Vito Frontuto

Drought is placing growing pressure on European agricultural systems, with severe consequences on the environment, economy, and society. Although several studies have assessed drought vulnerability at the European scale, existing assessments cover multiple economic sectors simultaneously or are conducted at national and subregional level. To fill this gap, the study develops a multidimensional agricultural Composite Drought Vulnerability Index (CDVI) for 243 NUTS-2 regions across Europe, integrating exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity factors within the vulnerability framework of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007). Drought exposure is measured through the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), whereas sensitivity and adaptive capacity are assessed through environmental, socioeconomic, and institutional indicators.,The highest vulnerability is recorded in the Mediterranean basin, particularly in southern Spain, where Andalusia has the highest CDVI value, and in southern Italy as well as in Portugal and Central and Eastern European regions, where low adaptive capacity amplifies the effect of medium-to-high exposure. By contrast, Nordic and Alpine regions exhibit the lowest vulnerability levels, with four regions recording negative CDVI values. Future projections under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 confirm an overall intensification of drought exposure across Europe by 2040–2060, with Mediterranean regions facing the most severe increases under the business-as-usual pathway, and Central European regions bearing a comparatively higher burden under the intermediate mitigation scenario.,Overall, the findings confirm the multidimensional nature of agricultural drought vulnerability, reflecting the interconnection between climatic, socioeconomic, and institutional factors, and offer spatially comparable evidence to support the design of targeted adaptation strategies.

Road transport is a major source of planet-warming emissions, and carbon pricing of fuels is increasingly used to encourage cleaner mobility. Yet higher fuel prices can affect households differently depending on income, location and transport options. Here we show how a forthcoming European carbon price on road fuels could affect households in 23 countries. Using harmonized household budget data adjusted for underreported fuel purchases, we simulate higher petrol and diesel prices and compare burdens across and within income groups. Effects differ strongly across regions. In richer western countries, lower-income households often bear a larger relative burden. In several lower-income eastern countries, the policy appears less burdensome for poorer households, but this often reflects their limited access to private mobility rather than greater fairness. Across countries, households are more exposed when they depend on cars, live in less accessible areas, or lack public transport alternatives. Fair carbon pricing therefore requires targeted revenue recycling and investment in low-carbon mobility options.

Global trade in agricultural and livestock commodities plays a significant role in driving deforestation, as land-use changes in producer countries often supply consumption in distant regions. Although numerous studies have quantified deforestation embodied in traded products, much less is known about the underlying economic and institutional factors that explain why some countries export or import more of it than others. This study addresses these questions by examining the determinants of embodied deforestation in international trade flows. Drawing on Factor Endowment Theory, we test whether income levels, land availability, and institutional quality influence the distribution of embodied forest loss between exporting and importing countries. Using a gravity model estimated through Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood, we assess how GDP, distance, trade composition, and governance shape embodied deforestation patterns in agricultural and livestock commodities. Results highlight a prominent role of GDP per capita as a driver of deforestation: a 1% increase in per capita GDP is associated, on average, with a 0.28% decrease in deforestation embodied in exports, but with a 0.88% increase in embodied deforestation imports, reflecting an outsourcing of land-use pressures. While developing countries embody comparatively more deforestation in their exports, higher-income importing countries increasingly shift the environmental burden of their consumption to other regions through imports. Domestic consumption factors, such as higher per capita meat demand, are also positively associated with embodied deforestation inflows: a 1 kg increase in yearly meat consumption per capita is linked to a 1.8% rise in embodied deforestation inflows. Overall, the findings highlight the structural asymmetries of global trade and underscore the responsibility of affluent nations in driving deforestation beyond their borders. They also suggest that both production- and consumption-side policies are needed to mitigate embodied deforestation in high-impact commodity sectors.

This paper presents an automated GIS-based procedure for the analysis and optimization of hiking trails. A preliminary analysis of the topological and environmental features of a trail network is performed by evaluating a set of connection metrics describing both the local and global connectivity of its graph. Subsequently, the evaluation of optimal hiking trails has been implemented in an automatic procedure, which can use walking time, distance or upward slope as costs to be minimized. The evaluation of the hiking times for trail sections has been implemented in a GIS as a function of terrain slope. A Python script has been used to automate this process in GRASS GIS. The process was tested on the network of mountain trails in Trentino, an alpine region of Italy, where a digital map of the routes is accessible online. Empirical times and estimated trip times agree fairly well. The optimal paths vary based on the cost choice, i.e., whether the distance, trip time, or total height difference is minimized. It is therefore possible to integrate the determination of optimal hiking paths in a GIS, allowing the integration of this tool with all the other spatial analysis available in this environment.

Proteins from animal sources, including meat, and plant-based foods are essential for a healthy human diet. However, animal-based proteins have significantly higher environmental impacts (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, and water usage) and health risks (e.g., obesity, type 2 diabetes, kidney stones and cardiovascular diseases) compared to plant-based proteins. The consumption patterns of these proteins are strongly influenced by income levels. This study introduces the concept of an Animal Food Kuznets Curve by systematically analyzing the relationship between income and animal-based protein consumption. Utilizing a novel panel dataset spanning 28 years and covering 79 countries, we uncover an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and the consumption of animal-based and meat proteins. Our findings indicate that the turning points occur around 43,000-45,000 US$, corresponding to the 90th and 95th percentiles of the per capita income distribution in the sample. At these income levels, protein consumption is estimated at approximately 25 g/day for meat and 52 g/day for animal-based proteins, as compared to recommended total protein intake of 45-56 g/day. These insights highlight the critical need for targeted policy interventions, such as taxes, nudges, and informational campaigns to promote sustainable dietary choices across all income levels. Our study provides empirical evidence for the importance of integrating economic and environmental policies to enhance global food sustainability.

Linking the improvement of water ecosystems to the use of economic concepts and instruments is one of the main innovations introduced by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD). This should be achieved by Member States through an approach clearly linking measures and interventions to improve water ecosystems to the identified pressures on water bodies (i.e., the gap analysis) and a set of economic provisions. However, modest progress in the implementation of these provisions has been recorded over time. Therefore, this paper aims to shed new light on the current limits in the implementation of the economic analysis of the WFD, in particular in relation to the gap analysis, through a comprehensive review of grey and scientific literature on the topics of gap analysis, economic valuation of ecosystem goods and services, water pricing, and disproportionate costs of measures. General conclusions and recommendations of this analysis are that enhancing data quality, promoting consistency and interaction in economic analysis components, and embedding them pragmatically in decision-making procedures are crucial. The gap analysis plays a pivotal role in directing economic research towards relevant issues within the river basin and in guiding decision makers more effectively in the application of the economic analyses required by the WFD.

Consumption and production of proteins derived from animals have more significant environmental and health impacts than proteins derived from plants. This raises concerns mainly in consideration of the predictable increased consumption of animal proteins at the expense of vegetal ones due to growing income, especially in developing countries. Animal protein consumption, and particularly meat consumption, seems to start to decrease at a high level of income, which may suggest that economic growth solves or attenuates the environmental and health problems of animal food consumption. To test this possibility, the relationship between per capita income and animal and vegetal protein consumption is explored. Using a cross-country regression for 142 countries in 2017, animal-based protein, meat protein, and vegetal-based protein consumption are specified as dependent variables. In addition to per capita income, other potential drivers of protein choices, including ecological, demographic and social factors are controlled for. Apart from income, which still seems to be the most important driver of any type of protein consumption, the results suggest that protein consumption from animal sources and meat sources have different determinants. Though there is actually some evidence of an inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and animal protein consumption, the peak is at such high levels as to make economic growth irrelevant to curb animal protein consumption.

The evolution of farm size and land use are important determinants of the efficiency and profitability of agriculture and the configuration of the territory. In this paper, a conceptual framework of the evolution of the number of farms and land use is presented, arguing that a major determinant of the change in the number of farms is the presence or absence of successors to ageing farmers and that these socio-demographic variables shape the evolution of the sector in terms of farm size, while they do not significantly affect the changes in the farmed area. This hypothesis was empirically tested with data drawn from individual farm records of the Italian Agricultural Censuses of 2000 and 2010—aggregated at the municipality level for an Italian region—by estimating regressions on the decrease rates of the number of farms, the utilised agricultural area and the total agricultural area. The results support the conclusion that the change in the number of farms was largely determined by the absence of successors in family farms and by the average operators’ age, unlike the change in the farmed area, for which natural land conditions were the main drivers.