Informing and engaging citizens to adopt sustainable diets is a key strategy for reducing global environmental impacts of the agricultural and food sectors. In this respect, the first requisite to support citizens and actors of the food sector is to provide them a publicly available, reliable and ready to use synthesis of environmental pressures associated to food commodities. Here we introduce the SU-EATABLE LIFE database, a multilevel database of carbon (CF) and water (WF) footprint values of food commodities, based on a standardized methodology to extract information and assign optimal footprint values and uncertainties to food items, starting from peer-reviewed articles and grey literature. The database and its innovative methodological framework for uncertainty treatment and data quality assurance provides a solid basis for evaluating the impact of dietary shifts on global environmental policies, including climate mitigation through greenhouse gas emission reductions. The database ensures repeatability and further expansion, providing a reliable science-based tool for managers and researcher in the food sector.

In alpine tundra the influence of snow-cover duration (SCD) and pedoclimatic conditions on soil nutrient forms during the growing season has received little attention. The hypothesis that SCD influences the soil temperature, which in turn can affect the annual changes in topsoil nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) forms, was tested for five growing seasons at three study sites in the alpine tundra of the NW Italian Alps. Among the pedoclimatic conditions studied (soil temperature, soil moisture, and number of freeze/thaw cycles), the mean soil temperature of the growing season was inversely correlated with the SCD (p < 0.01), which ranged from 216 to 272 days. Independently from the soil characteristics (e.g., degree of evolution), the microbial carbon (Cmicr) of the growing season was inversely correlated with the SCD and the mean soil temperature of the snow-covered season, suggesting the consumption of soil resources made by the Cmicr under the snowpack. During the growing season ammonium (N-NH4+), di...