Stavroula Galanopoulou

The study examines the pollution of surface soils in the Municipality of Palamas, Karditsa, Greece, following the severe flooding caused by storm “Daniel” in September 2023. The heavy rainfall inundated nearly 73,000 hectares, severely affecting agriculture and infrastructure. The research investigates soil contamination by heavy metals and nitrogenous compounds and examines the potential anthropogenic and natural (geogenic) sources. Soil samples were analyzed for various pollutants, including chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn). Geochemical pollution indices were applied to support the assessment of contamination levels and infer potential sources. Results showed that most heavy metals were within normal levels, except for Cr and Ni, which were elevated in some samples. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used to create pollution maps, highlighting areas with higher concentrations of pollutants. The study concludes that flooding and associated runoff combined with weathering of metal-rich rocks, enhanced the transport and deposition of heavy metals in the soil.

Silvopastoral systems, though ecologically beneficial, remain underrepresented in the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and are seldom studied in Mediterranean contexts. The current study assesses both the environmental and economic aspects of five typical silvopastoral systems in central Greece, encompassing cattle, sheep, and goat farming. A Life Cycle Assessment approach was implemented to quantify greenhouse gas emissions using economic allocation, distributing impacts between milk and meat outputs. Enteric fermentation was the major emission source, accounting for up to 65.14% of total emissions in beef-based systems, while feeding and soil emissions were more prominent in mixed and small ruminant systems. Total farm-level emissions ranged from 60,609 to 273,579 kg CO₂eq per year. Economically, only beef-integrated systems achieved an average annual profitability above EUR 20,000 per farm, based on financial data averaged over the last five years (2020–2024) from selected case studies in central Greece, while the remaining systems fell below the national poverty threshold for an average household, underscoring concerns about their economic viability. The findings underline the dual challenges of economic viability and policy neglect, stressing the need for targeted support if these multifunctional systems are to add value to EU climate goals and rural sustainability.

To record land cover changes over time, geographic information systems software was used for selecting and studying sampling surfaces in ortho-aerial photographs. In particular, ortho-aerial photographs of the years 1945 and 2015 were used to record changes in land cover. A total of 103 test surfaces were obtained, which consisted of 25 cells each. The results showed that the area and density of forest cover have increased significantly during the study period. Changes in land cover, and in particular forest cover, are mainly attributed to (a) the gradual decline of the population, and therefore to the decline in man-made interventions such as crops, nomadic herd grazing, and logging, and to (b) natural species competition. Moreover, the effect of climatic change and the reduction in human presence on fir treelines was examined. Based on the results, no clear evidence about treeline changes was found. Also, the effect of soil and topographic factors on land cover changes, as well as the prediction capability of land cover changes, were examined using an artificial neural network. Promising results came out that could provide substantial explanations for land cover changes and quantify the effect of environmental factors on vegetation evolution.