A Nuoro il primo International Science Day targato Uniss 8 May 2024 press releaseNUORO. Thursday 9 May at 9.30, in the University Consortium of Nuoro, in via Salaris 18, the first International Science Day of the Department of Agriculture of the University of Sassari will be held, a scientific event entitled: Innovation and sustainability for emergency management phytosanitary. The meeting will be the first of a series of open events promoted by the Department itself in order to involve Sardinian students and citizens in ongoing international debates on some of the most current issues in the field of agriculture and the environment and to communicate the results of the research carried out by the Department together with its international scientific partners.This event will be an in-depth study on the management of phytosanitary emergencies which will examine, as a case study, the economic and environmental emergency of locust swarms, a very current topic globally and in our region given the infestations that have recently occurred in Central Sardinia . The topics will range from the fight against locusts in Sardinia in the first half of the twentieth century, with extensive use of conventional insecticides, to the strategies currently used in Central Asia; from the use of advanced technologies for monitoring and control to the environmental sustainability of large-scale chemical control and related risks. International experts such as Alexandre Latchininsky, head of the FAO working group for the management of locust emergencies; Igor Klein of the German Aerospace Center, coordinator of a research project that aims to improve locust control strategies by implementing innovative strategies including remote sensing, satellite and climate data time series, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Elena Lazutkaite, independent researcher, who will address the topic of insecticide control using the One Health approach, which integrates human, animal and environmental well-being for the management of complex problems such as locust invasions.There will be no shortage of historical contributions such as that of Prof. Roberto Pantaleoni of the University of Sassari, who conducted in-depth bibliographical research on the locust infestations that occurred in Sardinia between 1900 and 1949 and the large-scale control plans that they involved thousands of people and the use of particularly poisonous insecticidal substances such as sodium arsenite. Paolo Fontana, technologist at the Edmund Mach Foundation (San Michele all'Adige, TN), expert in ecology and entomology, will present the species of grasshoppers and crickets that are capable of swarming in Italy, creating problems for crops and ecosystems.