Scholars@Duke
Marco Marani

Marco Marani

Adjunct Professor in the Earth and Climate Sciences Division
Earth and Climate Sciences

Scholarly Works

Spatio-temporal variability of landslides as indicator of climate change impact: Towards an Italian national scale integrated procedure for the rainfall role analysis in landslide dynamics

Journal article International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction · September 1, 2026 Ground instabilities such as landslides, subsidence, sinkholes, and soil liquefaction are highly sensitive to climate change. In Italy, these phenomena represent a major component of hydrogeological risk, particularly in mountainous and hilly regions where ... Full text Cite

Projected changes in sub-daily extreme precipitation: comparing temperature-scaling approaches and convection-permitting models across an Alpine gradient

Journal article Journal of Hydrology · June 1, 2026 Quantifying future changes in sub-daily extreme precipitation in mountainous basins is essential for adapting to increasingly intense flash floods and debris flows. Often, extreme precipitation-temperature scaling rates are used to anticipate future extrem ... Full text Cite

Sea Lavender Reimagined: Keystone Halophytes in Salt Marsh Blue Carbon Dynamics

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · January 1, 2026 Salt marshes are ecologically and socio-economically valuable intertidal ecosystems that have suffered rapid losses worldwide. As a blue carbon ecosystem (BCE), they are efficient sinks and long-term reservoirs of organic carbon (OC), with vital roles in t ... Full text Cite

Thermodynamic Versus Large-Scale Controls on Extreme Precipitation: Temporal Scale Dependence and Clausius-Clapeyron Scaling Redefined

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · November 16, 2025 Precipitation extremes are expected to intensify under climate warming, but substantial uncertainty remains in quantifying this intensification. A widely used approach, Clausius-Clapeyron (CC) scaling, is limited by an inexplicit definition of extremes and ... Full text Cite

Orographic and land-sea contrast effects in convection-permitting simulations of extreme sub-daily precipitation

Journal article Weather and Climate Extremes · September 1, 2025 Convection-permitting climate models (CPMs) represent a significant advancement compared to regional climate models, enabling more accurate simulations of extreme precipitation at fine spatial and temporal scales. Assessing the reliability of CPM projectio ... Full text Cite

Estimation of Extreme Floods Using a Statistical and Conceptual Model of the Hydrological Response

Journal article Water Resources Research · May 1, 2025 The robust estimation of flood peak discharge values is critical for designing mitigation measures and increasing preparedness to natural hazards. Traditional flood estimation methods are, however, severely limited by data series shorter than the return pe ... Full text Cite

Estimates of Rare Rainfall Extremes in Ungauged Areas

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · April 16, 2025 The probability estimation of rare or yet unobserved events is essential for hazard quantification, especially in the frequent case of short observational records. Data limitations can be mitigated by using regionalization techniques, which augment observa ... Full text Cite

Modeling Extreme Meteorological Droughts From Paleo-Climatic Reconstructions: A Metastatistical Framework

Journal article Water Resources Research · April 1, 2025 Droughts have pervasive societal impacts and remain difficult to characterize observationally, due to the limited number of droughts sampled in instrumental records. One approach to improving the statistical basis of drought occurrence probability estimati ... Full text Cite

Impact of Environmental Pollutants on Otorhinolaryngological Emergencies in the COVID-19 Era

Journal article Environments Mdpi · April 1, 2025 Air pollution (AP) is a critical environmental factor influencing public health, with well-documented associations with upper respiratory tract (URT) diseases. This study investigates the relationship between ENT emergency department (ENT-ED) visits at Azi ... Full text Cite

Recovery from drought-induced dieback may lead to modified salt marsh vegetation composition

Journal article Limnology and Oceanography · March 1, 2025 Salt marshes are vital but vulnerable ecosystems. However, our understanding of disturbance-induced dieback and recovery processes in multi-specific marshes remains limited. This study utilized remote sensing data (2001–2021) to analyze a dieback event and ... Full text Cite

Depth-Distribution Patterns of Soil Organic Matter in the Tidal Marshes of the Venice Lagoon (Italy): Signatures of Depositional and Environmental Conditions

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · February 1, 2025 Salt marshes are depositional landforms lying at the upper margin of intertidal environments. They provide a diverse range of valuable ecosystem services and yet are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change and human pressure. Salt marshes are intrinsica ... Full text Cite

Unmixing marsh vegetation species across multiple sensors and spatial scales

Journal article Giscience and Remote Sensing · January 1, 2025 Coastal marsh ecosystems are critical for providing essential habitats, buffering coastlines against erosion, and sequestering carbon. However, there is a global trend where these ecosystems are disappearing due to rising sea levels, wave-drive erosion, an ... Full text Cite

Dynamical Factors Heavily Modulate the Future Increase of Sub-Daily Extreme Precipitation in the Alpine-Mediterranean Region

Journal article Earth S Future · December 1, 2024 Quantifying the future probability of sub-daily extreme precipitation in a changing climate is crucial for risk management, engineering, and insurance. Kilometer-scale convection-permitting climate models (CPMs) represent convective precipitation and compl ... Full text Cite

Blue Carbon Assessment in the Salt Marshes of the Venice Lagoon: Dimensions, Variability and Influence of Storm-Surge Regulation

Journal article Earth S Future · October 1, 2024 Salt marshes are intertidal coastal ecosystems shaped by complex feedbacks between hydrodynamic, morphological, and biological processes. These crucial yet endangered environments provide a diverse range of ecosystem services but are globally subjected to ... Full text Cite

Spatial patterns of organic matter content in the surface soil of the salt marshes of the Venice Lagoon (Italy)

Journal article Biogeosciences · June 18, 2024 Salt marshes are crucial eco-geomorphic features of tidal environments as they provide important ecological functions and deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. Being controlled by the interplay between hydrodynamics, geomorphology, and vegetation, th ... Full text Cite

A Method to Assess and Explain Changes in Sub-Daily Precipitation Return Levels From Convection-Permitting Simulations

Journal article Water Resources Research · May 1, 2024 Reliable projections of extreme future precipitation are fundamental for risk management and adaptation strategies. Convection-permitting models (CPMs) explicitly resolve large convective systems and represent sub-daily extremes more realistically than coa ... Full text Cite

A Bayesian non-asymptotic extreme value model for daily rainfall data

Journal article Journal of Hydrology · January 1, 2024 Motivated by the analysis of extreme rainfall data, we introduce a general Bayesian hierarchical model for estimating the probability distribution of extreme values of intermittent random sequences, a common problem in geophysical and environmental science ... Full text Cite

Toward coherent space-time mapping of seagrass cover from satellite data: An example of a Mediterranean lagoon

Journal article Biogeosciences · November 20, 2023 Seagrass meadows are a highly productive and economically important shallow coastal habitat. Their sensitivity to natural and anthropogenic disturbances, combined with their importance for local biodiversity, carbon stocks, and sediment dynamics, motivate ... Full text Cite

Extreme precipitation return levels for multiple durations on a global scale

Journal article Journal of Hydrology · June 1, 2023 Quantifying the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events is key in translating climate observations to planning and engineering design. Past efforts have mostly focused on the estimation of daily extremes using gauge observations. Recent dev ... Full text Cite

Long-Term Monitoring of Coupled Vegetation and Elevation Changes in Response to Sea Level Rise in a Microtidal Salt Marsh

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · June 1, 2023 Tight interplays between physical and biotic processes in tidal salt marshes lead to self-organization of halophytic vegetation into recurrent zonation patterns developed across elevation gradients. Despite its importance for marsh ecomorphodynamics, howev ... Full text Cite

Analysis of Organic Matter Decomposition in the Salt Marshes of the Venice Lagoon (Italy) Using Standard Litter Bags

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · June 1, 2023 Tidal salt marshes are widespread along the World's coasts, and are ecologically and economically important as they provide several valuable ecosystem services. In particular, their significant primary production, coupled with sustained vertical accretion ... Full text Cite

LiDAR DERIVED SALT MARSH TOPOGRAPHY AND BIOMASS: DEFINING ACCURACY AND SPATIAL PATTERNS OF UNCERTAINTY

Conference International Archives of the Photogrammetry Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences ISPRS Archives · May 25, 2023 As valuable and vulnerable blue carbon ecosystems, salt marshes require adaptable and robust monitoring methods that span a range of spatiotemporal scales. The application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based remote sensing is a key tool in achieving thi ... Full text Cite

How well does a convection-permitting regional climate model represent the reverse orographic effect of extreme hourly precipitation?

Journal article Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · March 15, 2023 Estimating future short-duration extreme precipitation in mountainous regions is fundamental for risk management. High-resolution convection-permitting models (CPMs) represent the state of the art for these projections, as they resolve convective processes ... Full text Cite

Correction for Marani et al., Intensity and frequency of extreme novel epidemics.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · March 2023 Full text Cite

Space-time statistics of extreme ocean waves in crossing sea states

Journal article Frontiers in Marine Science · December 6, 2022 The study of extreme ocean waves has gained considerable interest in recent years, due to their importance for offshore design and navigation safety, and several theoretical approaches have been developed for their statistical description. However, in the ... Full text Cite

The Impact of Air Pollution and Aeroallergens Levels on Upper Airway Acute Diseases at Urban Scale

Journal article International Journal of Environmental Research · August 1, 2022 Air pollution (AP) represents one of the main environmental threats to public health and exposure to AP has been connected to upper airway (UA) disease. We evaluated the relationships between the ENT urgent referrals recorded at the Hospital of Padua and t ... Full text Cite

A Minimalist Model of Salt-Marsh Vegetation Dynamics Driven by Species Competition and Dispersal

Journal article Frontiers in Marine Science · April 5, 2022 We present a new bidimensional, spatially-explicit ecological model describing the dynamics of halophytic vegetation in tidal saline wetlands. Existing vegetation models employ relatively simple deterministic or stochastic mechanisms, and are driven by loc ... Full text Cite

Extreme-coastal-water-level estimation and projection: A comparison of statistical methods

Journal article Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences · April 1, 2022 Accurate estimates of the probability of extreme sea levels are pivotal for assessing risk and for designing coastal defense structures. This probability is typically estimated by modeling observed sea-level records using one of a few statistical approache ... Full text Cite

Loss of geomorphic diversity in shallow tidal embayments promoted by storm-surge barriers.

Journal article Science advances · April 2022 Coastal flooding prevention measures, such as storm-surge barriers, are being widely adopted globally because of the accelerating rise in sea levels. However, their impacts on the morphodynamics of shallow tidal embayments remain poorly understood. Here, w ... Full text Cite

Marsh resilience to sea-level rise reduced by storm-surge barriers in the Venice Lagoon

Journal article Nature Geoscience · December 1, 2021 Salt marshes are important coastal habitats and provide ecosystem services to surrounding communities. They are, however, threatened by accelerating sea-level rise and sediment deprivation due to human activity within upstream catchments, which result in t ... Full text Cite

Astronomic link to anomalously high mean sea level in the northern Adriatic Sea

Journal article Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science · August 31, 2021 Annual mean sea-level records over nearly 130 yr in the northern Adriatic Sea indicate a combined influence of lunar precessions and solar activity in causing their interannual variability. Sea-level indices of variability at Venice and Trieste were obtain ... Full text Cite

Intensity and frequency of extreme novel epidemics.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · August 2021 Observational knowledge of the epidemic intensity, defined as the number of deaths divided by global population and epidemic duration, and of the rate of emergence of infectious disease outbreaks is necessary to test theory and models and to inform public ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of MEVD-based precipitation frequency analyses from quasi-global precipitation datasets against dense rain gauge networks

Journal article Journal of Hydrology · November 1, 2020 Precipitation extremes and associated hydrological hazards pose a significant global risk to society and economy. To be effective, mitigation strategies require the best possible estimation of the intensity and frequency of precipitation extremes. Traditio ... Full text Cite

Understanding the Eco-Geomorphologic Feedback of Coastal Marsh Under Sea Level Rise: Vegetation Dynamic Representations, Processes Interaction, and Parametric Sensitivity

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · November 1, 2020 A growing number of coastal eco-geomorphologic modeling studies have been conducted to understand coastal marsh evolution under sea-level rise (SLR). Although these models quantify marsh topographic change as a function of sedimentation and erosion, their ... Full text Cite

Assessing the fractional abundance of highly mixed salt-marsh vegetation using random forest soft classification

Journal article Remote Sensing · October 1, 2020 Coastal salt marshes are valuable and critical components of tidal landscapes, currently threatened by increasing rates of sea level rise, wave-induced lateral erosion, decreasing sediment supply, and human pressure. Halophytic vegetation plays an importan ... Full text Cite

Estimation of Daily Rainfall Extremes Through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution: Uncertainty Minimization and Implications for Trend Detection

Journal article Water Resources Research · July 1, 2020 The accurate estimation of hydrologic extremes is central to planning and engineering mitigation and adaptation measures. The traditional extreme value theory is based on often overlooked assumptions that preclude the use of all available observations and ... Full text Cite

Watershed and ocean controls of salt marsh extent and resilience

Journal article Earth Surface Processes and Landforms · May 1, 2020 The formation and evolution of tidal platforms are controlled by the feedbacks between hydrodynamics, geomorphology, vegetation, and sediment transport. Previous work mainly addresses dynamics at the scale of individual marsh platforms. Here, we develop a ... Full text Cite

Characterizing marshland compressibility by an in-situ loading test: design and set-up of an experiment in the Venice Lagoon

Conference Proceedings of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences · April 22, 2020 The fate of coastal marshlands in the near future will strongly depend on their capability to maintain their elevation above a rising mean sea level. Together with the deposition of inorganic sediments during high tides, organic soil production by halophyt ... Full text Cite

Analyses Through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution Identify Contributions of Tropical Cyclones to Rainfall Extremes in the Eastern United States

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · April 16, 2020 Tropical cyclones (TCs) generate extreme precipitation with severe impacts across large coastal and inland areas, calling for accurate frequency estimation methods. Statistical approaches that take into account the physical mechanisms responsible for these ... Full text Cite

Control of wind-wave power on morphological shape of salt marsh margins

Journal article Water Science and Engineering · March 1, 2020 Salt marshes are among the most common morphological features found in tidal landscapes and provide ecosystem services of primary ecological and economic importance. However, the continued rise in relative sea level and increasing anthropogenic pressures t ... Full text Cite

Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution applied to floods across the continental United States

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · February 1, 2020 This study analyzes daily mean streamflow records from 5,311 U.S. Geological Survey stream gages in the continental United States and develops a Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution (MEVD) tailored for flood frequency analysis. We compare the new too ... Full text Cite

Extreme Atlantic Hurricane Probability of Occurrence Through the Metastatistical Extreme Value Distribution

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · January 16, 2020 The estimation of extreme hurricane probability is hampered by small samples and by limitations in our models of extreme tropical storms. Current best estimates of extreme hurricane probability based on the traditional extreme value theory assume hurricane ... Full text Cite

Deforestation Due to Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining Exacerbates Soil and Mercury Mobilization in Madre de Dios, Peru.

Journal article Environmental science & technology · January 2020 Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is a significant contributor of mercury (Hg) contamination and deforestation across the globe. In the Colorado River watershed in Madre de Dios, Peru, mining and deforestation have increased exponentially since ... Full text Cite

Extreme value metastatistical analysis of remotely sensed rainfall in ungauged areas: Spatial downscaling and error modelling

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · January 1, 2020 The quantitative validation of rainfall statistics obtained from space-borne sensors, and the evaluation of the associated uncertainty are hindered by i) the limited coverage of rain gauge networks and weather radars at the ground, and ii) the different in ... Full text Cite

Downscaling of Rainfall Extremes From Satellite Observations

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 2019 The estimation of the frequency of intense rainfall events is a crucial step for quantifying their impact on human societies and on the environment. This process is hindered by large gaps in ground observational networks at the global scale, such that exte ... Full text Cite

The Spatial Variability of Organic Matter and Decomposition Processes at the Marsh Scale

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · December 1, 2018 Accretion rate in salt marshes is governed by inorganic soil deposition and soil organic matter (SOM) accumulation. Existing (limited) observations and modeling results suggest that SOM amounts, biomass production, and decomposition processes should vary w ... Full text Cite

Morphodynamic evolution and sedimentology of a microtidal meander bend of the Venice Lagoon (Italy)

Journal article Marine and Petroleum Geology · September 1, 2018 Meandering channel networks exert a fundamental control on hydrodynamic and morphodynamic processes within tidal landscapes. The planform of tidal meanders develops through erosional and depositional processes, which occur along the outer and inner bank of ... Full text Cite

On the influence of global warming on Atlantic hurricane frequency

Conference International Archives of the Photogrammetry Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences ISPRS Archives · April 30, 2018 In this paper, the possible connection between the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes to the climate change, mainly the variation in the Atlantic Ocean surface temperature has been investigated. The correlation between the observed hurricane frequency for di ... Full text Cite

Flood coincidence analysis of Poyang Lake and Yangtze River: risk and influencing factors

Journal article Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment · April 1, 2018 We build copula function-based joint distribution models for the annual maximum flood peaks of the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake, to analyze the coincidence probabilities, using scenarios that combine with the impoundment of three Gorges, define influencin ... Full text Cite

Water and sediment temperature dynamics in shallow tidal environments: The role of the heat flux at the sediment-water interface

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · March 1, 2018 In the present study, we investigate the energy flux at the sediment-water interface and the relevance of the heat exchanged between water and sediment for the water temperature dynamics in shallow coastal environments. Water and sediment temperature data ... Full text Cite

Field migration rates of tidal meanders recapitulate fluvial morphodynamics.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · February 2018 The majority of tidal channels display marked meandering features. Despite their importance in oil-reservoir formation and tidal landscape morphology, questions remain on whether tidal-meander dynamics could be understood in terms of fluvial processes and ... Full text Cite

Salt-marsh ecogeomorphological dynamics and hydrodynamic circulation

Book section · January 1, 2018 The overall dynamics of intertidal environments are governed by complex interactions between their ecological and geomorphological components. A more comprehensive understanding of such dynamics and their predictive modeling can only be achieved through th ... Full text Cite

Hurricanes and tropical storms: A necessary evil to ensure water supply?

Journal article Hydrological Processes · November 30, 2017 Several parts of the globe including Southeast North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Australia, and China are often hit by hurricanes and tropical storms (HTSs), which can deliver a large amount of rainfall within a period of a few days. Although H ... Full text Cite

Tidal meander migration and dynamics: A case study from the Venice Lagoon

Journal article Marine and Petroleum Geology · November 1, 2017 Meandering patterns are universal features of tidal landscapes and exert a critical influence on the dynamics of tidal channel networks and on the stratigraphy of the intertidal platforms they dissect. Despite their importance in landscape evolution and th ... Full text Cite

Competition for light and water in a coupled soil-plant system

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · October 1, 2017 It is generally accepted that resource availability shapes the structure and function of many ecosystems. Within the soil-plant-atmosphere (SPA) system, resource availability fluctuates in space and time whereas access to resources by individuals is furthe ... Full text Cite

Hyperspectral and multispectral retrieval of suspended sediment in shallow coastal waters using semi-analytical and empirical methods

Journal article Remote Sensing · April 21, 2017 Natural lagoons and estuaries worldwide are experiencing accelerated ecosystem degradation due to increased anthropogenic pressure. As a key driver of coastal zone dynamics, suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is difficult to monitor with adequate spati ... Full text Cite

Coupled topographic and vegetation patterns in coastal dunes: Remote sensing observations and ecomorphodynamic implications

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · January 1, 2017 Vegetation plays a key role in stabilizing coastal dunes and barrier islands by mediating sand transport, deposition, and erosion. Dune topography, in turn, affects vegetation growth, by determining local environmental conditions. However, our understandin ... Full text Cite

The predictability of mosquito abundance from daily to monthly timescales.

Journal article Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · December 2016 The prediction of mosquito abundance is of central interest in addressing mosquito population dynamics and in forecasting the associated emerging and re-emerging diseases. However, little work has focused on the systematic evaluation of how well adult mosq ... Full text Cite

Delay-induced rebounds in CO2 emissions and critical time-scales to meet global warming targets

Journal article Earth S Future · December 1, 2016 While climate science debates are focused on the attainment of peak anthropogenic CO2 emissions and policy tools to reduce peak temperatures, the human-energy-climate system can hold “rebound” surprises beyond this peak. Following the second ind ... Full text Cite

On the emergence of rainfall extremes from ordinary events

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · August 16, 2016 The analysis and estimation of extreme event occurrences is a central problem in many fields of geoscience. Advancements in the study of extreme events have recently been limited, arguably in connection with asymptotic assumptions in the traditional extrem ... Full text Cite

On the morphodynamic stability of intertidal environments and the role of vegetation

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · July 1, 2016 We describe the coupled biotic and abiotic dynamics in intertidal environments using a point model that includes suspended sediment deposition, wave- and current-driven erosion, biofilm sediment stabilization, and sediment production and stabilization by v ... Full text Cite

Reading the signatures of biologic-geomorphic feedbacks in salt-marsh landscapes

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · July 1, 2016 How do interacting physical and biological processes control the form and evolution of salt-marsh landscapes? Salt marshes are shaped by the erosion, transport and deposition of sediment, all of which are mediated by vegetation. In addition, vegetation pla ... Full text Cite

Spatial variation of salt-marsh organic and inorganic deposition and organic carbon accumulation: Inferences from the Venice lagoon, Italy

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · July 1, 2016 Salt marshes are ubiquitous features of the tidal landscape governed by mutual feedbacks among processes of physical and biological nature. Improving our understanding of these feedbacks and of their effects on tidal geomorphological and ecological dynamic ... Full text Cite

Soil-plant-atmosphere conditions regulating convective cloud formation above southeastern US pine plantations.

Journal article Global change biology · June 2016 Loblolly pine trees (Pinus taeda L.) occupy more than 20% of the forested area in the southern United States, represent more than 50% of the standing pine volume in this region, and remove from the atmosphere about 500 g C m-2 per year through net ecosyste ... Full text Cite

Spatial response of coastal marshes to increased atmospheric CO2.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · December 2015 The elevation and extent of coastal marshes are dictated by the interplay between the rate of relative sea-level rise (RRSLR), surface accretion by inorganic sediment deposition, and organic soil production by plants. These accretion processes respond to c ... Full text Cite

Climatic and landscape controls on effective discharge

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · October 28, 2015 The effective discharge constitutes a key concept in river science and engineering. Notwithstanding many years of studies, a full understanding of the effective discharge determinants is still challenged by the variety of values identified for different ri ... Full text Cite

Forecasting the response of Earth's surface to future climatic and land use changes: A review of methods and research needs

Journal article Earth S Future · July 1, 2015 In the future, Earth will be warmer, precipitation events will be more extreme, global mean sea level will rise, and many arid and semiarid regions will be drier. Human modifications of landscapes will also occur at an accelerated rate as developed areas i ... Full text Cite

A metastatistical approach to rainfall extremes

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · May 1, 2015 The traditional statistical theory of extreme events assumes an asymptotic regime in which the number of events per year is large enough for a limiting Generalized Extreme Value distribution to apply. This has been shown not to be applicable to many practi ... Full text Cite

The influence of water table depth and the free atmospheric state on convective rainfall predisposition

Journal article Water Resources Research · April 1, 2015 A mechanistic model for the soil-plant system is coupled to a conventional slab representation of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) to explore the role of groundwater table (WT) variations and free atmospheric (FA) states on convective rainfall predispo ... Full text Cite

Long-term oscillations in rainfall extremes in a 268 year daily time series

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 2015 We analyze long-term fluctuations of rainfall extremes in 268 years of daily observations (Padova, Italy, 1725-2006), to our knowledge, the longest existing instrumental time series of its kind. We identify multidecadal oscillations in extremes estimated b ... Full text Cite

Plant-Soil interactions in salt marsh environments: Experimental evidence from electrical resistivity tomography in the Venice Lagoon

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · September 16, 2014 The role of root water uptake in regulating soil water saturation in salt marshes is controversial. Modeling studies suggest that soil aeration is improved by transpiration, with implications for the distribution of vegetation species and of the associated ... Full text Cite

Tree root systems competing for soil moisture in a 3D soil-plant model

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · April 1, 2014 Competition for water among multiple tree rooting systems is investigated using a soil-plant model that accounts for soil moisture dynamics and root water uptake (RWU), whole plant transpiration, and leaf-level photosynthesis. The model is based on a numer ... Full text Cite

Sediment dynamics in shallow tidal basins: In situ observations, satellite retrievals, and numerical modeling in the Venice Lagoon

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · April 1, 2014 The morphological evolution of shallow tidal systems strongly depends on gradients in transport that control sediment erosion and deposition. A spatially refined quantitative description of suspended sediment patterns and dynamics is therefore a key requir ... Full text Cite

'Universal' recession curves and their geomorphological interpretation

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · March 1, 2014 The study of recession flows offers fundamental insights into basin hydrological processes and, in particular, into the collective behavior of the governing dominant subsurface flows and properties. We use here an existing geomorphological interpretation o ... Full text Cite

Environmental forcing and density-dependent controls of Culex pipiens abundance in a temperate climate (Northeastern Italy)

Journal article Ecological Modelling · January 24, 2014 New and old mosquito-borne diseases have emerged and re-emerged in temperate regions over the recent past, but a mechanistic understanding of mosquito population dynamics, a fundamental step toward disease control, remains elusive. We propose here a Gomper ... Full text Cite

Evaluation of sediment properties using wind and turbidity observations in the shallow tidal areas of the Venice Lagoon

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · January 1, 2014 Sediment deposition and erosion by wind waves and tidal currents, mediated by bed sediment properties and by biostabilization/bioturbation, are key processes governing the dynamics of intertidal geomorphology. Here we develop and apply a method to estimate ... Full text Cite

The temporal spectrum of adult mosquito population fluctuations: conceptual and modeling implications.

Journal article PloS one · January 2014 An improved understanding of mosquito population dynamics under natural environmental forcing requires adequate field observations spanning the full range of temporal scales over which mosquito abundance fluctuates in natural conditions. Here we analyze a ... Full text Open Access Cite

On the mutual role of salt-marsh inorganic and organic deposition in the Venice Lagoon (Italy)

Journal article Journal of Mediterranean Earth Sciences · December 1, 2013 Cite

Stratal architecture of tidal meander bend deposits in the NE sector of the Venice Lagoon (Italy)

Journal article Journal of Mediterranean Earth Sciences · December 1, 2013 Cite

Root controls on water redistribution and carbon uptake in the soil-plant system under current and future climate

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · October 1, 2013 Understanding photosynthesis and plant water management as a coupled process remains an open scientific problem. Current eco-hydrologic models characteristically describe plant photosynthetic and hydraulic processes through ad hoc empirical parameterizatio ... Full text Cite

Saturated area dynamics and streamflow generation from coupled surface-subsurface simulations and field observations

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · September 1, 2013 A distributed physically-based model describing coupled surface-subsurface flows is applied to an instrumented catchment to investigate the links between runoff generation processes and the dynamics of saturated areas. The spatial characterization of the s ... Full text Cite

Vegetation engineers marsh morphology through multiple competing stable states.

Journal article Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · February 2013 Marshes display impressive biogeomorphic features, such as zonation, a mosaic of extensive vegetation patches of rather uniform composition, exhibiting sharp transitions in the presence of extremely small topographic gradients. Although generally associate ... Full text Cite

The secret gardener: vegetation and the emergence of biogeomorphic patterns in tidal environments.

Journal article Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · January 2013 The presence and continued existence of tidal morphologies, and in particular of salt marshes, is intimately connected with biological activity, especially with the presence of halophytic vegetation. Here, we review recent contributions to tidal biogeomorp ... Full text Cite

Tidal Networks’ Form and Function

Book section · January 1, 2013 We review some geomorphological properties of tidal networks and their embedded landforms, aiming at inferring their leading eco-morphodynamic interrelations. Indeed the interplay of vegetation patterns (hence the ecological edge) and surface morphology (i ... Full text Cite

Coastal and Estuarine Studies 59: The Ecogeomorphology of Tidal Marshes

Book · January 1, 2013 Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Coastal and Estuarine Studies, Volume 59. Salt marshes are coastal wetlands frequently inundated by tides. Given their peculiar characteristics, salt marshes are colonized by salt-tolerant communit ... Full text Cite

Point estimate methods based on Taylor Series Expansion - The perturbance moments method - A more coherent derivation of the second order statistical moment

Journal article Applied Mathematical Modelling · November 1, 2012 Point estimate methods (PEMs) have found their niche in application to geotechnical problems and a few other engineering fields, where their relative simplicity matches well with the need for quick and reliable estimates of the uncertainty in model results ... Full text Cite

Biogeomorphology of tidal landforms: Physical and biological processes shaping the tidal landscape

Journal article Ecohydrology · September 1, 2012 We analyse the equilibrium states and transient dynamics of tidal biogeomorphic systems, such as lagoons and estuaries, in response to variations in the governing physical and biological forcings, such as tidal range, wind climate, sediment supply, vegetat ... Full text Cite

Storm surge frequency reduction in Venice under climate change

Journal article Climatic Change · August 1, 2012 Increased tidal levels and storm surges related to climate change are projected to result in extremely adverse effects on coastal regions. Predictions of such extreme and small-scale events, however, are exceedingly challenging, even for relatively short t ... Full text Cite

A perturbance moment point estimate method for uncertainty analysis of the hydrologic response

Journal article Advances in Water Resources · January 1, 2012 A robust hydrological modelling framework must include a quantitative assessment of the uncertaintiesaffecting the accuracy of model results. This is important both to quantify the relative importance of theuncertainty sources, a necessary step toward the ... Full text Cite

Leaf conductance and carbon gain under salt-stressed conditions

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences · December 1, 2011 Exposure of plants to salt stress is often accompanied by reductions in leaf photosynthesis and in stomatal and mesophyll conductances. To separate the effects of salt stress on these quantities, a model based on the hypothesis that carbon gain is maximize ... Full text Cite

Understanding and predicting wave erosion of marsh edges

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · November 1, 2011 Margin lateral erosion is arguably the main mechanism leading to marsh loss in estuaries and lagoons worldwide. Our understanding of the mechanisms controlling marsh edge erosion is currently quite limited and current predictive models rely on empirical la ... Full text Cite

Remote sensing retrieval of suspended sediment concentration in shallow waters

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · January 17, 2011 The dynamics of coastal lagoons and estuarine areas is characterized by a delicate balance between biological and physical processes and the comprehension and monitoring of such processes require observations over a wide range of temporal and spatial scale ... Full text Cite

The importance of being coupled: Stable states and catastrophic shifts in tidal biomorphodynamics

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · December 1, 2010 We describe and apply a point model of the joint evolution of tidal landforms and biota which incorporates the dynamics of intertidal vegetation; benthic microbial assemblages; erosional, depositional, and sediment exchange processes; wind-wave dynamics, a ... Full text Cite

Geomorphological origin of recession curves

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · December 1, 2010 We identify a previously undetected link between the river network morphology and key recession curves properties through a conceptual-physical model of the drainage process of the riparian unconfined aquifer. We show that the power-law exponent, of -dQ/dt ... Full text Cite

The detection of weekly preferential occurrences with an application to rainfall

Journal article Journal of Climate · May 1, 2010 The detection of weekly preferential occurrences in atmospheric and hydrologic processes has recently attracted much attention as a way to identify the signature of anthropogenic climatic changes. The interpretation of previous analyses, however, is not un ... Full text Cite

Recent changes in rainfall characteristics and their influence on thresholds for debris flow triggering in the Dolomitic area of Cortina d'Ampezzo, north-eastern Italian Alps

Journal article Natural Hazards and Earth System Science · January 1, 2010 In this paper, we examine variations in climate characteristics near the area of Cortina d'Ampezzo (Dolomites, Eastern Italian Alps), with particular reference to the possible implications for debris-flow occurrence. The study area is prone to debris-flow ... Full text Cite

On the tidal prism-channel area relations

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · January 1, 2010 We verify the broad applicability of tidal prism cross-sectional area relationships, originally proposed to relate the total water volume entering a lagoon during a characteristic tidal cycle (the tidal prism) to the size of its inlet, to arbitrary shelter ... Full text Cite

Retrieval of small-relief marsh morphology from Terrestrial Laser Scanner, optimal spatial filtering, and laser return intensity

Journal article Geomorphology · December 1, 2009 Marshes are ubiquitous landforms in estuaries and lagoons, where important hydrological, morphological and ecological processes take place. These areas attenuate sea action on the coast and act as sediment trapping zones. Due to their ecosystem functions a ... Full text Cite

Separation of ground and low vegetation signatures in LiDAR measurements of salt-marsh environments

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing · July 1, 2009 Light detection and ranging (LiDAR) has been shown to have a great potential in the accurate characterization of forest systems; however, its application to salt-marsh environments is challenging because the characteristic short vegetation does not give ri ... Full text Cite

Inferences from catchment-scale tracer circulation experiments

Journal article Journal of Hydrology · May 15, 2009 In this paper the mechanisms determining the mobilization and transport of solutes driven by rainfall through runoff pathways at catchment scales are investigated through the analysis of tracer experiments. The hydro-chemical response of a small catchment ... Full text Cite

On the O'Brien-Jarrett-Marchi law

Journal article Rendiconti Lincei · January 1, 2009 The relationship between the total water volume entering a lagoon during a characteristic tidal cycle (i.e., the prism) and the size of its inlet is well established empirically since the classic work of O'Brien and Jarrett widely cited in the geomorphic a ... Full text Cite

Sea level rise, hydrologic runoff, and the flooding of Venice

Journal article Water Resources Research · December 1, 2008 This paper deals with hydrologie studies relevant to the works engineered for the protection of the city of Venice (Italy) from major flooding under significant climate change scenarios. Such works foresee the temporary closure of the lagoon surrounding th ... Full text Cite

On the impact of rainfall patterns on the hydrologic response

Journal article Water Resources Research · December 1, 2008 We study the influence exerted by space-time rainfall patterns on the hydrologic response to determine the scales for which the spatial heterogeneity of rainfall may play a significant role in shaping the hydrographs generated in basins of varying characte ... Full text Cite

Landscape evolution in tidal embayments: Modeling the interplay of erosion, sedimentation, and vegetation dynamics

Journal article River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics Rcem 2007 Proceedings of the 5th IAHR Symposium on River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics · December 1, 2008 We have set up a process-based eco-morphodynamic spatially-explicit model which conceptualizes the chief landforming processes driving the intertwined, long-term evolution of marsh platforms and tidal networks cutting through them. In fact, a holistic eco- ... Cite

Multiple equilibria in tidal eco-geomorphology

Journal article River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics Rcem 2007 Proceedings of the 5th IAHR Symposium on River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics · December 1, 2008 The dynamics of estuaries and lagoons are the result of complex feedbacks between coupled biotic (e.g. linked to halophytic vegetation and microphytobenthos) and abiotic processes (chiefly sediment erosion and deposition, hydrodynamics, eustatism and sea-l ... Cite

Observation and modeling of catchment-scale solute transport in the hydrologic response: A tracer study

Journal article Water Resources Research · May 1, 2008 The coherent description of water flow and solute transport within heterogeneous hydrologic media (e.g., hillslopes or entire catchments) in response to external rainfall forcings represents a challenge in hydrological modeling. In this paper the mechanism ... Full text Cite

Comparison of data classification techniques applied to tls point clouds

Conference International Archives of the Photogrammetry Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences ISPRS Archives · January 1, 2008 Marshes are ubiquitous landforms in estuaries and lagoons, where important hydrological, morphological and ecological processes take place. These areas attenuate sea action on the coast and act as sediment trapping zones. Due to their ecosystem functions a ... Cite

Spontaneous tidal network formation within a constructed salt marsh: Observations and morphodynamic modelling

Journal article Geomorphology · November 1, 2007 We have monitored and analyzed, through remote sensing and ancillary field surveys, the rapid (O(1) year) development of a tidal network within a newly established artificial salt marsh in the Venice Lagoon. After the construction of the salt marsh, a netw ... Full text Cite

Downscaling rainfall temporal variability

Journal article Water Resources Research · September 1, 2007 A realistic description of land surface/atmosphere interactions in climate and hydrologic studies requires the specification of the rainfall forcing at aggregation scales of 1 hour or less. This is in contrast with the wide availability of daily rainfall o ... Full text Cite

Biologically-controlled multiple equilibria of tidal landforms and the fate of the Venice lagoon

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · June 16, 2007 Looking across a tidal landscape, can one foresee the signs of impending shifts among different geomorphological structures? This is a question of paramount importance considering the ecological, cultural and socio-economic relevance of tidal environments ... Full text Cite

Mapping mixed vegetation communities in salt marshes using airborne spectral data

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · April 30, 2007 The aim of this study is to evaluate a new neural network classifier using spectrally sampled image data to map mixed halophytic vegetation in tidal environments. The work is based on the concept of vegetation communities, mixtures of several species, char ... Full text Cite

Landscape evolution in tidal embayments: Modeling the interplay of erosion, sedimentation, and vegetation dynamics

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · March 24, 2007 We propose an ecomorphodynamic model which conceptualizes the chief land-forming processes operating on the intertwined, long-term evolution of marsh platforms and embedded tidal networks. The rapid network incision (previously addressed by the authors) is ... Full text Cite

On the morphodynamic evolution of tidal environments

Journal article River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics Rcem 2005 Proceedings of the 4th IAHR Symposium on River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics · December 1, 2006 Tidal environments are dynamic and delicate systems exposed to the effects of climate changes and often subject to increasing human pressure. In order to address issues of conservation of such environments, we have addressed a comprehensive theoretical fra ... Cite

Geomorphological properties of a lagoonal system

Journal article River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics Rcem 2005 Proceedings of the 4th IAHR Symposium on River Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics · December 1, 2006 Analyses of the observational morphological structure of a lagoonal landscape are performed aimed at examining key assumptions on the geomorphological evolution of wetlands, lagoons, estuarine areas and tidal environments in general. The present note brief ... Cite

Remote sensing of salt-marsh ecogeomorphology

Journal article European Space Agency Special Publication ESA SP · November 1, 2006 This contribution evaluates the accuracy of salt-marsh vegetation classifications obtained from remote sensing observations with specific application to the Lagoon of Venice (Italy). Observation and classification schemes are evaluated on the basis of seve ... Cite

Spatial organization and ecohydrological interactions in oxygen-limited vegetation ecosystems

Journal article Water Resources Research · June 1, 2006 Wetlands are characterized by extremely high biodiversity and primary productivity (comparable to tropical rain forests), provide critical habitats for rare and endangered vegetation and animal species, and mediate the effects of floods and the action of t ... Full text Cite

A stochastic model of nitrate transport and cycling at basin scale

Journal article Water Resources Research · April 1, 2006 A stochastic framework for modelling catchment-scale hydrologic and nitrate responses (as a byproduct of transport processes and of a biogeochemical model of nitrogen cycling and transformations in heterogeneous soils) is proposed and applied to a 53 km Full text Cite

Non-neutral vegetation dynamics

Journal article PLoS ONE · 2006 Open Access Cite

Mapping salt-marsh vegetation by multispectral and hyperspectral remote sensing

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · 2006 Cite

Transport at basin scales: 2. Applications

Journal article Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · January 1, 2006 In this paper, the second of a series, we apply the models discussed in Part 1 to a significant case study. The nature of the catchment under study, the transport phenomena investigated (i.e. nitrates moving as solutes within runoff waters) and the scales ... Full text Cite

Transport at basin scales: 1. Theoretical framework

Journal article Hydrology and Earth System Sciences · January 1, 2006 The paper describes the theoretical framework for a class of general continuous models of the hydrologic response including both flow and transport of reactive solutes. The approach orders theoretical results appeared in disparate fields into a coherent th ... Full text Cite

Spatial dynamics of microphytobenthos determined by PAM fluorescence

Journal article Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science · October 1, 2005 The distribution of microphytobenthos on intertidal flats is heterogeneous and described as "patchy" over spatial scales of centimetres to kilometres. The spatial structure and the dynamics of microphytobenthic biomass during tidal emersion were investigat ... Full text Cite

Non-power-law scale properties of rainfall in space and time

Journal article Water Resources Research · August 1, 2005 [1] The identification of general relationships linking statistical properties of rainfall aggregated at different temporal and spatial scales possesses clear theoretical and practical relevance. Among other properties it is important to characterize the s ... Full text Cite

A geomorphic study of lagoonal landforms

Journal article Water Resources Research · June 1, 2005 We perform an analysis of the observational morphological structure of a tidal landscape aimed at examining key assumptions on the geomorphological evolution of wetlands, lagoons, estuarine areas and tidal environments in general. The issues addressed pert ... Full text Cite

Tidal network ontogeny: Channel initiation and early development

Journal article Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface · June 1, 2005 [1] The long-term morphological evolution of tidal landforms in response to physical and ecological forcings is a subject of great theoretical and practical importance. Toward the goal of a comprehensive theoretical framework suitable for large-scale, long ... Full text Cite

Tidal regime, salinity and salt marsh plant zonation

Journal article Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science · January 1, 2005 Salt marsh morphology is known to be strongly correlated to vegetation patterns through a complex interplay of biological and physical processes. This paper presents the results of field surveys at several study salt marshes within the Venice Lagoon (Italy ... Full text Cite

Salt marsh vegetation and morphology, modelling and remote sensing observations

Book section · 2004 This book examines the geomorphology of salt marshes with emphasis on the interaction between landscape and biota. ... Cite

Subsurface flow and vegetation patterns in tidal environments

Journal article Water Resources Research · 2004 Cite

Hyperspectral remote sensing of salt marsh vegetation and morphology

Journal article Physics and Chemistry of the Earth · 2004 Cite

Patterns in tidal environments: Salt-marsh channel networks and vegetation

Journal article International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS · November 24, 2003 Salt marshes in tidal environments are characterised by complex patterns both in their geomorphic and ecological features. Such patterns arise through the elaboration of a network structure driven by the tidal forcing and through the interaction between hy ... Cite

On the correlation structure of continuous and discrete point rainfall

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 2003 This paper proposes new analytical results based on the theory of stochastic processes that establish a theoretical dependence of point rainfall variance on the scale of observation under somewhat general assumptions. It is shown that power law scaling, co ... Full text Cite

On the drainage density of tidal networks

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 2003 The drainage density of a network is conventionally defined as (proportional to) the ratio of its total channelized length divided by the watershed area, and in practice, it is defined by the statistical distribution and correlation structure of the length ... Full text Cite

Tidal meanders

Journal article Water Resources Research · November 1, 2002 Observational evidence is presented on the geometry of meandering tidal channels evolved within coastal wetlands characterized by different tidal, hydrodynamic, topographic, vegetational and ecological features. New insight is provided on the geometrical p ... Full text Cite

Sand bars in tidal channels part 2. Tidal meanders

Journal article Journal of Fluid Mechanics · January 25, 2002 Careful analysis of new field observations on the geometry of meandering tidal channels reveals that the values of meander wavelengths as well as curvatures, conveniently scaled by local channel width, fall within a fairly restricted range, suggesting the ... Full text Cite

Salt Marsh Vegetation Radiometry: Data Analysis and Scaling

Journal article Remote Sensing of Environment · 2002 Cite

Geomorphic controls on regional base flow

Journal article Water Resources Research · October 10, 2001 The subsurface hydrological response plays an important role in the hydrology of humid regions. In particular, the physical relationship between base flow dynamics and the fluctuations in spatially averaged water table depth, as described by the groundwate ... Full text Cite

Tidal networks 3. Landscape-forming discharges and studies in empirical geomorphic relationships

Journal article Water Resources Research · December 1, 1999 In this final part of our study [Fagherazzi et al., this issue; Rinaldo et al., this issue] we propose a simple model for predicting the local peak ebb and flood discharges throughout a tidal network and use this model to investigate scaling relationships ... Full text Cite

Tidal networks 1. Automatic network extraction and preliminary scaling features from digital terrain maps

Journal article Water Resources Research · December 1, 1999 We propose a method of automatic extraction of the tidal channel network from topographic data of marsh and tidal flat lands that uses a combination of a threshold elevation and threshold curvature. Not only the location but also the area of the channel be ... Full text Cite

Tidal networks 2. Watershed delineation and comparative network morphology

Journal article Water Resources Research · December 1, 1999 Through the new method for automatic extraction of a tidal network from topographic or bathymetric fields described in a companion paper [Fagherazzi et al., this issue], we analyze the morphology of aggregated patterns that we observe in nature in differen ... Full text Cite

Parametrizations of global thermal emissions for simple climate models

Journal article Climate Dynamics · February 1, 1999 A new, observationally based, parametrization of the thermal emissions by the Earth-atmosphere system for use in simple climate models is presented and discussed. The parametrization, allowing for the modelling of outgoing longwave fluxes in both clear and ... Full text Cite

Stationary self-organized fractal structures in an open, dissipative electrical system

Journal article Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General · May 8, 1998 We study the stationary state of a Poisson problem for a system of N perfectly conducting metal balls driven by electric forces to move within a medium of very low electrical conductivity onto which charges are sprayed from outside. When grounded at a conf ... Full text Cite

On space-time scaling of cumulated rainfall fields

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1998 In the study of space-time rainfall it is particularly important to establish characteristic properties to guide both theoretical and modeling research efforts. In the present paper, new observational analyses on the scaling properties of time-evolving cum ... Full text Cite

Forcing, intermittency, and land surface hydrologic partitioning

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1997 Because of sampling problems, the precipitation estimates from satellite remote sensing are aggregated over time (typically monthly) and over space. Since land surface hydrologic processes have threshold and nonlinear dependencies on precipitation, coarse- ... Full text Cite

Self‐organized river basin landscapes: Fractal and multifractal characteristics

Journal article Water Resources Research · January 1, 1994 In recent years a new theory of the evolution of drainage networks and associated landscapes has emerged, mainly in connection with the development of fractal geometry and of self‐organized criticality (SOC) concepts. This theory has much improved our unde ... Full text Cite

Geomorphological width functions and the random cascade

Journal article Geophysical Research Letters · January 1, 1994 We examine the geomorphological width functions of several river basins through the formalism of conservative (microcanonical) random cascades and we compare the results with those of more conventional fractal and multifractal analyses. We suggest that the ... Full text Cite