Environmental agencies have to take measures to either reduce discharges and emissions of nitrate or to remediate nitrate-polluted water bodies where the nitrate concentrations exceed threshold values. Isotope data can support the identification of nitrate pollution sources and natural attenuation processes of nitrate.

We performed geodetic strain rate analyses in southern Italy, using new GPS velocities. Two-dimensional strain and rotation rate fields were estimated and results show that most of the shortening is distributed in the northern Sicily offshore. Extension becomes more evident and comparable with shortening on the eastern side of the same margin, and greater in the eastern Sicily offshore. Principal shortening and extension rate axes are consistent with longterm geological features: seismic reflection profiles show both active compressive and extensional faults affecting Pleistocene strata.

Remote sensing has been used since the 1980s to study parameters in relation with coastal zones. It was not until the beginning of the twentyfirst century that it started to acquire imagery with good temporal and spectral resolution. This has encouraged the development of reliable imagery acquisition systems that consider remote sensing as a water management tool. Nevertheless, the spatial resolution that it provides is not adapted to carry out coastal studies.

Nitrification is essential to the nitrogen cycle in paddy soils. However, it is still not clear which group of ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms plays more important roles in nitrification in the paddy soils. The changes in the abundance and composition of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) were investigated by real-time PCR, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism, and clone library approaches in an acid red paddy soil subjected to long-term fertilization treatments, including treatment without fertilizers (CT); chemical fertilizer nitrogen (N); N and potassium (NK); N and phosphorus (NP); N, P, and K (NPK); and NPK plus recycled crop residues (NPK+C). The AOA population size in NPK+C was higher than those in CT, while minor changes in AOB population sizes were detected among the treatments.

Changes of global land monsoon precipitation are assessed by using three sets of rain-gauge precipitation data for the period of 1901–2002 compiled by GPCC, CRU and Dai-dataset, respectively. The three datasets show consistent long-term changes of precipitation over the monsoon region with slightly different amplitudes. During 1901–2001, global land monsoon precipitation (GMI) exhibits multi-decadal variations, with an overall increasing trend from 1901 to 1955, followed by a decreasing trend up to 2001.