Piero Manna

Piero MannaPiero Manna (male) is a Researcher at CNR-ISAFOM. He got the degree in Agricultural Science and Technology (110/110) in 2002 at the University of Naples Federico II, discussing a thesis on Phytopathology entitled “Searching for resistance to Phytophthora infestans in Solanum tuberosum and wild Solanum varieties”.

In February 2006 he got the PhD degree in applied Pedology on the general theme “Valorisation and management of the Agro-Forest Resources”, at the University of Naples “Federico II”, discussing the thesis entitled “New approaches to the Land Evaluation: a case study in Lodi plain”.

The main interests are related to applied Pedology (soil sampling and description, field measurements), soil hydrology (field sampling, measurements, monitoring), hydrological modelling (in particular soil-plant-atmosphere system modelling), Land Evaluation with traditional and hybrid approaches (modelling application), Geostatistics (spatial interpolation of environmental variables), GIS application, Viticultural zoning, development of Spatial-DSS (Decision Support Systems).

During the last years, thanks to the collaboration with the Agricultural Department of the University of Naples he had several lectures and exercises for students (fields, classroom and laboratory) on Pedology, Soil physics and Hydrology, Land Evaluation, Viticultural zoning and Soil sealing issues.

He is a member of the Italian Society of Soil Science (SISS) and of the Italian Society of Pedology (SIPE).

From 2010 to 2014 he has been fully involved in an interdisciplinary European project (LIFE+ “SoilConsWeb”), whose aim was the realization of a Web Based Spatial Decision Support System for soil protection and land management. His main role was to collaborate to the technical coordination of different research groups involved in the project. He coordinated the production of data (thematic maps, modelling simulation, soil data) and was involved in verifying their accuracy. He was also involved in the implementation of the DSS system user-interface.

He drafted and was fully involved (administrative management, field monitoring and sampling, GIS elaboration, scientific aspects) in a project named “ZoViSA” aimed at the Viticultural Zoning approaches from field to regional scale, funded by Campania region (Italy) within the PSR (rural development plan) 2007/2013, Measure 124 “Cooperation for development of new products, processes and technologies in the agriculture, food and forestry sectors”.

He was involved in a group of researchers and experts from CNR and University of Naples, identified by FAO, to produce a technical evaluation of the Land Assessment models applied by the Organization itself (internal report), by which the limits and advantages in the application of each model were showed and explained (review work). He was also involved in national research projects on: the study of soil properties at a landscape scale with the application of geostatistic approaches (PRIN2001 project- Pedological methodologies for the study of soil spatial variability, 2002-2003);  the study of  problems related to nitrate pollution from agricultural sources, through the application of physically based models SWAP, CropSyst and ANIMO (ARMOSA-IDRO project – Activation of a network for monitoring the quality of the soil/water in Lombardia region, Italy –  2003-2006); the study of soil nitrate dynamics (Analysis and modelling of nitrate dynamic in some pedo-environments of Calabria region, Italy -2007-2009). He also had experience in the chemical analysis of soil samples applying ICP-AES methodology (Inductively Coupled Plasma- Atomic Emission Spectrometry).

Currently he is collaborating at the development of a web Spatial Decision Support System within an European Horizon2020 project (www.landsupport.it). He is also involved in research projects focused on the issues of smart agriculture, viticultural zoning, crops adaptation to climate changes.