Journal article2025
A global database of olive oil geographical indications and their properties
Candiago S, Marsoner T, Tscholl S, Fraga H
DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1641032
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Preferenze CookieCandiago S, Marsoner T, Tscholl S, Fraga H
DOI: 10.3389/fsufs.2025.1641032
Tscholl S, Marsoner T, Bertoldi G, Bottarin R, Egarter Vigl L
Lukas Egarter Vigl, Giacomo Bertoldi, Thomas Marsoner, Roberta Bottarin, Simon Tscholl
Progetto: Eco-Idrologia di bacini idrografici alpini
Mountain regions face unique challenges in managing water resources due to their complex topography, diverse climates and their role as water towers for the surrounding lowlands. Here, we present a spatially explicit, annual water balance dataset for the Upper Adige catchment in South Tyrol (Italy), covering the period from 1993 to 2022. The dataset is based on a distributed modelling approach and includes very high-resolution precipitation, evapotranspiration and land use data to compute the annual water balance. It captures both long-term trends and extreme conditions, taking into account gradients in terrain, slope and elevation using local correction factors. Modelled results are validated using stream gauge measurements from nine watersheds, achieving a correlation of over 0.9. This dataset provides a valuable resource for eco-hydrological studies and water resource management in alpine regions, offering detailed insights into the spatial variability and distribution of water availability.
DOI: 10.1002/gdj3.70007
Tscholl S, Candiago S, Marsoner T, Fraga H, Giupponi C, Egarter Vigl L
Over centuries, European vintners have developed a profound knowledge about grapes, environment, and techniques that yield the most distinguishable wines. In many regions, this knowledge is reflected in the system of wine geographical indications (GI), but climate change is challenging this historical union. Here, we present a climate change vulnerability assessment of 1085 wine GIs across Europe and propose climate-resilient development pathways using an ensemble of biophysical and socioeconomic indicators. Results indicate that wine regions in Southern Europe are among the most vulnerable, with high levels also found in Eastern Europe. Vulnerability is influenced by the rigidity of the GI system, which restricts grape variety diversity and thus contributes to an increased sensitivity to climate change. Contextual deficiencies, such as limited socioeconomic resources, may further contribute to increased vulnerability. Building a climate-resilient wine sector will require rethinking the GI system by allowing innovation to compensate for the negative effects of climate change.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50549-w
Tscholl S, Marsoner T, Egarter Vigl L, Bottarin R, Bertoldi G
Lukas Egarter Vigl, Giacomo Bertoldi, Thomas Marsoner, Simon Tscholl, Roberta Bottarin
This dataset presents high-resolution (25 m) gridded maps of the annual water balance, precipitation, and evapotranspiration for the Autonomous Province of Bolzano – South Tyrol, a mountainous region in the European Alps, over the 30-year period from 1993 to 2022. The water balance is calculated as the difference between precipitation and evapotranspiration, with evapotranspiration derived using the Thornthwaite method and adjusted based on detailed land use and topographic data. Precipitation inputs were corrected using observed runoff data from nine watersheds to ensure alignment with local hydrological conditions.
The dataset is particularly valuable for its ability to represent spatial variability in water availability across the region, driven by factors such as elevation, temperature, and land use. Validation against observed streamflow data demonstrated a strong correlation (r > 0.9) and an overall underestimation of runoff by 10–13%, attributed to assumptions in the evapotranspiration calculations. These results confirm the dataset's reliability for hydrological and ecological applications.
Potential uses include modeling annual discharge at specific locations using flow accumulation and catchment delineation tools, as well as supporting ecological studies such as species distribution modeling and the delineation of dry or humid areas. Users should note that the dataset is based on potential evapotranspiration, which may slightly overestimate water demand in regions with limited soil moisture. Additionally, the static land use map may not capture temporal changes in land management.
This dataset offers a robust resource for researchers and practitioners in hydrology, ecology, and environmental management, providing critical insights into water availability in complex alpine terrains.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.14512325
Candiago S, Tscholl S, Bassani L, Fraga H, Egarter Vigl L
Italy and France are historically among the countries that produce the most prestigious wines worldwide. In Europe, these two countries together produce more than half of the wines classified under the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label, the strictest quality mark of food and wines in the European Union. Due to their long tradition in wine protection, Italy and France include highly detailed specifications in their wine PDO regulatory documents that are usually not available for other countries, such as specific information about the main cultivars that must be used to make each wine or the required planting density in the vineyards. However, this information is scattered throughout the documents of each wine production area and has never been extracted and homogenised in a unique dataset. Here, we present the first dataset that characterizes the PDO wines produced in Italy and France at very high detail based on the information from the official EU geographical indication register. For each country it includes a standardized list of the PDO wine names, linked with their specific requirements, such as the wine colour, type, cultivars used and maximum allowed yields. The unprecedented level of detail of this dataset allows for the first time the analysis of more than 5000 traditional wines and their legal and agronomic specifications. This gives insights into the interplay between the European Union quality regulation policy, the wine sector, and agronomic practices, enabling researchers and practitioners to analyze wine production in the context of specific regulations or economic scenarios.
DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2024.110408
Tscholl S, Egarter Vigl L
Progetto: Agricoltura smart per il clima
Wine production and quality both strongly depend on suitable climatic conditions. Increasing the climate resilience of wine regions is therefore of critical importance but requires instruments to evaluate shifts in climatic conditions and growing suitability. This evaluation is particularly challenging in mountain viticultural areas due to their complex topoclimatic patterns, yet they offer the possibility to analyze climate change impacts and adaptation strategies across various climatic conditions and cultivated varieties. Here, we assessed historical and future bioclimatic conditions and identified effective adaptation strategies toward more sustainable and climate-resilient wine production in the mountain winegrowing regions within South Tyrol in the Italian Alps. We found significant changes in climatic conditions under future scenarios, such as an increase in the Huglin index (HI) and cool night index (CNI) as well as a decreased dryness index (DI), causing an expansion of suitable areas for viticulture as well as a spread of unprecedented climatic conditions in traditional vineyards. Impacts and suitable adaptation options varied depending on climate type and grape variety, highlighting the need for targeted solutions that balance the need for high-quality wine production with environmental protection and sustainability. Higher elevated areas over 1000 m a.s.l. will experience an increased suitability raising the need for restrictions regarding the expansion of vineyards to avoid degradation of natural ecosystems and biodiversity declines. In contrast, many traditional winegrowing areas will need to implement a combination of short- and long-term adaptation measures to maintain traditional wine styles. Our findings provide a framework for the assessment of viticultural suitability and the formulation of appropriate adaptation strategies for the sustainable cultivation of wine grapes in a changing climate that applies to a variety of climates and grape varieties.
DOI: 10.1002/cli2.70000
Candiago S, Tscholl S, Bassani L, Fraga H, Egarter Vigl L
Progetto: Servizi ecosistemici in zone montane
The Wine Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label is a European quality scheme that protects high quality wines by linking them to legally defined geographic areas and a set of specific production practices. Because of the tight relation between PDO wines and the specifications defined in the official regulatory documents, these products are highly susceptible to changes in climatic, environmental, or socioeconomic conditions. However, the content of these regulatory documents has never been systematically analysed and summarized in a single dataset. Here, we present the first geospatial inventory that organizes regulatory information about the 1177 wine PDO in Europe based on the documents from the official EU geographical indication register. It includes essential legal information that defines the wine PDO such as the geographic boundaries, authorized cultivars and maximum yields. This inventory opens new possibilities for researchers to accurately assess, compare and map the regulatory information in each wine region at an unprecedented level of detail, supporting decision makers in developing adaptation strategies for the preservation of PDO wine regions.
| Measurement(s) | Wine • Agriculture |
| Technology Type(s) | Database • GIS |
| Factor Type(s) | Regulatory documents |
| Sample Characteristic - Organism | Vitis vinifera |
| Sample Characteristic - Environment | agriculture |
| Sample Characteristic - Location | Europe |
DOI: 10.1038/s41597-022-01513-0
Tscholl S, Tasser E, Tappeiner U, Egarter Vigl L
Lukas Egarter Vigl, Erich Tasser, Ulrike Tappeiner, Simon Tscholl
Progetto: Modello di valutazione delle varietà e delle superfici vitate considerando gli impatti e le opportunità date dal cambiamento climatico nelle Alpi, Cambiamento globale nelle regioni di montagna
Fine-scale climate information is critical to understand species–climate relationships. It is usually obtained by interpolating meteorological station data or by downscaling coarse-gridded climate data. In mountain areas, however, the low station density and macroclimate variables used in coarse-gridded climate products cannot reproduce fine-scale variations caused by the complex topography and thus result in biased predictions of species responses to climate change. Here, we present an innovative method to estimate daily local air temperature at 100 m spatial resolution in the mountain region of South Tyrol (Central Alps, Italy), called the cloud-corrected model. We introduce a correction factor that couples solar radiation and cloud cover data to improve air temperature predictions. Results are compared to models that either consider elevation only (lapse-rate model) or elevation and solar radiation but not cloud cover (clear-sky model) using a set of independent meteorological stations for validation. Moreover, all models were tested to predict critical phenological stages of the climate-sensitive species Vitis vinifera. Over the vegetative period, the cloud-corrected model significantly reduced the mean absolute error of predicted temperature compared with the lapse rate and clear-sky model by 10 and 23%, respectively, and the bias by 93 and 90%, respectively. Solar radiation and cloud cover both strongly influenced local air temperature and their inclusion in temperature estimates greatly reduced systematic biases and improved predictions of important plant phenological stages by multiple days. Our method therefore provides a new way to include easily accessible topography and climate data into fine-scale temperature predictions and accounts for important climate forcing factors that otherwise are often neglected. It combines efficiency and accuracy, because it limits data requirements but still operates on an ecologically relevant spatial scale. Thus, our approach offers promising opportunities to improve the understanding of species–climate relationships, especially in regions sensitive to the effects of climate change.
DOI: 10.1002/joc.7497
Candiago S, Tscholl S, Bassani L, Fraga H, Egarter Vigl L
Wine Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) products are strictly regulated and therefore highly susceptible to changes in climatic, environmental and socioeconomic conditions. Analysing the impacts of such changes has so far been challenging, because the legal specifications of wine PDOs in Europe have never been summarised in a harmonised dataset. Here, we present how we created the first inventory of regulatory information for the 1177 wine PDO in Europe, based on the geographical indication register of the European Union.
DOI: 10.20870/ives-tr.2022.7263
Vigl Egarter L, Marsoner T, Schirpke U, Tscholl S, Candiago S, Depellegrin D
Increasing anthropogenic pressures such as pollution, climate change or invasive species can have multiple impacts on ecosystems and the services (ES) they provide. To address the potential effects on ES provision, we propose a geospatial framework to identify and analyze the cumulative effects on terrestrial and freshwater ES. The framework includs an impact chain analysis based on ten pressures grouped into six categories (pollution, climate change, land-use change, overexploitation, land fragmentation, invasive species) and their single or multiple effects on five key ES of the Alpine environment (recreation, forest protection, CO2 sequestration, habitat maintenance, grassland biomass). Results show that the areas most affected by cumulative effects were located in major urban centers, in the Po Valley, Germany, Slovenia, and in coastal areas of the Adriatic Sea. The spatial coincidence analysis of pressure P-ES on IUCN protected sites showed that protection categories IV and V mostly had high P/high ES scores. Our approach will help in management and planning for mountain conservation aimed at reducing multi-pressure occurrences in transboundary environments. The framework can be used to identify areas with the highest ES provision, characterize areas with high stress from anthropogenic pressures, and examine the effects of pressures on protected areas.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101230
Schirpke U, Tscholl S, Tasser E
Increasing global pressure on natural resources requires that decision makers and land managers adopt sustainable solutions to ensure the long-term provision of essential ecosystem services (ES). Analysing the effects of land-use changes on ES can contribute to an improved understanding of the interactions between socio-economic development, landscape changes and ES, which is fundamental in order to avoid or mitigate the undesired consequences of today's decisions. Studies at longer timescales are still underrepresented, but are also fundamental for capturing slow social and ecological processes. This study therefore analysed the impacts of land-use/land cover (LULC) changes on ES values from the past to the future (1860–2100) in the Autonomous Province of South Tyrol (Italy). Future scenarios were based on socio-economic storylines and their spatial distribution mapped. By attributing ES values to LULC types, we assessed changes in ES values as well as their spatial patterns. Our results indicate that the abandonment of mountain grassland induced an ongoing shift in ES at higher elevations, from grassland-related ES towards forest-related ES. The intensification of use in the valley bottoms had predominantly negative effects on regulation & maintenance, and cultural ES in the past. Under future scenarios, changes in ES values at lower elevations greatly depend on expected socio-economic development. Negative effects on regulation & maintenance and cultural ES were highest for the ‘Food sovereignty’ scenario due to huge transformations of grassland and permanent cultures to arable land in order to optimise food provision at the regional level. In contrast, under the ‘Liberalisation’ and ‘Rewilding’ scenarios, there were positive trends for forest-related provisioning ES and less negative effects on regulation & maintenance and cultural ES within the study area, but the dependence on imported products increased. Our findings provide valuable information for decision-making and policy development in order to minimise negative consequences through targeted management measures or payments for environmental services.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111068
Balotti A, Tscholl S, Egarter Vigl L
Climate indices based on heat accumulation, e.g. the Winkler index, are widely used to define the climatic niches for vines. In this study, we investigate how a combined use of high-resolution (25 m) climate index maps and phenology records from 30 vineyards in South Tyrol (in the Italian Alps) can help to (i) assess viticultural suitability across a mountainous landscape and (ii) estimate the timing of physiological processes of Pinot Noir development (ripening and must weight) at various sites across the region. First, the best interpolation method is chosen (from multiple linear regression (MLR), regression kriging or support vector regression) to create maps of climate indices averaged over the time period 1991-2010. Second, correlation is calculated between the timing of phenological stages of Pinot Noir for the year 2017 and various climate indicators, such as temperature-based indices (Winkler, Huglin, Biologically Active Degree Days, Cool Night, Fregoni) and average (GST), minimum and maximum temperature over the growing season. The MLR method is shown to yield the best interpolations of the climate indices across the complex terrain of the study area. The Winkler and GST indices correlate most precisely with the late-season phenological events of the study sites, and are thus the most predictive. These findings demonstrate the potential of climatic maps to effectively define suitable areas for grape growing and estimate ripening dates in South Tyrol.
DOI: 10.1051/e3sconf/20185001031