Towards sustainable management of forest residues in the southern Apennine Mediterranean mountain forests: a scenario-based approach.

Key message: Managing forest residues according to the carbon content of the soil helps to minimize the ecological footprint of their removal. Context: In Mediterranean mountain ecosystems, unsustainable harvesting of wood residues might contribute to land degradation, carbon, and nutrient depletion in forest soils. Aims: This study aimed to assess the amount of forest biomass residues that should be left on-site to minimize the depletion of soil fertility. Methods: We estimated the availability of biomass residues in the public forest land of the Basilicata region of Southern Italy by collecting stand-scale inventory attributes from forest management plans. Subsequently, we quantified the amount of forest biomass residue released by implementing a scenario-based approach. Results: Approximately 5800 m3 year-1 of forest residues could be potentially available for bio-based industries at the regional scale within the next 10 years. Such residues mainly belong to broadleaved forest types, having a high variability in their soil organic stock (228.5-705.8 Mg C ha-1) and altitudinally spanning from 400 to 1500 m a.s.l. In these forests, the simulated scenarios displayed a wide range of average harvestable residues from 2.5 to 5.5 m3 ha-1, containing approximately 1.1 to 2.1 Mg ha-1 of organic carbon. Conclusion: Our study suggests that forest management plans are a useful source of information to estimate the available forest biomass residues consistently. In southern Mediterranean mountain forests, the management of forest residues according to soil carbon content helps to minimize the environmental impact and increase their sustainability.

A Methodological Integrated Approach to Analyse Climate Change Effects in Agri-Food Sector: The TIMES Water-Energy-Food Module.

The European Union's 2030 climate and energy policy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development underline the commitment to mitigate climate change and reduce its impacts by supporting sustainable use of resources. This commitment has become stricter in light of the ambitious climate neutrality target set by the European Green Deal for 2050. Water, Energy and Food are the key variables of the "Nexus Thinking" which face the sustainability challenge with a multi-sectoral approach. The aim of the paper is to show the methodological path toward the implementation of an integrated modeling platform based on the Nexus approach and consolidated energy system analysis methods to represent the agri-food system in a circular economy perspective (from the use of water, energy, biomass, and land to food production). The final aim is to support decision-making connected to climate change mitigation. The IEA-The Integrated MARKAL-EFOM System (TIMES) model generator was used to build up the Basilicata Water, Energy and Food model (TIMES-WEF model), which allows users a comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of climate change on the Basilicata agri-food system in terms of land use, yields and water availability and a critical comparison of these indicators in different scenarios. The paper focuses on the construction of the model's Reference Energy and Material System of the TIMES model, which integrates water and agricultural commodities into the energy framework, and on the results obtained through the calibration of the model ß version to statistical data on agricultural activities.

Overweight, thinness, body self-image and eating strategies of 2,121 Italian teenagers.

This study describes the prevalence rate of overweight and thinness in a population of teens living in two different areas of Italy and explores the body self-image perception and unhealthy eating behaviours and strategies to lose weight. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 2,121 teenage students (1,084 males, 1,037 females). Results showed that teen females and males build and perceive their body images in very different ways. Most of the overall sample perceived their weight as normal, while a relevant 31.6% defined themselves as overweight and another 4.4% as heavily overweight. Analysis based on BMI (calculated through self-referred weight and height) showed that only 9.2% of our sample could be considered overweight and 1.7% obese. Most of female teen students (485 out of 1,037) were trying to lose weight, demonstrating that strategies to lose weight were undertaken also by girls perceiving themselves as normal in relation to body weight. 46.8% girls were using strategies to lose weight compared with 21.9% boys. These strategies included very problematic behaviours like self-induced vomiting (3.3% F vs 1.7% M) and dieting pills (2.8% F vs 1.5% M) undertaken along with more usual thinning strategies like dieting and exercising. Girls were more prone than boys to exercise as a way to lose weight (41% vs 31.7%). This study showed that there is a deep gap between actual weight and perceived body-image and weight. This study is one of the first of this kind in Italy and calls for primary prevention and health education programs aimed at improving teen body-image as a strategy to reduce the eating disorder epidemics spreading among young people.