Italy Testing the Place-Based Approach: River Agreements and National Strategy for Inner Areas
Author(s): Giancarlo Cotella, Elisabetta Vitale Brovarone, Angioletta Voghera
More info: Territorial imbalances between catalysts of development and lagging areas are raising concerns in... the majority of European regions. The divide between main urban nodes and marginal territories poses serious development challenges. The polarization of social, economic and cultural opportunities in urban areas and the phenomena of ageing, depopulation and impoverishment of inner areas are often the result of place-neutral, spatially-blind approaches to development, and constitute a hurdle towards the European objective of social, economic and territorial cohesion. In order to face these challenges, since a decade the European Union is pushing towards more place-based approaches to development, combining bottom-up and top-down logic within multilevel, multiactor and multifund context-sensitive processes. The experiences of the River Agreements and the National Strategy for Inner Areas represents interesting examples of the Italian take on the EU place-based logics, aiming at reversing the negative development trends that characterize the country’s marginal areas. Despite each presenting its own peculiarities, the two approaches share some common ground, as they both attempt to develop innovative, place-sensitive governance processes, featuring a participatory dimension and aiming at overcoming administrative and sectoral boundaries. This contribution discusses the potentials and limitations of the two approaches, with particular attention for the place-based flavour of the peculiar multilevel governance frameworks they adopt. The presented findings constitute an input to the debate on policies
2020 | Journal Articles
Improving Outdoor Thermal Comfort in Built Environment Assessing the Impact of Urban Form and Vegetation
Author(s): Guglielmina Mutani, Valeria Todeschi, Simone Beltramino
More info: Improving outdoor thermal comfort of the urban spaces is one of the most important challenges that cities have to carry out in the next years. The aim of this work consists of assessing the impact of urban variables and to quantify the influence of greening on outdoor thermal comfort conditions. The work compares six neighborhoods in the city of Turin characterized by different urban forms, contexts, and green areas. External thermal comfort conditions were measured by evaluating a series of indicators with the support of the ENVI-met tool. Through the analysis of various scenarios, outdoor thermal comfort conditions were measured using green mitigation measures, like vegetated areas, trees, and green roofs. The results allow the evaluation on how outdoor thermal comfort varies in relation to urban form and greenery. By comparing neighborhoods with different urban characteristics, it was possible to define the most effective form for the city of Turin. Higher levels of mean radiant temperature were obtained with open form neighborhoods with a prevalent East-West orientation, a low buildings’ density, and a low height-to-width ratio. However, thermal comfort conditions can be mitigated by court-form districts and the presence of greenery, to increase the livability of the urban outdoor environment
2022 | Journal Articles
Contributions and Consequences Coming from Human and Organizational Factors to the Accidents
Author(s): Shuo Yang, Micaela Demichela, Jie Geng, Ling Wang, Zhangwei Ling
More info: Human and Organizational Factors (HOFs) are usually the root causes of complex system failures. Human reliability analysis (HRA) methods to build the structure of HOFs have been proposed. However, they typically lack validated data. To address this limitation, learning from the past has been considered regarding the EU Major Accident Reporting System’s (eMARS) records. Category data analysis has been applied to support the quantitative analysis. With the HOFs related near-miss and major accidents recorded by eMARS reports, the obtained results show deep insights about the co-influence and contributions of HOFs to the accidents and the possibility to predict the hazards to the process safety, environment, and cost consequences. Our framework contributes to enhancements in HOFs accidents control and mitigation by enabling risk awareness.
2022 | Journal Articles
Post-pandemic Challenges. The Role of Local Governance for Territorial Resilience
Author(s): Grazia Brunetta, Angioletta Voghera
More info: This chapter aims to provide researchers different interpretative keys of the book, which attempt to propose methodologies, tools, and case studies to put resilience into action in post-pandemic territories by planning and design at different scales. The chapter opens the discussion by presenting diverse and interdisciplinary contributions of which the research is composed; it discusses key topics with reference to the transformative resilience, and referring to methodologies and tools for interpreting territories, and focusing on the role of planning, as well as attempting to describe through practices the operational concept of the Local Resilience Unit.
2023 | Book Section
Oily Industry Impacts on the environmental vulnerability of the territories: case of Fuel Commercializing Company of Villa Clara, Cuba
Author(s): David Castro, Omar Gutiérrez, Jelvys Bermudez, José Poma; Bernardo Lopez, Micaela Demichela
More info: The production, storage and transportation of hydrocarbons involve risks of environmental polluti...on. The goal was to characterize the pollution by hydrocarbons, caused by the operations of the Fuel Commercializing Company of Villa Clara (ECCVC, in advanced), on the different environmental recipients. Four comprehensively geographical strata were established on the research area. It was monitored with 4 sample stations, the oily treatment system of the ECCVC over a period of 3 years. Furthermore, seven wells were selected to sample upstream and downstream the ECCVC. The results suggest the contamination with hydrocarbons in the recipients has been related with the management of oily residuals in the ECCVC. The inadequate design features of the lagoon and the lack of maintenance of the API separator were the main possible causes of the failure modes identified with high risk priority numbers. A management plan was designed. The results highlight the negative environmental impact caused by the ECCVC operations, acting as a permanent stressor on the territory, whereas contributing to increase the near community vulnerability against hydrocarbon pollution.
2020 | Book Section
Qfd to Determine Experimental Biopiles Requirements, to Be Used at Bench-scale as a Strategy Against Soil Pollution with Oily Waste
Author(s): David Javier Castro Rodriguez, Yudexi Jimenez Gonzalez, Omar Gutiérrez Benitez, Enmanuel Casals Pérez, Dayana Ribassa Ribassa, Orlando Viera Ribot, Micaela Demichela
More info: Due to the increase in the amount of oil used, large volumes of hydrocarbons are released annually into the environment, constituting one of the main causes of soil pollution worldwide. The Center for Environmental Studies of Cienfuegos, Cuba; implemented an experimental project to develop an innovative technique as a resilient alternative to this environmental problem. The objective was to implement the Quality Function Deployment (QFD), to determine the design requirements of the experimental units to be used at the bench scale, for the biodegradation of different biopile treatments. The QFD offered a systematic approach to translating attributes into engineering features. The concentrations of microorganisms, nutrients, and hydrocarbons in the biopile were the characteristics that accumulated more than 50 % of the relative weights of the first level matrix. The initial concentration of hydrocarbons and the percentages of moisture and bulking agents in the mixture obtained the highest relative weights in the second level. The percentage of bulking agents was identified as an opportunity to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of bioremediation and stimulate the circular economy. The results enabled delineating the experimental protocols for the engineering design, which ensured to build the bench-scale prototype of the experimental units for the evaluation of various treatments of biopiles ecotechnology as a resilient alternative against soils hydrocarbon pollution.
2022 | Journal Articles