Rainwater harvesting (RWH) may be an effective alternative water supply solution in regions affected by water scarcity. It has recently become a particularly important option in arid and semi-arid areas (like Mediterranean basins), mostly because of its many benefits and affordable costs. This study provides an analysis of the reliability of using a rainwater harvesting system to supply water f...

The Quaternary mammals of Sicily are well known, and five faunal complexes have been distinguished on the basis of bioevents (extinctions and new arrivals) and evolution of endemic species. It is clear that the composition of mammal faunas is strictly related to the dispersal ability of each species and to the paleogeography of the area. Until now, researches have chiefly attributed paleogeogra...

The Eastern Mediterranean Transient (EMT) occurred in the Aegean Sea from 1988 to 1995 and is the most significant intermediate-to-deep Mediterranean overturning perturbation reported by instrumental records. The EMT was likely caused by accumulation of high salinity waters in the Levantine and enhanced heat loss in the Aegean Sea, coupled with surface water freshening in the Sicily Channel. It...

The rare findings of specimens in larval or post-larval stages (6 phyllosomas and 7 nistos/early juveniles) belonging to the family Scyllaridae are reported for the waters around Sicily. Some were stranded on different winter occasions near the Strait of Messina (north–eastern Sicily), while others were collected during experimental trawl surveys carried out in the Sicilian Channel, at depths u...

Crude oil is one of the most important natural assets for humankind, yet it is a major environmental pollutant, notably in marine environments. One of the largest crude oil polluted areas in the word is the semi-enclosed Mediterranean Sea, in which the metabolic potential of indigenous microbial populations towards the large-scale chronic pollution is yet to be defined, particularly in anaerobi...

In Italy the epidemiological pattern of cistic echinococcosis (CE) is incomplete and the information for most regions is out of date, contradictory, and almost exclusively limited to the intermediate hosts. The disease is found most frequently in particular social and economic conditions: widespread use of extensive or semi-extensive sheep farming, illegal slaughtering, and high numbers of shee...

OBJECTIVES Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is the leading cause of hospitalization for lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) in young children worldwide.We evaluate the epidemiological and clinical patterns of RSV infection in infants hospitalized for LRTI in in Palermo, South Italy, Sicily. METHODS We collected the demographic details of infants hospitalized to G. Di Cristina Children'...

For the early Iron Age Elymian town on Monte Polizzo, inland western Sicily, hulled barley was the dominant cereal, followed by emmer and free-threshing wheat. The dominant legume was Vicia faba. In the contemporary Greek harbour town of Selinunte on the southern coast of western Sicily, free-threshing wheat was dominant, while hulled barley and the legume V. ervilia were subdominant. For Selin...

Morphological and nomenclatural investigations for two critical Mediterranean species of Elatine, i.e., E. macropoda gussonei, as well their correct distribution in Sicily, are discussed. These names lectotypified on herbarium specimens kept, respectively, at NAP FI. The morphological carried out both the types, several living dried material collected southern Lampedusa, Malta (loci classici in...

Aquifers can be defined as complex ecological systems. Their description is closely influenced by geometrical and geological parameters, which portray the hydrogeological behaviour of underground This paper reports a contribution to assessing groundwater contamination risk in particular Sicily sector, where deterministic approaches have methodically assessed mapped vulnerability quality gr...