STELVIO The SHARE STELVIO project was developed by a group of researchers of the University of Milan, the Politecnico of Milan and CNR of Italy in the frame of the SHARE and the SHARE ITALY Projects promoted and managed by Ev-K2-CNR.
The program is supported by the Lombardy Region under the umbrella of an agreement between the Lombardy Region and a regional research foundation: FLA (Lombardy Foundation for the Environment). The project aims at detecting and quantifying climate change evidences and effects on a sensible area located in the Italian Alps: The Stelvio National Park – Lombardy sector (600 km2 of area).
The study site (Stelvio National Park)was chosen for the following reasons:
- its “strategic” location on the Central-Eastern Alpine sector, able to be reached by southern fluxes and close to the northern Alpine Italian boundary
- it is a sensible and fragile area (glaciers cover 40 km2, 8 SCIs (Sites of Community Importance) are present, here bio and geo diversity are peculiar, the water resource plays a key role for natural systems and human use)
- it includes several environmental benchmarks: glaciers inserted in the WGMS -World Glacier Monitoring Service- list of surveyed glaciers; a hole in the permafrost 100 m deep in the frame of the PACE project; a SHARE ITALY station for monitoring glacier and meteo conditions (the latter now inserted in the CEOP - Coordinated Energy and Water Cycle Observations Project- GEWEX network).
Description The SHARE STELVIO project is composed by 3 main WPs developed by the University and CNR researchers and managed by Ev-K2-CNR Committee and 2 WPs developed and managed by the Foundation. The project is scheduled according to a three-year-long program which will be carried out by the several research units in close cooperation. Each WP is devoted to study and deepen specific topics and its results will permit to reach the main research aim (i.e.: to analyse the atmosphere and climate variability and their effects on water resources). The three WPs managed by Ev-K2-CNR are focusing on:
- WP 1: cryosphere variability due to ongoing climate change and effects on meltwater runoff
- WP 2: climate change impacts on fresh water resources (i.e.: rivers and lakes) deepening the analysis of their features
- WP 3: atmosphere variability and its relations with climate change; analysis of the atmospheric impacts on cryosphere and hydrosphere.
A strong cooperation and synergy is characterizing the project activities; in fact several links are present among the different project sectors (e.g..: atmosphere changes impacts both on water resources and cryosphere, on the other hand the cryosphere variability influences meltwater runoff, etc..).
State of the art The Alps due to their geographical location and configuration are interesting regions for many climate and environmental studies (Beniston, 2003; Battarbee et al., 2002; Lami & Boggero, 2006); these mountains, in fact, are at a “climatic crossroads" that include oceanic, continental, polar, Mediterranean and, on occasion, Saharan influences. Moreover the temperature change in the Alps is more marked than on a global or hemispheric scale (Diaz & Bradley, 1997).
The Lombardy sector of the Stelvio National Park (about 600 km2 of area) is among the most interesting Alpine sites where to perform environmental studies devoted to deepen our knowledge on Climate Change and its effects. Here several researchers have been studying cryosphere, vegetation and fauna to detect early impacts of Climate Change. Cryosphere in particular is surely a dominant element characterizing the Park.
As regards permafrost, at the Stelvio-Livrio site (3000 m) since 1998 is active a borehole, performed in the framework of the international project PACE (Guglielmin, 2004; Harris et al., 2003) and equipped with thermistors and data loggers from the surface up to 100.3 m of depth. Thermal data indicate a possible permafrost base (cryopeg) located at about 200 m of depth or more, a very deep value for the Alps which suggests to focus here further investigations.
Moreover in the Park are also present several rock glaciers, among the most interesting periglacial landforms (Smiraglia, 1985; 1987; Guglielmin, 1997) which whenever active are characterized by an ice core driving their dynamics and preserving important information on past environmental and climate history (Guglielmin et al., 2004; Stenni et al., 2007).
As regards glaciers, in the park 50 ice bodies are present covering about 40 km2. Among the others, Forni, at 12 km2 of area the largest Italian valley glacier. Its recent changes underlined a strong relation with regional and global climate evolution (Pelfini & Smiraglia, 1997; Smiraglia et al., 2007; Smiraglia et al., 2008); in addition this glacier was also inserted in the GOSITES list (Diolaiuti & Smiraglia, 2010), a list including all the geomorphological systems to be protected due to their high scientific, environmental and aesthetic values.
On Forni Glacier since 2005 has been running the first Italian supraglacial automatic weather station (Citterio et al., 2007). The data collected were useful to model glacier energy and mass exchanges and to describe local micro-meteorology (Diolaiuti at al., 2009; Senese et al., 2010). Not only large glaciers are important for environmental studies; in fact, in the Park also smaller ones revealed important information. Among the others the Sforzellina Glacier (about 0.4 km2 of area) permitted to reconstruct the recent Alpine cryosphere dynamics (Smiraglia & Catasta, 1992; Diolaiuti et al., 2001; Diolaiuti et al., 2002) and it revealed a strong relation with dynamics and evolution of closer biological systems like glacier foreland vegetation (Cannone et al., 2008). Moreover cryosphere in the Park also influences the evolution of rivers, streams and lakes supplied by snow and ice melt. Preliminary studies were performed in this research sector (Forasacco, 2001) which suggested to deepen the scientific investigations in particular on newly formed lakes which are environmental witnesses of local and global climate changes. As regards climate evolution, some studies were performed in the Park area or nearby to analyse temperature and precipitations trends (Cannone et al., 2007; Cannone et al., 2008; Bocchiola and Diolaiuti, 2010) which underlined clear evidences of climate changes.
Aims Significant orographic features occupy close to 25% of continental surfaces (Kapos et al., 2000) and, although only about 26% of the world's population resides within mountains or in the foothills of the mountains (Meybeck et al., 2001), mountain-based resources indirectly provide sustenance for over half. Moreover, 40% of global population lives in the watersheds of rivers originating in various mountains of the world. Although mountains differ considerably from one region to another, one common characteristic is the complexity of their topography. Orographic features include some of the sharpest gradients found in continental areas. Related characteristics include rapid and systematic changes in climatic parameters, in particular temperature and precipitation, over very short distances (Becker & Bugmann, 1997). Since climate changes rapidly with height over relatively short horizontal distances, so do hydrology and vegetation (Whiteman, 2000). As a consequence, mountains exhibit high geo and bio diversities. As climate exerts a fundamental control on many biological, physical and chemical systems in mountains, it is of interest to assess here the climate-induced effects (Beniston, 2003). Since June 1992 the United Nations Environment and Development Conference (UNCED, Rio de Janeiro) has included mountainous areas among the systems most sensible to climatic changes, and Chapter 13 of Agenda 21 states the importance of mountains in the global ecosystem. The Alps, in particular, due to their geographical location and configuration, are interesting regions for many climate and environmental studies; these mountains, in fact, are at a “climatic crossroads" that include oceanic, continental, polar, Mediterranean and, on occasion, Saharan influences. Moreover the temperature change in the Alps is more marked than on a global or hemispheric scale. The warming experienced on the Alps since the early 1980s, while synchronous with warming at the global scale, is however of far greater amplitude, which represents roughly a two-fold amplification of the global climate signal (Diaz & Bradley, 1997).
Program During the three-year-long project WP 1 will focus on cryosphere (i.e.: snow, ice and permafrost) spatial and temporal variability to find relations with climate. For such purpose the local network of benchmark glaciers will be extended and new instruments and automatic stations will also be added for measuring ice and snow properties and meltwater runoff. Several field campaigns are scheduled for collecting data to calibrate and validate analytical models able to describe magnitude and rates of ice and snow melting. In addition the researchers will focus on permafrost. To evaluate its magnitude and its recent variability a deep hole (> 200 m) will be drilled in the Stelvio Park area. In the same period, WP 2 will focus on fresh water resources (i.e.: rivers and lakes) to describe their chemical, physical and biological features and to look for relations with recent atmosphere, climate and cryosphere variability. WP 3 will perform field campaigns and data modelling. The researchers from CNR ISAC and LGGE-CNRS will analyse atmosphere composition, dynamics and variability and their effects on cryosphere and hydrosphere. A monitoring network will be installed according to the GAW and EUSAAR protocols to collect data over long time frames; in addition specific air samplings will be performed to acquire data useful for understanding specific atmospheric processes.
Themes The SHARE STELVIO project is scheduled according to a three-year-long program which will be carried out by the several research units (WP 1, WP 2 and WP 3 linked to Ev-K2-CNR Committee) in close cooperation. This will join competences in the several required fields of investigation. The fields of investigation span from glaciology and cryospheric sciences (UNIMI and UNINSUBRIA for field experiments and remote sensing investigation of spatial and temporal variability of snow and ice melt, influencing the water budgets of the studied areas), to hydrology (POLIMI for water budgets and water resources exploitation, CNR IRSA and ISE for water quality), meteorology, climatology and atmospheric sciences (CNR ISAC and the Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l’Environnement (LGGE-CNRS), UNICATT and FLA), applied statistics (for local trend assessment), to data assimilation, biology and ecology (CNR IRSA and ISE, FLA).
Targets
- WP 1 – Ev-K2-CNR is devoted to study the alpine cryosphere (snow, glaciers and permafrost), its recent variability and changes and their impacts and effects on runoff of meltwater rivers
- WP 2 – Ev-K2-CNR is focused on the analysis of the quality and features of the Park waters collected into rivers, lakes, and effimerous and / or temporary ponds
- WP 3 - EvK2CNR is aimed at studying atmosphere (composition, dynamics, variability and effects on the cryosphere) and includes the installation and running of a monitoring strategy according to the quality standards of GAW and EUSAAR networks
- WP 4 – FLA will complete WP3 and will focus on the impacts on the Park ecosystems of atmospheric variability
- WP 5 – FLA will be devoted to dissemination activities.
Partners WP 1 – Ev-K2-CNR (local research managers: Guglielmina Diolaiuti and Claudio Smiraglia)
It includes the following operative units: -Glaciers, managed by PhD Guglielmina Diolaiuti and Prof. Claudio Smiraglia, University of Milano -Hydrology, managed by PhD Ing Daniele Bocchiola, and Prof. Renzo Rosso, DIIAR Politecnico of Milano -Permafrost, managed by Prof Mauro Guglielmin, Università of Insubria, Varese, Italy
WP 2 – Ev-K2-CNR (local research managers: Andrea Lami and Gianni Tartari)
It includes the following operative units: -CNR ISEmanaged by PhD Andrea Lami -CNR IRSA managed by Dr. Gianni Tartari
WP 3 - Ev-K2-CNR (local managers: Angela Marinoni and Paolo Bonasoni)
It includes the following operative units: -CNR ISAC Bologna managed by PhD Angela Marinoni and PhD Paolo Bonasoni -Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Géophysique de l’Environnement (LGGE-CNRS) managed by PhD Paolo Laj
WP 4 –FLA (local managers: Antonio Ballarin Denti and Dr. Mita Lapi)
It includes the following operative units: -FLA managed by Porf. Antonio Ballarin Denti and Dr. Mita Lapi) -POLIMI managed by Prof. Marino Gatto
WP5 –FLA managed by Prof. Antonio Ballarin Denti and Dr. Mita Lapi
Publications
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