Elisa SACCHI, Leading organization (EES-UNIPV), Project coordinator and investigator involved in all WPs
Elisa Sacchi graduated in Earth Sciences in 1990 and obtained her Ph.D. in geochemistry in 1995. Since March 2002, she is enrolled at the University of Pavia as Researcher. She is officially in charge of teaching Aqueous and Environmental Geochemistry, and Applied Geochemistry to students of Earth, Natural and Environmental Sciences.
During her post-graduate studies she developed her research activity in the field of Environmental Geochemistry, obtaining numerous scholarships. She also worked as a consultant for Italian and International institutions (INFN, ANDRA, OCDE Nuclear Energy Agency, ANSTO) in the fields of radioactive waste disposal and radiochemical contamination monitoring. Occasionally, she collaborates as “Expert” with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Her main interests are in water, sediment and soil pollution, water-rock interaction and environmental applications of isotope geochemistry.
Massimo SETTI, Leading organization (EES-UNIPV), Investigator involved in WP4
Massimo Setti is presently Associate Professor, in the field of Applied Mineralogy. He graduated in Geological Sciences the 6 December 1983. He especially carried out investigations on clay minerals in basic and applied researches.
Marine geology has always been a very important subject of his researches. In particular he carried out mineralogical and textural studies on bottom sediments of Mediterranean sea, in comparison with the characteristics of the river basin areas discharging in the bays. The investigation concerned sediments and particulate suspended matter in the rivers and marine basins for evaluating the interactions between clay minerals and pollutants (in particular metal elements). Others investigations were conducted Antarctic and subantarctic areas, examining the clay mineral types and contents in relationship with the sediment provenance, paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic changes. The same approach applied in the African continent (tropical and equatorial climates) allows for the identification of the chemical and physical weathering effects on the genesis of clay minerals. Recently, he has been involved in studies concerning the role of soil mineralogy in the retention of contaminants in agricultural areas, and more specifically pharmaceuticals contained in manure.
Viviana RE, Leading organization (EES-UNIPV), Young researcher involved in WP5
Viviana Re holds a PhD in Analysis and Governance of Sustainable Development (2011), a MSc in Environmental Sciences (2007) and a BSc. in Natural Sciences (2003). From 2009 to 2011 she has collaborated with UNESCO-IHP for the development of the Moroccan Pilot case study of the GEF-UNEP/MAP MEDParnership initiative. In 2013 she was awarded an EU Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship to develop a three-year project at the at the- Laboratory of Radio-Analysis and Environment (LRAE) of National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), Tunisia, aimed at promoting a participative approach to sustainable groundwater management in rural areas. Her research interests include the investigation of groundwater quality in developing countries, the use of environmental isotopes to assess the origins of groundwater pollution and the role of hydrogeology in supporting science-based management practices.
Arianna MUSACCHIO, Leading organization (EES-UNIPV), PhD Candidate
Arianna Musacchio holds a MSc in Natural Sciences in 2014. During her studies she focused on landscape ecology, ecological networks and modelling. After her master she had a traineeship in landscape planning at University of Navarra and a scholarship in Pavia to study biodiversity conservation in lowland ecosystems. She is interested in interdisciplinary sustainable science, especially in interactions between environmental and ecological sciences and social engagement. In the INTEGRON project she’s focusing on groundwater contamination trends, groundwater dating and social network analysis.
Francesco CAFISO, Leading organization (EES-UNIPV), MSc Student
Francesco Renato Cafiso is a MSc student in the Master’s Degree in Applied Geological Sciences at Pavia University. He completed in BSc in December 2015 he is currently working on his master dissertation also in collaboration with CNR-IRSA, dealing with hydrogeology and contamination assessment on low lands springs.
His main research interests are hydrogeology and geochemistry.
Pierluigi VIAROLI, Partner 1 (LS-UNIPR), Unit leader and investigator involved in WP1 and WP3
Full Professor at the University of Parma, where he teaches Fundamental ecology, Applied Ecology 2 and Wastewater processing, he directed nearly 150 theses (1991-present) in the first and second degrees and 15 in the Ecology PhD program. Research fields include primary production, decomposition and biogeochemistry in shallow water ecosystems, origin, pathways and fate of nutrient loadings at different spatial scales, limnology of shallow lakes in relation to eutrophication and acidification, assessment of buffer capacity and resilience in coastal lagoons, shallow lakes and wetlands with different trophic status, ecology of restoration and management of shallow quarry lake and man-managed lakes. He is Associate Editor of Hydrobiologia, co-Editor in Chief of Transitional Water Monographs online, and member of the Editorial Board of: Journal of Limnology; Advances in Oceanography and Limnology and Biologia Ambientale (Environmental Biology, in Italian). He was co-founder and coordinator of the Italian Network for Coastal Lagoon Research (LAGUNET); co-founder and board member of the Italian Long Term Ecological Research Program (ILTER-ITALY); board Member and President of the Italian Society of Ecology; co-founder, vice-President and President of the Italian Association for Natural and Environmental Sciences; Member of the Scientific Board of the Consortium for Coordination of Research Activities concerning the Venice Lagoon System – CORILA; Member of the Panel for the Coastal Module of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (CGTOS); Member of the international commission on water quality (ICWQ) (2012-present).
Marco BARTOLI, Partner 1 (LS-UNIPR), Investigator involved in WP1 and WP3
Marco Bartoli holds a MSc in biology (1991) and a PhD in Ecology (1996). Since 2000 he is employed as a technician at the Department of Life Sciences, University of Parma. In the last 20 years he was involved in a number of European and National research projects, mainly dealing with the study of causes, consequences and reversal of eutrophication phenomena in aquatic environments. Research activities deal with the biogeochemical cycles of oxygen, carbon and nutrients (N, P and Si) in freshwater, brackish and marine environments. Within this vast subject, he developed expertise in the analyses of algal blooms, anoxic events, sedimentary processes and nutrient budgets. He is particularly interested in the sediment-water exchange of solutes and water-atmosphere exchange of dissolved gas and their regulation by interplaying environmental factors, in particular microbial communities, aquatic plants and macrofauna. The main research areas are the Po River Plain, the Oglio and Mincio Rivers watershed, including agricultural and wetland areas, the lagoons of the Po River Delta and the northern Adriatic Sea. Together with some colleagues, at the beginning of 2014, he has launched a national initiative (INN: Italian Nitrogen Network) aiming at establishing a permanent connection among Italian researchers studying N cycle.
Erica RACCHETTI, Partner 1 (LS-UNIPR), Young researcher involved in WP1 and WP3
Erica Racchetti defended her PhD in Ecology at the University of Parma (March 09, 2010) discussing a thesis on the N load sources and transformations at the watershed level, in particular on denitrification process in riverine wetlands. At present she is a researcher assistant at the same University and she studies the N budget terms at the catchment scale to investigate the fate of excess N that is not exported at the closure section of fluvial basins: denitrification in secondary drainage networks, river metabolism and role of groundwater in N recycling loads to river water. She has expertise also in the evaluation of the effects of hydrological regime on river ecosystems (morphology, water quality, habitat diversity and biological communities). Since 2009 she coordinates a project on the definition of the minimum vital flow in the Oglio River (Northern italy).
She is familiar with standard spectrophotometric techniques for dissolved and particulate nutrient determinations, with Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometry (MIMS) techniques for N2/Ar measurements, gas cromatographic techniques for CH4, N2O and CO2 analyses and with microsensors for porewater profiling. She is also familiar with process measurements, in particular sedimentary processes (sediment oxygen demand, inorganic carbon efflux, solute exchange across the interface, ets.). She evaluated denitrification rates by means of the isotope pairing technique and she is at present applying to homogeneous river reaches open channel methods based on N2 variations in the water column to estimate denitrification in lotic systems, and on O2 and nutrient variations to estimate river metabolism and N load input from groundwater to river water.
ELISA SOANA, Partner 1 (LS-UNIPR), Young researcher involved in WP1
Elisa graduated in Environmental Sciences in 2008 and defended her PhD in Ecology in 2013, discussing a thesis on the ecophysiology of freshwater macrophytes and the rhizosphere-microbial communities interactions in eutrophic ecosystems (University of Parma). Her research activities focus on nitrogen metabolism in freshwater ecosystems, genesis and transformations of nutrient loads in agricultural watersheds via mass balance calculation, ecosystem services provided by aquatic vegetation via a biogeochemical approach. She is familiar with field and laboratory experimental activities on water and sediment compartments to measure benthic metabolism, nutrient and gas exchange at air-water and sediment-water interfaces. She has experience in laboratory analyses of water and sediment (spectrophotometric, mass spectrometry and gascromatographic techniques), analyses of data from agriculture and population censuses and technical skills on GIS.
In 2009, as a technical adviser of the CIRF (Italian Centre for River Restoration), she participated to the project CH2OICE-Certification for HydrO: Improving Clean Energy (activity 2: Review of national methods for classification of water bodies as requested by the WFD). In 2013 she coordinated a project (founded by Cogeme onlus Foundation) aimed at assessing the ecological and economic feasibility of the development of small-scale agro-energy supply chains in agricultural landscapes fuelled with biomass from woody buffer strips. From 2008 to 2016, she was involved in several projects investigating nutrient dynamics at both large (watershed N, P and Si mass balances) and small spatial scale (rhizosphere processes).
In 2013 and 2014, she has received an assignment to teaching support of the course “Applied Ecology II” (Dr. G. Castaldelli, Master Degree in Ecology and Evolution, University of Ferrara. She has been thesis assistant supervisor (2008 – present) of 18 Master and Bachelor Degrees in Environmental Science (University of Parma). At present, she is a postdoctoral fellow at University of Ferrara, Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology (scientific coordinator Prof. Castaldelli). She is involved in ongoing experimentations aimed at applying an innovative technique to measure denitrification (N2-open channel method) in the canal network.
Raffaella BALESTRINI, Partner 2 (CNR-IRSA), Unit leader and investigator involved in WP3
Raffaella Balestrini, graduated in Biology, works as researcher at the Water Research Institute of the National Council of Researches, in Brugherio (Italy), since 1996. Her specific research activities are: i) nutrient removal and ecology of riparian wetlands-streams-lakes, ii) biogeochemical processes at surface-groundwater interfaces, iii) measure of nutrient retention in-stream iv) nitrogen cycling in forested and high elevation watersheds, and v) role of atmospheric deposition in the element cycling of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.
Andrea BUFFAGNI, Partner 2 (CNR-IRSA), Investigator involved in WP3 and WP5
Andrea Buffagni, graduated in Biology, works as researcher at the Water Research Institute of the National Council of Researches, in Brugherio (Italy), since 1997.
His specific research activities focus on river ecology and hydrobiology. He has been particularly concerned with the development of methods for the assessment of ecological quality of rivers. Main expertise on invertebrate ecology, habitat assessment techniques, Water Framework Directive (WFD: EC 2000/60). He participated to the CIS Intercalibration process for biological methods at the European scale, and directly contributed to draft a few CIS Guidances and Italian decrees (e.g. DM 260/2010, the so called “Classification Decree”), DM 56/2009 “Monitoring Decree”, DM 131/2008 “Typology Decree”) related to the WFD transposition in Italy.
Elisabetta PREZIOSI, Partner 2 (CNR-IRSA), Investigator involved in WP2 and WP3
Researcher, she is a hydrogeologist with a long term experience in water resources management issues, including numerical modeling of ground water flow and geochemical characterization at the groundwater body scale. After obtaining her PhD in hydrogeology at the Rome University in 1997, including one year as Marie Curie fellow at the Ecole des Mines of Paris (ENSMP) in Fontainebleau, she was employed as a researcher at the ENSMP in 1997-1998, then worked at the Tiber river basin National Authority in 2000- 2001 for the river basin management plan implementation. Her current research interests include: effects of climate changes on the hydrologic cycle; flow modeling in the porous media at the regional scale; sustainable water resources management; water scarcity and drought issues; water rock interaction and natural background levels.
She participates as an Expert for the Italian Ministry of Environment in the EC working group ―Groundwater‖ for the Water framework Directive and Groundwater Directive implementation and contributed to the drafting of relevant CIS guidances.
Carlo Andrea DELCONTE, Partner 2 (IRSA-CNR), Young researcher involved in WP3
Carlo Andrea Delconte, graduated in Environmental Sciences in 2003 from University of Milano-Bicocca, obtained his Ph.D in Earth Sciences at the University of Pavia in 2013. He worked as a grant holder from 2004 to 2009 and from 2012 to 2016 at the Water Research Institute of the National Research Council, in Brugherio (Italy), where, at present, he hold the position as a technician. From 2009 until 2012 he also worked as a grant holder at the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources of the National Research Council, in Pavia (Italy). Within his activity he focused attention on: i) nutrient removal and ecology of riparian buffers, ii) nitrogen cycling in alpine and lowland ecosystems and iii) use of nitrate isotope in order to assess the nitrate dynamics and processes of removal/reduction in freshwater.