Categorical Multifactor Design to Evaluate Different Operative Parameters During the Bioremediation of Hydrocarbon-Polluted Soil in Early Experimental Stages
Author(s): David Javier Castro Rodriguez, Omar Gutiérrez Benitez, Enmanuel Casals Pérez, Micaela Demichela, Alberto Godio, Fulvia Chiampo
More info: Congresso Nazionale GRICU2022 : book of abstracts
2022 | Conference Proceedings
Urban Climate Action. The urban content of the NDCs: Global review 2022
Author(s): Bernhard Barth, Nicola Tollin, James Vener, Maria Pizzorni, Ainhoa Saurí Gázquez, Patrizia Gragnani, Maria Manez, Grazia Brunetta, Ombretta Caldarice, Jordi Morato, Stelios Grafakos, David Simon, Tadashi Matsumoto
More info: This report was prepared by United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and the UNESCO Chair on Urban Resilience at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU.Resilience). It offers a global analysis of the urban content of 193 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before the 19th of June 2022. For this report, more than 200 indicators were used to analyse external data (e.g., Human Development Index and income categorisation) and data within the NDCs, including climate mitigation and adaptation challenges and responses, as well as specific sectors. This analysis is instrumental to supporting Parties’ efforts in further integrating national climate policies and urban climate actions, which is considered fundamental to raising ambition and developing adequate and timely actions as required by the current climate emergency. This review can be instrumental for advocacy and direct support to countries by partner organisations. The work was supported by a group of experts from bilateral and multilateral organisations and academia. Three expert group meetings were convened, and a peer review was organised for the final report.
2022 | Dissemination Activities
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