Vineyards in Terraced Landscapes: New Opportunities from Lidar Data

Abstract

Vineyard landscapes are a relevant part of the European culture, and several authors concluded that they are the agricultural practice that causes the highest soil loss. Grape quality depends on the availability of water, and soil erosion is an important parameter dictating the vineyard sustainability; therefore, soil and water conservation measures are often implemented. Among them, the construction of terraces is the most widely used system. However, while favouring agricultural activities, terraces if not properly maintained can lead to local instabilities creating hazards for settlements and cultivations, and for the related economy. Terraced fields are also served by agricultural roads that can have deep effects on water flows triggering surface erosion. The goal of this research is to use lidar elevation data for a hydro‐geomorphological analysis of terraced vineyards. The work is divided in two parts. At first, the Relative Path Impact Index is tested in two vineyards to identify terrace‐induced and road‐induced erosions. Statistical thresholds of the Relative Path Impact Index are then defined to label the most critical areas. On the second step, using the index and the defined thresholds, we simulate different scenarios of soil conservation measures, establishing the optimal solution to reduce erosion. The results highlight the effectiveness of high‐resolution topography in the analysis of surface erosion in terraced vineyards, when the surface water flow is the main factor triggering the instabilities. The proposed analysis can help in scheduling a suitable planning to mitigate the consequences of the anthropogenic alterations induced by the terraces and agricultural roads. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of soil management techniques on soil water erosion in apricot orchards

“…High erosion rates have been observed in avocado (Atucha et al, 2013) and olive orchards (Gómez et al, 2003;Vanwalleghem et al, 2010), new citrus plantations (Cerdà et al, 2009b;Li et al, 2015) and vineyards (Novara et al, 2013;Tarolli et al, 2015). Almond (Faulkner, 1995), persimmon , and apricot (Abrisqueta et al, 2007) orchards have also shown high erosion rates, but little research has been carried out comparing agriculture land management in fruit orchards.…”

Effects of permanent grass versus tillage on aggregation and organic matter dynamics in a poorly developed vineyard soil

“…Vineyard soils are often highly sensitive to SOM loss and topsoil degradation due to their 29 intrinsic properties such as limited soil development, coarse texture and low capacity to protect 30 SOM by binding to soil minerals (Le Bissonnais et al 2007;Martinez-Casasnovas and Ramos 31 2009;Tarolli et al 2015). These soils often show different properties with respect to other 32 agricultural soils, e.g limited SOM contents, hilly morphology and sloping topography (Ramos and 33 Martinez-Casasnovas 2004;Novara et al 2011).…”

Estimation of the susceptibility of a road network to shallow landslides with the integration of the sediment connectivity

“…This is due to the similar values of W (0.6-0.8) characterizing the most widespread land covers of the study area, which thus induce to a limited change in IC value passing from a land use class to another one. Instead, changes in land use distribution could also have effects on the physical morphology of the hillslopes (Fu et al, 2006;Tarolli et al, 2015). For example, the recovery of the cultivation of grapevines in a slope could lead to the development of a drainage system of the superficial and of the shallow waters and to modification on the slope morphology for the implantation of the vineyards.…”