Attività

Soils serve as a fundamental compartment in ecosystem dynamics, in food and non-food production, and in the forefront of natural resource issues such as land use, contamination, carbon storage, water and atmosphere quality and waste disposal. They represent a finite resource with various functions that are important for agricultural, forest, environmental, nature protection, landscape and urban applications.
Our mission is to integrate existing and generate new knowledge on the mechanisms underlying these functions at global level and their susceptibility to climatic or anthropogenic change, as well as on measures for soil protection and mitigation or compensation of loss in soil quality.

Research Objectives

Enhancing our comprehension of soil processes and connections between soil, biosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere over a range of spatial and time scales is essential to provide mechanistic insights into intrinsic soil functions and their impacts on global change.

Our interdisciplinary research contributes to understanding, maintaining and/or enhancing soil functionality, not only in natural, agricultural and forest ecosystems, but also in extreme environments and strongly anthropogenic systems.

Protecting such an important natural resource also requires the evaluation of how hazards like erosion, avalanches, floods and pollution compromise soils and associated ecosystem services, together with the identification of appropriate risk management strategies.

Research topics

Some of the most significant topics and expertise that are of direct relevance to this research area include:

Phosphorus biogeochemistry and soil fertility
Elisabetta Barberis

Heavy metal dynamics and soil remediation
Franco Ajmone-Marsan

Sustainable use of pesticides and organic wastes
Michèle Nègre

Soil organic matter dynamics and interactions with nutrient cycling
Luisella Celi

Mineralogy of iron oxides
Valter Boero

Biogeochemical cycling of iron and arsenic in soils
Maria Martin

Soil organic matter composition, stabilization and turnover
Daniel Said-Pullicino

Protecting soils from natural hazards: Risk assessment and control
Ermanno Zanini

Pedogenic processes as related to soil mineralogy and organic phases
Eleonora Bonifacio

Soil vulnerability assessment and mapping
Silvia Stanchi

Microbial ecology and functional role of microorganisms in biogeochemical cycles
Roberta Gorra

Research Facilities

• Fully equipped soil chemistry, physics, mineralogy and biology research labs;
• Chromatographic (GC, HPLC, IC), spectroscopic (MS, ICP-MS, AAS, UV-Vis, XRD, LDV-PCS), elemental (CHNS, liquid TOC/TNb, TIC), isotope (EA-IRMS) and surface (BET Surface Analyser, Porosimeters) analysis labs;
• Snow and alpine soil laboratory;
• A number of agricultural, forest and mountain research stations.

Research Group

Research Scientists

• Franco Ajmone-Marsan
• Elisabetta Barberis
• Valter Boero
• Eleonora Bonifacio
• Luisella Celi
• Roberta Gorra
• Maria Martin
• Michèle Nègre
• Daniel Said-Pullicino
• Silvia Stanchi
• Ermanno Zanini

Post-doctoral Research Assistants

• Ramona Balint
• Marcella Catoni
• Michele D’Amico
• Danilo Godone
• Margherita Maggioni
• Davide Viglietti

PhD students

• Sergio Belmonte
• Fabienne Curtaz
• Andrea Magnani
• Eleonora Miniotti
• Francesco Molinaro
• Elio Padoan
• Marcella Sodano