Mediterranean mountainous basins provide critical water supply and ecosystem services, yet these environments are increasingly at risk due to anthropogenic stressors and competition for water across urban, agricultural and environmental demands. In Waterstem we study the interactions between carbon and water cycles and their role in the propagation of meteorological droughts into eco-hydrological systems. Waterstem aims at increasing water and ecosystem security in a warmer and drier Mediterranean.
Principal Investigator: Paolo Benettin, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (paolo.benettin@unil.ch) Research topics: Plant water sources Carbon budget Remote sensing of evapotranspiration Isotope evaporative fractionation Site description: The Grignanello experimental vineyard is a field of 1 hectar in the middle of the Chianti region, Tuscany, Italy. The site is part of the
Site Contacts Principal Investigator: Giovanna Battipaglia (giovanna.battipaglia@unicampania.it) Research Topics: Forest responses to drought Tree growth Tree transpiration Tree ecophysiology Dendrochronology Phenology Site description: Mediterranean mountainous basins provide critical water supply and ecosystem services, yet these environments are increasingly at risk due to anthropogenic stressors and competition for water across urban,
The Re della Pietra is an experimental forested catchment of 2 km2 located in the Tuscan Apennines, Central Italy. The area is managed by the local Forest Service and belongs to the International Model Forest network (https://imfn.net/). It is a rain-dominated catchment with an average annual precipitation depth of approximately
The Sibillini National Park Critical Zone Observatory (SCZO) is a catchment (8 km2) tributary of the Nera River located in the Apennines chain in the Monti Sibillini National Park .The site is characterized by complex interactions between surface and groundwater fluxes and has been experimented with multiple pressure transducers for
Assessing the resilience of beech forests and their adaptation and water use strategies to climate change is strategic for an early prediction of mortality risk of forest. The latest research of Puchi et al. carried out in the framework of the project Waterstem funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and led by National Research Council, investigates Italian beech forests’ resilience to the increasing tree mortality from drought and heat stress. By analysing basal area growth (BAI, Figure
In a period where climate extremes like #droughts are always more frequent and severe, understanding the interactions between #carbon and #water cycles is vital to reduce the impact of these extremes on #water and #ecosystem. This is the main objective of the project Waterstem, a project funded in 2022 by the Italian Ministry of Education and led by the National Research Council. In Waterstem we study different aspects related to forest and pasture ecosystems and
One of the research questions of the Waterstem project https://www.waterstem.org is to understand interactions between roots and water movement in the soil and how they interact each other. Simone di Prima and Filippo Giadrossich are two experts in the field. They use georadar to unveil subsurface flow patterns in forested soils. In the last two weeks they build an experiment in a very challenging conditions on a steep slope beech forest in the Re della