Azione B7: Manuale delle Buone Pratiche per la mitigazione delle emissioni di N2O da terre coltivabili

Durata: Gennaio 2014 - April 2016

Scopo: Un Manuale di Buone Pratiche (BPM) sarà prodotto sulla base dei risultati delle azioni B5 e B6, al fine di diffondere le informazioni ottenute alle autorità competenti e le parti interessate. Le attività dell'azione B.7 comprenderanno la discussione degli risultati delle azioni B5 e B6, l'organizzazione di workshop e di seminari su temi specifici. In particolare, verrnno organizzati un focus group e interviste al fine di interagire e discutere con le parti interessate. Il BPM sarà progettato per gli agricoltori, per aumentare la loro consapevolezza sulle "questioni ambientali", in particolare sui cambiamenti climatici e per fornire un nuovo strumento di supporto alle decisioni per una gestione sostenibile delle colture, volto a ridurre i costi di impatto ambientale e di produzione.

Partner Responsabile: RT

Stato dei lavori: L'inizio di questa azione è stato posticipato a Giugno 2014. Una prima bozza del manuale è in fase di revisione. Tuttavia, dal momento che ancora i dati relativi al secondo anno di monitoraggio non sono disponibili, la versione finale del Manuale verrà rilasciata e divulgata  a partire da Aprile 2016.

Action B7: Best Practice Manual to mitigate N2O emissions from arable lands

From January 2014 to April 2016

A Best Practices Manual (BPM) will be produced based on the results of Actions B.5 and B.6, in order to disseminate information to relevant authorities and stakeholders. Activities of Action B.7 will include discussion of the outcomes of Actions B.5 and B.6, workshops and seminars on specific themes of interest and the feedback obtained from stakeholders. In particular, we will organize a focus group and focussed interviews to interact and discuss with actively participating stakeholders.

The BPM will be designed for farmers, to increase their awareness on “green issues”, in particular on climate changes and to provide a new decision-support tool for a sustainable crop management, aimed at reducing environmental impact and production costs, if possible.

The content of BPM will be organized as follows:
• Inventory of the main crops responsible for N2O emissions in the Tuscany Region (from Action B.4);
• Main factors affecting N2O emissions in agricultural soils;
• Best agricultural practices to be adopted to reduce N2O emissions; a specific chapter will be devoted to each investigated crop. 

The Tuscany Region will participate in drafting the BPM and will collaborate in the identification and definition of good behaviour aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the agricultural sector, taking into account the characteristics of the major cropping systems in the region.

In addition, the Tuscany Region will identify clear and easily obtainable indicators to measure the effects of good agricultural practices on greenhouse gas emissions, particularly N2O. In addition, the emission risk in conservative and conventional management systems will be identified, also for calibrating financial incentives. This activity will be carried out integrating the results of other ongoing projects financed by the Tuscany Region (i.e., project "SATREGAS - Sistemi Agricoli Toscani per la Riduzione delle Emissioni di Gas Serra " and RIPARI " Riduzione dell’Impatto delle pressioni  Agricole sulla Risorsa Idrica "), aimed at identifying new management strategies for the reduction of environmental impact in agriculture.

The contents of the manual will be used as technical input in regional planning activites of the Tuscany Region, in particular for the new rural development policy, the Rural Development Plan 2014-2020, and the legislation for the environmental impact of agriculture (i.e., Regional Action Programme implementing the European Nitrates Directive, Integrated Management Disciplinary, Regional Environmental Action Plan).

In addition, project results will be used in technical round tables and meetings having as their goals the "Mitigation of Climate Change", "Promotion of water conservation" and "Reduction of pollution of water bodies" and organized to identify effective actions and measures for financial incentives.

The best practices identified for Tuscany Region and reported in the Manual could be easily transferred to cropping systems of other countries as model of an innovative approach to favour the transfer knowledge from the research to the public administration. A similar procedure could be followed by additional European Region. Moreover, the use of a simplified simulation model to foreseen the N2O emissions both at field and at regional scale will provide the tool to extend the expected results to the European level. The main input data to the model will be soil characteristic, meteorological data and crop technical management, which are data available in the other EU countries, so the model could be adopted in the other regions. In this case the networking activities could have a crucial role in order to capitalize the results of other European project focused on similar topics.

Beneficiaries of IPNOA project will distribute the Manual during conferences, symposia, workshops, and meetings in order to disseminate project results at different levels within the European framework.
Best practices manual is expected to be printed both in Italian (extended version) and English (short version). 

Expected results

The main expected result of this action is the Best Practise Manual.