Giulia Merler using GEOSPACE for simulations on a wineyard

Giulia Merler's Bachelor thesis investigates the effects of climate change on Trentino vineyards using GEOSPACE simulation software. While this research is preliminary and requires further validation, it reveals compelling insights into how global warming affects vine health.

For a high-resolution view of the poster, simply click on the image below. All supporting materials and data are accessible via the QR code provided.

The findings may surprise those unfamiliar with viticulture: elevated temperatures place significant stress on grapevines, posing a serious threat to wine production. While experts in the field may find this unsurprising, seeing the impact quantified through sophisticated modeling tools brings the reality into sharper focus and provides valuable data for future planning. This work pairs with the one by Marco Feltrin that can be found here. 

Anna De Nardi works on EPNs

Our three years degrees on Environmental Sciences requires for graduation a work exercise that can be really interesting.  Among the last graduations, I followed the work by Anna De Nardi, on the Extended Petri Net which I think was particularly valuable.  Anna, in fact, elaborated  all the MARRMoTs hydrological models using the Extended Petri Nets graphs. This show in practice that the statement that all the integral distributed hydrological models  (a.k.a. lumped distributed models, the hydrological dynamical systems, semi-distributed hydrological models) can be represented by means of the EPN is actually true. 

The MARRMoT (Modular Assessment of Rainfall-Runoff Models Toolkit) is a collection of hydrological models designed to simulate rainfall-runoff processes across different scales and conditions. Developed in MATLAB, MARRMoT provides a modular framework that allows researchers to compare, assess, and implement various conceptual hydrological models consistently

Key Features and Purpose:

• Model Variety: MARRMoT includes 47 different rainfall-runoff models, ranging from simple lumped models to more complex, semi-distributed structures.
• Comparative Framework: Its standardized environment enables researchers to test models on the same data sets and conditions, making it easier to assess model performance, suitability, and sensitivity.
• Customization: Users can adapt model configurations or modify parameters within the toolkit to better fit specific research objectives or study basins.
• - Open-source and Accessible: MARRMoT is open-source, encouraging community contributions, modifications, and application across various hydrological research areas.

This toolkit is particularly useful for researchers looking to improve or validate hydrological models and for those who want a structured way to compare the effects of model structure on hydrological simulation outcomes.

Extended Petri Nets (EPNs) are an enhanced version of traditional Petri Nets, a mathematical modeling language originally designed to describe distributed systems with concurrent, asynchronous processes. EPNs incorporate additional features to increase modeling flexibility and allow for more complex system representations. In scientific modeling, they are used for representing and analyzing systems in which discrete and continuous interactions are critical, like biological networks, chemical reactions, ecological models, or engineering processes.

For getting the poster at higher resolution, please click on the above image. For all the material, including all the MARRMoT models, please look at the here:

• All the  MARRMoT models represented with EPNs
• All the  EPNs-MARRMoT models catalogued by the number of reservoirs
• All the fluxes variables names found in the MARRMoT  collections

Other Hydrological models represented with EPNs can be found in Bancheri et al., 2019 below. 

References

Bancheri, Marialaura, Francesco Serafin, and Riccardo Rigon. 2019. “The Representation of Hydrological Dynamical Systems Using Extended Petri Nets (EPN).” Water Resources Research 55 (11): 8895–8921. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019WR025099.

Marialaura, Bancheri, Francesco Serafin, and Riccardo Rigon. 2019. “Supporting Material for: The Representation of Hydrological Dynamical Systems Using Extended Petri Nets (EPN).” Water Resources Research.

Knoben, W. J. M., J. Freer, K. J. A. Fowler, M. C. Peel, and R. A. Woods. 2019. “Modular Assessment of Rainfall-Runoff Models Toolbox (MARRMoT) v1.0: An Open Source, Extendable Framework Providing Implementations of 46 Conceptual Hydrologic Models as a Ontinuous Space-State Formulations.” GMDD, February, 1–26.

Knoben, W. J. M., J. Freer, K. J. A. Fowler, M. C. Peel, and R. A. Woods. 2019, “Modular Assessment of Rainfall–Runoff Models Toolbox (MARRMoT) v1.2: An Open-Source, Extendable Framework Providing Implementations of 46 Conceptual Hydrologic Models as Continuous State-Space Formulations.” 2019. Copernicus GmbH. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-12-2463-2019-supplement.

Rigon, Riccardo, and Marialaura Bancheri. 2021. “On the Relations between the Hydrological Dynamical Systems of Water Budget, Travel Time, Response Time and Tracer Concentrations.” Hydrological Processes 35 (1). https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14007.

Trotter, L., W. Knoben, K. Fowler, M. Saft, and M. Peel. 2022. “Modular Assessment of Rainfall–Runoff Models Toolbox (MARRMoT) v2.1: An Object-Oriented Implementation of 47 Established Hydrological Models for Improved Speed and Readability.” Geoscientific Model Development, August. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-6359-2022.

Three Batchelor Graduation Works

The first  Thesis-poster,  by Agnese Cavazzini, supervised by Gaia Roati and me, presents a hydrological study of the Secchia River basin using the GEOframe-NewAGE system. The research analyzes water balance and simulates river flow while generating soil moisture maps to identify drought-prone areas. Key elements include watershed division into sub-basins, mass balance equations, and calibration against measured data. Results show flow simulations at two monitoring stations and soil moisture anomaly maps. The successful implementation provides valuable insights into the basin's hydrological dynamics across Modena, Reggio Emilia, and Mantova provinces. You can get a high resolution poster by clicking on the Figure below..

The second Thesis-poster, by Lorenzo Dalsasso,  presents a statistical analysis of ground precipitation patterns by Lorenzo Dalsasso. Using hourly precipitation data from three weather stations, the study evaluates which probability distributions best represent precipitation duration, intensity, and intervals between events. A Python notebook with Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests determined that lognormal distributions best fit precipitation durations, Weibull distributions best represent precipitation intensities, and either Weibull (stations ID 40 and 1100) or lognormal (station ID 263) best characterize intervals between precipitation events. The results include detailed statistical parameters for each station. The high resolution poster can be found by clicking on the Figure below. 

Thr third thesis-poster presents Marco Feltrin's study on evapotranspirative fluxes in grapevines by integrating the GEOSPACE ecohydrological model with WiseConn sensor technology (dr. Marco Bezzi). The research compares two rainfall scenarios: a wet scenario (1147 mm of total precipitation) and a dry scenario (682.4 mm of total precipitation) to evaluate plant water stress. Using the one-dimensional GEOSPACE model with data from a vineyard near Verona, results show that the dry scenario led to half the plant transpiration during summer months. The model effectively demonstrates how water content throughout the soil column affects water stress in plants, with practical applications for irrigation management, water conservation, and predicting water availability for viticulture under changing climate conditions.  The high resoltion poster can be found by clicking on the Figure below.