2019

Increasing energy efficiency in buildings is a crucial topic, especially in those EU countries where almost 50% of the final energy consumption is used for space heating and cooling, of which 80% is used for buildings. This study presents a model and a tool that can be used to evaluate energy consumption and to identify retrofitting strategies and renewable energy sources with the aim of reaching energy and climate targets in order to improve energy security, competitiveness and sustainability in a territory.

The phenomenon of overheating in urban areas is an increasingly important issue as far as the quality of life and public health are concerned. This paper proposes a simple model, integrated with a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool, that can be used to analyze the microclimate of outdoor spaces, considering the relationship between the air temperature and the characteristics of an urban environment.

The energy consumption of buildings is related to multiple factors, such as construction and geometric characteristics, occupancy, climate and microclimate conditions, solar exposure, and urban morphology. Therefore, the interaction between buildings and their surroundings should be taken into consideration.

This paper analyses an important aspect of the continuum numerical modelling of rapid landslides as debris flows: “By using the same rheological parameter values, are the results obtained with codes that implement the same constitutive equations, but a different numerical solver, equal?” To answer this question, the two numerical codes RASH3D and GeoFlow_SPH are used here to back-analyse the debris flow event that occurred in the Nora stream (northwestern Italian Alps) in October 2000.

In Sahelian countries, a vast number of people are still affected every year by flood despite the efforts to prevent or mitigate these catastrophic events. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the incessant population growth and the increase of extreme natural events. Hence, the development of flood management strategies such as flood hazard mapping and Early Warning Systems has become a crucial objective for the affected nations. This study presents a comprehensive hazard assessment of the Nigerien reach of the Sirba River, the main tributary Middle Niger River.

Identifying areas of the world, communities, and women and men that could be damaged by meteorological events (like droughts and floods) has been crucial for vulnerability studies in the last decade. Climate change may differently affect female‐ and male‐headed households, especially in rural areas of sub‐Saharan Africa, where they react in a different way to the effects of adverse weather events. The aim of this work was to analyse a population's vulnerability and resilience to climate‐related hazards, applying a sex‐disaggregated, quantitative methodology at household level.

Restorative and conservative operations of Cultural Heritage buildings involve the historical and objective knowledge of the context. Meaning the knowledge as a diachronic awareness of the history of buildings should help the safeguarding processes of heritage assets.

The increasing attention on environmental problems is stimulating the development of integrated evaluation approaches to territorial transformations, where different facets have to be considered. The present paper focuses on the development of a novel integrated evaluation model for measuring the ecological states and the economic values of an environmental system employing both a system of indicators and a mathematical model of Lotka-Volterra.

A peat deposit (Zennare basin, Venice coastland, Italy) was monitored in previous field studies to investigate the hydrological response of organic soil to meteorological dynamics. Field tests and modelling predictions highlighted the risk of the complete loss of this peat layer during the next 50 years, due to oxidation enhanced by the increased frequency of warmer periods.

The deep modifications to climate are currently provoking risks of increasing impact, that can cause unexpected consequences, interacting with other risks. However, the available planning regulations and instruments appear inadequate to face this challenge, most of all at a local scale. This paper presents a semi-quantitative methodology for the assessment of multiple risks, developed for the direct use of the municipality technicians, in order to increase their awareness towards multiple risks and unexpected events that could hit their territory.