Maurizio Previati

Eddy covariance data were collected at a station located on a slope characterised by a very common and increasing land cover in the Alpine region, that is, the abandoned pasture. Three diurnal growing season (2014, 2016 and 2017) were considered. The site is located at 1730 m asl in Cogne (Valle d’Aosta, Italy). The sensible and latent heat fluxes, as well as the carbon dioxide flux, were estimated. The in-situ fluxes and their quality were examined to assess whether an acceptable amount of good quality data was collected, and then proposing a simple step by step quality control procedure.

The Alps are very sensitive to climate and land cover changes. In the past years, a growing interest towards understanding the water and carbon exchanges in the mountains led to an increasing number of studies. However, the complexity of these environments determines many uncertainties from a methodological and ecological point of view. Therefore, there is a need to compute and compare flux data collected at different, high-altitude and complex sites. Such studies will improve the knowledge about the impact of local morphology on measurements.

The mountains are known as the water towers of the World and they are also climate hot spots. Therefore, water availability studies are extremely useful. To this purpose, Evapotranspiration analyses are important because it plays an essential role in water balance. Its estimation is an important challenge in complex terrains because of few measurement sites and of models’ resolution.

A peat deposit (Zennare basin, Venice coastland, Italy) was monitored in previous field studies to investigate the hydrological response of organic soil to meteorological dynamics. Field tests and modelling predictions highlighted the risk of the complete loss of this peat layer during the next 50 years, due to oxidation enhanced by the increased frequency of warmer periods.