Publications
In its Final Declaration the UN Conference on the Environment and Development has emphasized a special position and needs of the "least developed and environmentally most vulnerable countries " (Principle 6, the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development. In view of this Principle, Chapter 13 was included into the Agenda-2 1: "Managing Fragile Ecosystems: Sustainable...
The status and abundance of the Balkan lynx in the river Radika Valley, by the method of direct inquiring on the field has been studied in 1997. With this very positive data we determined the current status of the Balkan lynx and its abundance which is between 0,55 ind/10 km 2 up to 1,94 lynx/10 km 2 or average for the whole studied area of 1,2 ind/10 km 2. This amount is 35 % greater than the...
The European NGO Consultation on Sustainable Mountain Development was carried out by the Regional Agency for the Environment of Midi-Pyrenees, France (ARPE) in collaboration with the International Associated Council for the Protection of the Pyrenees (CIAPP), in the framework of the follow up of chapter 13 of Agenda 21.
The paper summarizes the results of the inquiry by the means of a...
The Calderone Glacier, located in the Gran Sasso d'Italia mountain group (Abruzzo, Italy), is the most southern glacier in Europe. The reduced dimension and the general conditions of the glacier make it a powerful environmental indicator in evaluating global change processes including the radio-chemical pollution induced by human activity. Two high altitude samples of snow, collected during...
During the 1980s, a series of major changes to the Earth's environment, including increases in C02 levels and the hole in the ozone layer, were detected only because of the existence of long-term monitoring. The recognition of a lack of quantitative long-term information on the state of the environment came to the fore, and the need for national and international programmes to monitor...
The paper presents the state of the art of the works in progress; in particular Prof. L. D'Alessandro co-ordinates geomorphologic topics, Dr. Massimo Pecci field activities and data elaboration in GIS environment and Prof. C. Smiraglia glaciological themes.
The Calderone glacier is now confined into a deep central mountain valley of the Gran Sasso d'Italia, with steep walls, and does not show...
Ghiacciaio del Calderone is the only glacier in the Italian Apennines and the southernmost glacier in Europe in a strong reduction phase. In this paper, the authors present a tentative synthesis of the evolution of the glacier, with a particular focus on evaluating the variations in area and thickness ranging from the end of the Little Ice Age to the present. The analysis was performed in a GIS...
The Calderone Glacier is characterised by a reduction phase since the end of the "Little Ice Age" (LIA) Auct., particularly strong during the last decade. In fact during the nineties a set of multidisciplinary researches started to evaluate the role of the Glacier like an indicator of the effects of human activities and finally of regional and global climatic change. The apparatus is now confined...
A study of snow statistics over the past 50 years at several climatological stations in the Swiss Alps has highlighted periods in which snow was either abundant or not. Periods with relative low snow amounts and duration are closely linked to the presence of persistent high surface pressure fields over the Alpine region during late fall and in winter. These high pressure episodes are accompanied...
The European Mountain Conventions are an initiative of the European association Euromontana, comprising of agricultural organisations, communities, research institutes, development and environmental agencies and mountain associations with a strong interest in rural and sustainable development of mountainous areas. This network of organisations covers about 15 countries in all the European...