"Water users must be efficient producers". Women's access to and use of land in Chókwè irrigation scheme, Mozambique

The irrigation scheme Eduardo Mondlane, situated in Chókwè District - in the Southern part of the Gaza province and within the Limpopo River Basin - is the largest in the country, covering approximately 30,000 hectares of land. Built by the Portuguese colonial administration in the 1950s to exploit the agricultural potential of the area through cash-cropping, after Independence it became one of Frelimo’s flagship projects aiming at the “socialization of the countryside” and at agricultural economic development through the creation of a state farm and of several cooperatives. The failure of Frelimo’s economic reforms, several infrastructural constraints and local farmers resistance to collective forms of production led to scheme to a state of severe degradation aggravated by the floods of the year 2000. A project of technical rehabilitation initiated after the floods is currently accompanied by a strong “efficiency” discourse from the managing institution that strongly opposes the use of irrigated land for subsistence agriculture, historically a major livelihood strategy for smallfarmers, particularly for women. In fact, the area has been characterized, since the end of the XIX century, by a stable pattern of male migration towards South African mines, that has resulted in an a steady increase of women-headed households (both de jure and de facto). The relationship between land reform, agricultural development, poverty alleviation and gender equality in Southern Africa is long debated in academic literature. Within this debate, the role of agricultural activities in irrigation schemes is particularly interesting considering that, in a drought-prone area, having access to water for irrigation means increased possibilities of improving food and livelihood security, and income levels. In the case of Chókwè, local governments institutions are endorsing the development of commercial agriculture through initiatives such as partnerships with international cooperation agencies or joint-ventures with private investors. While these business models can sometimes lead to positive outcomes in terms of poverty alleviation, it is important to recognize that decentralization and neoliberal reforms occur in the context of financial and political crisis of the State that lacks the resources to efficiently manage infrastructures such as irrigation systems. This kind of institutional and economic reforms risk accelerating processes of social and economic marginalisation, including landlessness, in particular for poor rural women that mainly use irrigated land for subsistence production. The study combines an analysis of the historical and geographical context with the study of relevant literature and original fieldwork. Fieldwork was conducted between February and June 2007 (where I mainly collected secondary data, maps and statistics and conducted preliminary visit to Chókwè) and from October 2007 to March 2008. Fieldwork methodology was qualitative and used semi-structured interviews with central and local Government officials, technical experts of the irrigation scheme, civil society organisations, international NGOs, rural extensionists, and water users from the irrigation scheme, in particular those women smallfarmers members of local farmers’ associations. Thanks to the collaboration with the Union of Farmers’ Associations of Chókwè, she has been able to participate to members’ meeting, to education and training activities addressed to women farmers members of the Union and to organize a group discussion. In Chókwè irrigation scheme, women account for the 32% of water users of the familiar sector (comprising plot-holders with less than 5 hectares of land) and for just 5% of the private sector. If one considers farmers’ associations of the familiar sector (a legacy of Frelimo’s cooperatives), women are 84% of total members. However, the security given to them by the land title that they have acquired through occupation is severely endangered by the use that they make of land, that is considered as “non efficient” by the irrigation scheme authority. Due to a reduced access to marketing possibilities and to inputs, training, information and credit women, in actual fact, risk to see their right to access land and water revoked because they are not able to sustain the increasing cost of the water fee. The myth of the “efficient producer” does not take into consideration the characteristics of inequality and gender discrimination of the neo-liberal market. Expecting small-farmers, and in particular women, to be able to compete in the globalized agricultural market seems unrealistic, and can perpetuate unequal gendered access to resources such as land and water.

Deep geometry of subduction below the Andean belt of Colombia as revealed by seismic tomography

In this study new tomographic models of Colombia were calculated. I used the seismicity recorded by the Colombian seismic network during the period 2006-2009. In this time period, the improvement of the seismic network yields more stable hypocentral results with respect to older data set and allows to compute new 3D Vp and Vp/Vs models. The final dataset consists of 10813 P- and 8614 S-arrival times associated to 1405 earthquakes. Tests with synthetic data and resolution analysis indicate that velocity models are well constrained in central, western and southwestern Colombia to a depth of 160 km; the resolution is poor in the northern Colombia and close to Venezuela due to a lack of seismic stations and seismicity. The tomographic models and the relocated seismicity indicate the existence of E-SE subducting Nazca lithosphere beneath central and southern Colombia. The North-South changes in Wadati-Benioff zone, Vp & Vp/Vs pattern and volcanism, show that the downgoing plate is segmented by slab tears E-W directed, suggesting the presence of three sectors. Earthquakes in the northernmost sector represent most of the Colombian seimicity and concentrated on 100-170 km depth interval, beneath the Eastern Cordillera. Here a massive dehydration is inferred, resulting from a delay in the eclogitization of a thickened oceanic crust in a flat-subduction geometry. In this sector a cluster of intermediate-depth seismicity (Bucaramanga Nest) is present beneath the elbow of the Eastern Cordillera, interpreted as the result of massive and highly localized dehydration phenomenon caused by a hyper-hydrous oceanic crust. The central and southern sectors, although different in Vp pattern show, conversely, a continuous, steep and more homogeneous Wadati-Benioff zone with overlying volcanic areas. Here a "normalthickened" oceanic crust is inferred, allowing for a gradual and continuous metamorphic reactions to take place with depth, enabling the fluid migration towards the mantle wedge.

Landslide susceptibility in the Belt and Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a project launched by the Chinese Government whose main goal is to connect more than 65 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania developing infrastructures and facilities. To support the prevention or mitigation of landslide hazards, which may affect the mainland infrastructures of BRI, a landslide susceptibility analysis in the countries involved has been carried out. Due to the large study area, the analysis has been carried out using a multi-scale approach which consists of mapping susceptibility firstly at continental scale, and then at national scale. The study area selected for the continental assessment is the south-Asia, where a pixel-based landslide susceptibility map has been carried out using the Weight of Evidence method and validated by Receiving Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves. Then, we selected the regions of west Tajikistan and north-east India to be investigated at national scale. Data scarcity is a common condition for many countries involved into the Initiative. Therefore in addition to the landslide susceptibility assessment of west Tajikistan, which has been conducted using a Generalized Additive Model and validated by ROC curves, we have examined, in the same study area, the effect of incomplete landslide dataset on the prediction capacity of statistical models. The entire PhD research activity has been conducted using only open data and open-source software. In this context, to support the analysis of the last years an open-source plugin for QGIS has been implemented. The SZ-tool allows the user to make susceptibility assessments from the data preprocessing, susceptibility mapping, to the final classification. All the output data of the analysis conducted are freely available and downloadable. This text describes the research activity of the last three years. Each chapter reports the text of the articles published in international scientific journal during the PhD.

Tectonics of the wedge-top Epiligurian basins and implications for the syn-to-post orogenic evolution of the Northern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt (Italy)

This thesis has the aim to give an overview about the tectonic history of the Epiligurian units, which crop out in the axial portion of the Northern Apennines fold-and-thrust belt, from a structural and thermal point of view, through a multiscalar and multitecnique approach. I focused on a key example of Epiligurian wedge-top basin, (Marzabotto Basin) proceeding from macro-to-microscale approach. The study started from a remote sensing analysis of the lineaments and morphostructures which affected the study area to obtain the regional faulting pattern and an overview about the main tectonic structures, used as basis for the structural investigation at the mesoscale. On the basis of this, it was possible to reconstruct the succession of tectonic events that affected the Marzabotto Basin, consisting in: i) two sets of thrusts indicating a NE-SW and NW-SE shortening of the sedimentary succession; ii) NE-SW-left lateral transtensional faults related to a strike-slip tectonic phase; iii) three main sets of extensional structures which cut and displace the previous thrusts. Normal faults are related to the post-orogenic evolution and have been dated with U-Th method, getting an age of Middle-Late Pleistocene. From a thermal point of view, apatite fission-tracks and (U-Th)/He analyses of detrital minerals and thermal modelling on the middle-upper Eocene siliciclastic deposits allowed me to better constrain the local exhumation history and correlate it with the large-scale tectonic evolution of the Northern Apennines. In particular, the Marzabotto Basin experienced a complex burial-exhumation history, consisting in two cooling cooling phases related to the growth of the Northern Apennines belt (Oligo-Miocene in age) and a later cooling which tracks the accretion in the orogenic wedge concomitant with rollback-driven extension (late Miocene-Pliocene in age). In conclusion it is possible to affirm that the study shed new light on poorly constrained elements of fold-and-thrust belt.