do this, it is first necessary to apply a chronological methodology based on historical GIS that allows the integration of different types of geodata. As a result of constantly evolving spatial analysis tools, the monitoring of landscape forest evolution is increasingly more effective and complete. Using as a case study a region representative of common processes of other Mediterranean areas (Southern Italy–Basilicata region), a diachronic analysis of 156 years was applied to evaluate the forest landscape dynamics. Starting from historical cartographies to remotely sensed data available online, a GIS-based approach was implemented to evaluate the spatial and statistical variations of the forest landscape. In this way, it was possible to assess how much, where and how the forest landscape has changed in order to provide a methodology to support more detailed and sectoral studies.

In this paper, we report the quantification of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) hosted into two tremolite asbestos from Episcopia and San Severino Lucano villages (Basilicata region, Southern Italy). Micro X-ray fluorescence and Inductively Coupled Plasma spectroscopy with Optical Emission Spectrometry techniques were used to quantify the concentration of major, minor (Si, Mg, Ca, Al, Fe, Mn) and trace elements (As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn Sr, Ti, Te, V, W, Zn, Zr), with the aim of providing available data useful for the determination of the asbestos fibers toxicity. Results show that in the two studied samples there exist high concentrations of Fe, Mn, Cr and Ni which could lead to the high toxicity of the mineral fibers. By considering the pseudo-total PTEs amounts in each tremolite asbestos, it is possible to affirm that one of the samples is more enriched in toxic elements than the other one (3572 ppm versus 1384 ppm). These PTEs can represent a source of risk to human health since they may be transported away from the geological outcrops, through asbestos in the air, water and soils and thus encountering the human body.

Abstract Background This research was carried out in a scarcely populated area of the Middle Agri Valley (Basilicata region, southern Italy). The aim of the study was to record local knowledge on the traditional uses of wild food plants, as well as to collect information regarding the practices (gathering, processing and cooking) and the medicinal uses related to these plants. Methods Fifty-eight people still possessing traditional local knowledge (TLK), 74% women and 26% men, were interviewed between May–August 2012 and January 2013, using open and semi-structured ethnobotanical interviews. For each described plant species, the botanical family, the Italian common and folk names, the plant parts used, the culinary preparation and, when present, the medicinal use, were recorded and the relative frequency of citation index (RFC) was determined. Results The 52 plant species mentioned by the respondents belong to 23 botanical families, with Asteraceae (12 plants) and Rosaceae (7 plants) being most frequently cited. The species with the highest RFC index is Cichorium intybus L. (0.95), followed by Sonchus spp. (S. oleraceus L., S. asper L. and S. arvensis L.) (0.76). The plant parts preferably used are leaves (22 plants), fruits (12) and stems (7). Only six wild plants were indicated as having both food use and therapeutic effect. Conclusions The survey conducted on the traditional use of wild food plants in the Middle Agri Valley revealed that this cultural heritage is only partially retained by the population. Over the last few decades, this knowledge has been in fact quickly disappearing along with the people and, even in the rural context of the study area, is less and less handed down to younger generations. Nevertheless, data also revealed that the use of wild plants is recently being revaluated in a way closely related to local habits and traditions.

The Basilicata region (Southern Italy) is characterized by a peculiar environmental as well as biological, geological, and cultural heritage features that are evident in national and regional parks as well as places of monumental and archaeological relevance, including the Matera UNESCO Site. Basilicata hosts the highly studied Vulture volcanic complex and the largest hydrocarbon reservoir in continental Europe. Furthermore, the region falls among the Italian regions most prone to landslides and floods and it is located in a seismotectonic background responsible of strong earthquakes. Therefore, the territory of Basilicata can be considered an open-air laboratory, both natural and "human-built". The laboratory, with its features, has attracted many scientists worldwide and over time. The researchers have focused their attention on manifold studies. That being stated, the article aims to analyse the outputs of the scientific investigations targeting the territory of Basilicata within the last 24 years (1994–2017) with a bibliometric approach. The Thomson Reuters' Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index were the two bibliographic databases considered. Once the pertinent articles were extracted from the two citation indexes, the authors analysed the publication trends, Web of Science categories, countries, and hot topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy is a geologically complex and relatively young territory that is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters (i.e., earthquakes, flooding, landslides). In particular, landslide activity is considered one of the most relevant processes shaping the Italian peninsula, often closely affecting urban and industrial areas and infrastructures. Landslide activity in southern Italy strongly influenced the development of urban areas by controlling the shape and the areal extend of the urban settlements. In this paper, we propose a multidisciplinary approach capable of assessing the correlation between landslides and the spatial distribution of urban fabric. To this aim, we consider as case studies, the two municipalities of Pisticci and Corleto Perticara, in the Basilicata region in southern Italy, that strongly differ for the geological contexts and landslide types. The evolution in time of the landslide activity and the shape variations of the two considered settlement systems is described in terms of shape index from 1950 to 2006. Starting from the description of the two study areas, from both the geological and the urban point of view, the shape index will be calculated. Eventually, the results obtained will be compared with the perimeters of the urban centers defined by the respective urban planning regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Basilicata Region, inside the project Pays.Med.URBAN, has elaborated the Atlas of Urban Landscape, an observatory that, integrating the traditional instruments of technical-scientific analysis with photography, stresses the impact caused on local landscapes by phenomena of urban disintegration and fragmentation of agrarian- ecological-texture. From the research, articulated in section representatives of the principal and more diffuses landscape alterations, emerged a thematic that runs transversely: the safeguard of regional centers born in fascist period and during the Fifties in relation with the Agrarian Reform. They are rural settlements that strongly characterized landscape both for typological character of buildings, than for the unitary design of territories.

Background: This research was carried out in a scarcely populated area of the Middle Agri Valley (Basilicata region, southern Italy). The aim of the study was to record local knowledge on the traditional uses of wild food plants, as well as to collect information regarding the practices (gathering, processing and cooking) and the medicinal uses related to these plants. Methods: Fifty-eight people still possessing traditional local knowledge (TLK), 74% women and 26% men, were interviewed between May-August 2012 and January 2013, using open and semi-structured ethnobotanical interviews. For each described plant species, the botanical family, the Italian common and folk names, the plant parts used, the culinary preparation and, when present, the medicinal use, were recorded and the relative frequency of citation index (RFC) was determined. Results: The 52 plant species mentioned by the respondents belong to 23 botanical families, with Asteraceae (12 plants) and Rosaceae (7 plants) being most frequently cited. The species with the highest RFC index is Cichorium intybus L. (0.95), followed by Sonchus spp. ( S. oleraceus L., S. asper L. and S. arvensis L.) (0.76). The plant parts preferably used are leaves (22 plants), fruits (12) and stems (7). Only six wild plants were indicated as having both food use and therapeutic effect. Conclusions: The survey conducted on the traditional use of wild food plants in the Middle Agri Valley revealed that this cultural heritage is only partially retained by the population. Over the last few decades, this knowledge has been in fact quickly disappearing along with the people and, even in the rural context of the study area, is less and less handed down to younger generations. Nevertheless, data also revealed that the use of wild plants is recently being revaluated in a way closely related to local habits and traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making cities smarter and more competitive is one of the major challenges of climate change and energy security. Smart city initiatives have arisen Europe-wide to help cities to start planning their future in a new way to become more sustainable and resilient. New business models need to be investigated to foster local business development, innovative local administrations and industries, valorize the cultural heritage and the research outcomes and promote community’s participation. This transition is even more complex and necessary for sparsely populated regions with poor infrastructures in the buildings, manufacturing and transport domains and with a multi-layer local governance (e.g. Italian Towns, Provinces and Region). In this case, a widespread concept of smart city can be applied proposing systematic strategies for urban innovation with a regional-wide perspective. This paper focuses on a coordinated project aimed to promote smartness among local areas in a small region in Southern Italy (Basilicata). The ‘Smart Basilicata’ project constitutes a unique example in which, by working together, multi-layer public authorities, private enterprises, research organizations and universities drafted the basis for a regional strategy for smart-related issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evidence of relationships between climate change induced by greenhouse gases of anthropogenic origin, and energy-economic issues (inappropriate use of fossil fuels and technologies, uncertainty in fuels price and demand trends, etc.) asks for the adoption of a holistic approach in order to re-orient the anthropogenic activities’ system towards a configuration that harmonizes environmental protection, economic growth and security of energy supply. In this framework, energy system sustainability represents one of the major challenge the EU is facing and its implementation passes through a path of coordinate actions carried out by local governments in which objectives of sustainable development become integral part of strategic programming. The aim of this research is to provide local administrations with an analytical support tool to guide key strategic decisions in energy and climate planning on the medium-long term, assessing the possible role of local energy systems in the achievement of sustainable objectives at national/European scale. This paper focuses on the implementation of a partial equilibrium TIMES-generated model in a real case study, the regional energy system of Basilicata region (Southern Italy). First, it describes the adopted methodology. Second, it is provided a step-by-step description and characterisation of the reference energy system and the model’s data input which represents the first step for an in-depth knowledge of the present energy system on which to build effective and sustainable local energy and climate plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Morphological variations of coastlines are caused by several key processes that are influenced by climate conditions, sea level variations, wave energy, tectonics and human-induced phenomena. These processes affect the dynamics of catchment basins and the coastal environment. Since the second half of the 20th century, the Jonian coast of the Basilicata Region (Italy) has witnessed a widespread retreating phenomenon, predominantly due to anthropogenic causes affecting transport processes along the riverbeds and causing reductions in the sediment supply to the coast. The disturbance in the balance between sediment transport carried out by the sea and the sediment supply performed by rivers has led to a deficit in the sediment budget. To understand the morphological dynamics of the littoral environment and quantify the amount of coastal erosion, an analysis of coastline change has been carried out using various data sources: historical cartography, aerial photographs and GPS surveys. Between 1870 and 1954, the 32-km-long Jonian littoral under examination showed an accretion trend, while the loss in beach surface steadily increased between 1954 and 2005. The average change in beach surface has been calculated as about +55,000 m2/yr (accretion) between 1870 and 1954 and −16,500 m2/yr (erosion) between 1954 and 2005. Overall, 640,000 m2 of sandy beaches were lost along the entire Jonian coast of the Basilicata Region between 1954 and 2005. Comparing the shoreline between 1870 and 1954, the average net shoreline movement (NSM) is +110 m vs. −30 m between 1954 and 2005. This analysis approach has proven to be effective in quantifying the erosion phenomenon and its effects, despite the lack of homogeneous data series and the variety of spatial and temporal scales over which coastal evolution occurs. The study represents an important step in understanding coastal dynamics in this region. As coastal areas are being affected by an increasing number of population and socio-economic activities, identification of shoreline changes and forecasts of coastline evolution represent key information for coastal scientists, engineers, decision makers and stakeholders for both the management of and development of future plans for coastal environments and for reducing exposure risk to coastal erosion. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: This paper reports an ethnobotanical survey of the traditional uses of medicinal and useful plants in an area of the Pollino National Park, Basilicata, Southern Italy. The study, conducted between 2009 and 2010, gathered information on the medicinal plants traditionally used in the neighbourhood of town of Rotonda, in the Pollino National Park, that appears have very rich and interesting ethnopharmacological traditions. Methods: In all, we interviewed 120 key informants, whose age ranged between 50 and 95 years. Results: The research resulted to the identification of 78 medicinal plants belonging to 46 families. Among the species reported, 59 are used in human medicine, 18 for domestic use, 8 in veterinary medicine. Several plants have been reported in previous studies, but with different uses, or never reported. Conclusions: Data obtained showed that in the studied area the folk use of plants is alive and still derives from daily practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm buildings play a central role in the environmental characteristics of agricultural land. Over the centuries they have accompanied the development of the agricultural activities of man who has thereby been able to breed cattle, to grow and yield crops, and to store, transform and process agricultural products in a functional and efficient way. Farm buildings have allowed man to work in intensive conditions unaffected by the external climate. On the other hand, constructions built by farmers marked their territory, influencing and steering the spontaneous development of nature while leading to production that enabled man to get food. In the present paper, a typological analysis of farm buildings was conducted with reference to the Basilicata region, a southern Italian region rich in a history and culture connected with its traditional agricultural vocation, where rural houses still remain as witnesses to the social and cultural changes that have taken place over the years. Vernacular farm buildings, synthesizing in their architectural expression the culture, traditions and ways of life of generations of rural populations, were identified, analyzed and typologically classified all over the regional land. The results showed that many of the vernacular farm buildings visited are now abandoned; the technical survey often showed a situation of structural and functional degradation that makes their restoration difficult and expensive. Possible ways of reuse, making their recovery more economically profitable are, therefore, analyzed and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The aims of this paper were to study the genetic diversity within and among 6 Tuber taxa, the phylogenetic relationships and the spatial distribution of truffles from the Basilicata region (southern Italy). Molecular analyses, using the internal transcribed spacer region, microsatellites, minisatellites and random amplified polymorphic loci revealed the highest expected intra-specific heterozygosity (He=0.30) in T. aestivum, followed by that of T. mesentericum (He=0.22). T. borchii (He=0.17), T. magnatum (He=0.16), T. aestivum fo. uncinatum (He=0.12) and T. brumale fo. moschatum (He=0.09) showed a lower average heterozygosity. The whole set of markers were demonstrated to be useful in clearly differentiating Tuber taxa, separating them in two distinct groups and in five sub-clusters, each corresponding to one single taxon. The first cluster (T. borchii, T. magnatum and T. brumale fo. moschatum) was more differentiated than the second one (T. aestivum, T. aestivum fo. uncinatum and T. mesentericum). T. brumale fo. moschatum was the most differentiated Tuber taxon. It was more related to the white truffles (the closely related T. borchii and T. magnatum) than to the remaining related black truffles T. aestivum and T. mesentericum. The amount of Tuber species richness was higher over the western side of Basilicata, in cold Lauretum and in Castanetum phytoclimatic Pavari's zones. A spatial genetic structure was detected for T. aestivum, as shown by the significant correlation between geographic and genetic distances (rs=0.32; P<0.0001). Integration of molecular and geographic diversity patterns can allow the selection of sites for Tuber and Tuberrelated biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the quantification of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) hosted into two tremolite asbestos from Episcopia and San Severino Lucano villages (Basilicata region, Southern Italy). Micro X-ray fluorescence and Inductively Coupled Plasma spectroscopy with Optical Emission Spectrometry techniques were used to quantify the concentration of major, minor (Si, Mg, Ca, Al, Fe, Mn) and trace elements (As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Li, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn Sr, Ti, Te, V, W, Zn, Zr), with the aim of providing available data useful for the determination of the asbestos fibers toxicity. Results show that in the two studied samples there exist high concentrations of Fe, Mn, Cr and Ni which could lead to the high toxicity of the mineral fibers. By considering the pseudo-total PTEs amounts in each tremolite asbestos, it is possible to affirm that one of the samples is more enriched in toxic elements than the other one (3572 ppm versus 1384 ppm). These PTEs can represent a source of risk to human health since they may be transported away from the geological outcrops, through asbestos in the air, water and soils and thus encountering the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]