is expert in soil genesis, classification, mapping, and conservation, he is research director at the Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment of Florence, belonging to the CREA National council for agricultural research and economics. He was a lecturer of Pedology by the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Siena from 1999 to 2008. He has obtainedthe qualification to teach Pedology as full professor at University in 2014. He was tutor of Ph thesis and member of International doctorates in Italy, Spain and France. Currently, he is member of the International doctoral school of the University of Campobasso (Italy). He is the Secretary of the European Society for Soil Conservation, former president of the Commission on Paleopedology of the International Union of Soil Sciences, current national expert of the soil theme for the Italian Ministry of Agriculture and member of the Georgofili Academia. He is the leader of the National Centre for Soil Mappingand of European and national research projects (RESOLVE - Restoring optimal soil functionality in degraded areas within organic vineyards; CORE Organic Plus http://www.resolve-organic.eu/). Author of more than 200 papers (57 ISI) books and monographs Refs at Google Schoolar
Research Director Consiglio per la ricerca in agricoltura e l'analisi dell'economia agraria CREA via Lanciola 12/A Firenze 50125 Italy
Sergio Vicente-Serrano (Spain)
Sergio Vicente-Serrano (Spain)
Climate variability and change, their impacts, and availability of water resources are key-topics in physical and earth sciences, with extensive scientific, economic, social and environmental relevance. Since the beginning of my scientific career, my research has been mainly focused on topics related to climate variability and its impacts.
The main challenge of my research is to improve the spatial and temporal knowledge of climate variability, allowing to monitor, quantify and predict the occurrence and derived impacts of extreme precipitation events, with special focus on severe droughts.
To achieve these goals, it has been necessary to deepen our understanding of mechanism that control atmospheric circulation, the connections of the global climate system and the development of new techniques of analysis. In our department we consider a research priority to tackle issues related to climate dynamic: trends, variability and change, extreme events, climate impacts and socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability. These studies must be conducted at different spatial scales, with the purpose of clarifying present and near-future climate change processes. The interest for these studies is theoretical and scientific, but also they have an undeniable applied interest, since the connection between atmospheric circulation and hydro-climatic processes is a priority to predict extreme events, to assess impacts of projected climatic change, and to supply new tools for a better environmental and territorial management.
Xavier Romao (Portugal)
Xavier Romão (Portugal)
Xavier Romão is an Assistant Professor at the Structural Engineering Division of the Civil Engineering Department of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). He's an associate member of the Laboratory of Earthquake and Structural Engineering at FEUP and a consultant for the Rehabilitation Nucleus of the Construction Institute at FEUP. He's also a member of the Board of Administration of the Portuguese Society for Earthquake Engineering and a member of the Risk Centre of the University of Porto. He is a national delegate of the International Scientific Committee on Risk Preparedness (ICORP) of ICOMOS and he's also a member of the Board of the Portuguese Society of Earthquake Engineering and an Expert Member of the Working Group "Disaster Loss Data in the EU. He took part in 4 Portuguese earthquake reconnaissance missions (L'Aquila, Italy, 2009; Lorca, Spain, 2011; Emilia-Romagna, Italy, 2012, Kathmandu, 2015) to analyse the damages to existing constructions. His main research interests are in the field of performance-based deterministic and probabilistic methods for the risk and safety assessment of existing constructions. His research addresses existing reinforced concrete and masonry structures, as well as historical constructions, subjected to different types of hazards, namely earthquake hazard.
