Researcher

email: piero.manna@cnr.it

Tel :+  39 081.0624.(int.568)

Education

• Degree in Agricultural Science and Technology, Ecological-Environmental specialisation, final mark 110/110, University of Naples Federico II, Faculty of Agriculture, Portici, 19 February 2002. Thesis on resistance to Phytophthora infestans in Solanum tuberosum and wild Solanum accessions.
• PhD in “Development and Management of Agroforestry Resources”, undertaken at DiSSPAPA (Department of Soil, Plant and Environmental Sciences), Faculty of Agriculture, Portici, in collaboration with CNR-ISAFOM, Ercolano. Research area: Applied Pedology. Thesis: “New approaches to land evaluation: a case study in the Lodi area.” Degree awarded on 16 February 2006.
• Advanced training course on “Territorial Analysis of Natural and Agricultural Resources”, University of Naples Federico II, academic year 2002–2003. Topics: basic and advanced GIS, remote sensing, modelling, multivariate analysis.
• European Summer School on Soil Survey, Institute for Environment & Sustainability, JRC, Ispra, 21–25 July 2003.
• Course on Applied Geostatistics for Soil Studies (basic module), University of Naples Federico II, 24–28 November 2003.
• Seminars on Hydrological Models (CropSyst) applied to the soil-plant-atmosphere system, University of Milan, 3–13 November 2003.
• Course on Soil Hydrology (basic module), University of Naples Federico II, 23–27 February 2004.
• Course on Soil Hydrology (advanced module), University of Naples Federico II, 20–23 September 2005.
• Intensive course on “Merging GIS and Spatial Statistics”, University of Naples Federico II, 29 January–3 February 2007.
• MATLAB course (basic module), CNR-ISAFOM, 4 June–3 July 2008.
• Distance-learning course “Spatial Decision Support Systems”, ITC (Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation), October–November 2009.
• ISPRA national seminar: “Soil and Biodiversity: opportunities for the new millennium.”

Main Research Interests

• Applied Land Evaluation, using innovative and integrated approaches designed to enhance the competitiveness of the agri-food system.
• Hydrological modelling of the soil-plant-atmosphere system.
• Development of geospatial Decision Support Systems (DSS) for the management of soil, landscape and agricultural crops.
• Viticultural zoning and terroir characterisation.
• Assessment of soil degradation and land degradation at landscape and regional scales.
• Soil contamination and precision remediation of potentially contaminated sites.
• Integration and validation of pedological and hydrological data within soil databases to support the modelling of soil-water processes and the assessment of ecosystem services.

Field and Laboratory Activities

• Soil sampling campaigns and field pedological and hydrological surveys, including the description of soil profiles and the compilation of field data sheets.
• Chemical and physical-hydrological analyses of soil samples.
• Chemical analyses of soil samples using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES)
• Processing and analysis of pedological, hydrological and chemical field and laboratory data to support land evaluation and modelling applications.
• Current research into microplastics as soil pollutants, including the development and application of extraction methods for their isolation and characterisation.
• Current research into soil characterisation using mid-infrared Fourier-transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, with the aim of defining soil spectral signatures.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0574-0465

IRIS CNR: https://iris.cnr.it/simple-search?query=Piero+Manna

SCOPUS: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=25640030600

Project links:

LANDSUPPORT: https://www.landsupport.eu/

BENCHMARKS: https://soilhealthbenchmarks.eu/

SOILS4MED: https://mel.cgiar.org/projects/1866

TAIE: https://taieproject.eu/