Railway noise in urban areas: assessment and prediction on infrastructure improvement combined with settlement development and regeneration in central Italy

Air quality monitoring in many urban areas is based on sophisticated and costly equipment to check for the respect of environmental quality standards, but capillary monitoring is often not feasible due to economic constraints. In such cases, the use of living organisms may be very useful to complement the sparse data obtained by physico-chemical measurements. In this study, the bioaccumulation of selected trace elements (Al, As, Cd, Ce, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, S, Sb, Zn) in lichen samples (Evernia prunastri) transplanted for three months at an urban area of Central Italy was investigated to assess the main environmental contaminants, their sources, and the fluxes of element depositions. The results pinpointed Cu and Sb as the main contaminants and suggested a common origin for these two elements from non-exhaust sources of vehicular traffic, such as brake abrasion. Most study sites were, however, found to be subjected to low or moderate environmental contamination, and the lowest contamination corresponded to the main green areas, confirming the important protective role of urban forests against air pollution. Ranges of estimated mean annual element deposition rates in the study area were similar or lower than those reported for other urban areas.

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Active Normal Faulting and Large-Scale Mass Wasting in Urban Areas: The San Gregorio Village Case Study (L’Aquila, Central Italy). Methodological Insight for Seismic Microzonation Studies

Engineering Geology for Society and Territory - Volume 5 ◽

10.1007/978-3-319-09048-1_197 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 1033-1036

Author(s):

Stefano Gori ◽

Emanuela Falcucci ◽

Giuseppe Di Giulio ◽

Marco Moro ◽

Michele Saroli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Large Scale ◽

Central Italy ◽

Seismic Microzonation ◽

Normal Faulting ◽

Mass Wasting

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Beach litter occurrence in sandy littorals: The potential role of urban areas, rivers and beach users in central Italy

Estuarine Coastal and Shelf Science ◽

10.1016/j.ecss.2016.08.041 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 181 ◽

pp. 231-237 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Gianluca Poeta ◽

Luisa Conti ◽

Marco Malavasi ◽

Corrado Battisti ◽

Alicia Teresa Rosario Acosta

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Potential Role ◽

Central Italy ◽

Beach Litter

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The Pleasure of Walking: An Innovative Methodology to Assess Appropriate Walkable Performance in Urban Areas to Support Transport Planning

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11123467 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (12) ◽

pp. 3467 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Appolloni ◽

Corazza ◽

D’Alessandro

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Urban Governance ◽

Central Italy ◽

Decision Makers ◽

Medium Size ◽

Suitability Index ◽

Innovative Methodology ◽

Governance Process ◽

Walking Performance

The Walking Suitability Index of the Territory–T-WSI is an innovative methodology to assess walkability. Unlike other methods and tools in this field designed to evaluate walkability on given origin-destination paths, T-WSI is conceived for area-wide assessments, typically at the neighborhood level. This can be achieved by visual surveys to collect data, which are easy to perform at street level, their further process via an algorithm, and their aggregation to assess the walking performance levels of the test area. The paper describes such methodology, which includes the development of 12 indicators associated with four main evaluation categories (Practicability, Safety, Urbanity and Appeal), and its application to a case study in a medium-size town in central Italy. Results are described and elaborated to highlight T-WSI’s contribution to help decision makers in the urban governance process, typically in the fields of land use, mobility management and maintenance, coherently with the research objective to enlarge the potential of walkability methodologies thus far available up to area-level assessment.

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Underground city as a record for past geodiversity: a multi-approach for geoheritage promotion in urban areas

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18850 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Laura Melelli

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Best Practice ◽

Central Italy ◽

Test Area ◽

Historical Evolution ◽

Urban Geology ◽

Wide Audience ◽

Starting Point ◽

History Of ◽

Chronological Sequence

The &#8220;geological reason&#8221; of a city is always a proper starting point to understand the historical evolution of urban areas. However, where the human presence modified and covered the initial natural location is quite difficult to find outcrops for understanding the original geological and geomorphological arrangement. For this reason the underground cities is sometimes the unique opportunity to have meaningful records of the geological history of an area.To have numerous and well-distributed anthropic underground cavities allows us to understand the palaeogeographic conditions preceding urbanization in an areal extent (spatial correlation). Moreover, if the excavation walls exhibit sufficiently complete and undisturbed vertical stratigraphic structures, the chronological sequence is present (timeline). Thus underground cities are ideal sites to learn the local geodiversity in space and in (past) time.In addition, considering that in historical cities the most meaningful hidden cavities are focused in the downtowns, it is common to find a strong correlation between the geological value with the archaeological, architectural and historical ones. The union of different aspects increases the capability of these sites to be used as cultural attractors. With the aim to disseminate the concepts of geodiversity and geoheritage toward a wide audience, the underground cities became one of the best tool for scientists, administrators, teachers or touristic guides.In this paper the Perugia city (Umbria, central Italy) is proposed as the test area, furthermore a conceptual scheme, in order to illustrate the best practice to use geodiversity as connection between urban geology and geoheritage promotion, is proposed.

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First syntaxonomical contribution to the invasive Ailanthus altissima (Mill.) Swingle forest communities at its southern limit in Europe

Plant Sociology ◽

10.3897/pls2020572/06 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 57 (2) ◽

pp. 145-160

Author(s):

Silvia Montecchiari ◽

Marina Allegrezza ◽

Veronica Pelliccia ◽

Giulio Tesei

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Central Italy ◽

Forest Community ◽

Ailanthus Altissima ◽

Soil Conditions ◽

Southern Europe ◽

Forest Communities ◽

Southern Limit ◽

Canopy Density

Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven), an invasive alien tree native to China, has become invasive all over the world and in Italy is present in all the administrative regions where it can form dense forest communities. Although there are several ecological studies on this species there is a lack of floristic-vegetational data for southern-Europe. The study presents the results of a floristic vegetational study on A. altissima forest communities of central Italy that aims to highlight the possible floristic-vegetational autonomy of these coenoses. The results have allowed the characterization of A. altissima coenoses at the ecological, biogeographic, syntaxonomic and landscape levels. These represent first A. altissima syntaxa described for the Italian peninsula and for southern-Europe. We propose two new sub-Mediterranean and Mediterranean associations comprised in the recently described alliance Lauro nobilis-Robinion pseudoaciae, in the Chelidonio-Robinietalia order and the Robinietea class: Asparago acutifolii-Ailanthetum altissimae: forest community with stratified structure and high canopy density on the warmer slopes of the hills in dry soil conditions and low anthropic disturbance and Aro italici-Ailanthetum altissimae: paucispecific forest communities with a monolayered structure typically found in agricultural, and peri-urban areas on pelitic, alluvial silty-sandy substrates, in conditions of edaphic humidity and high anthropogenic disturbance. The comparison with literature data highlights the autonomy of these associations of the sub-Mediterranean and Mediterranean alliance Lauro nobilis-Robinion pseudoacaciae alliance from the Balloto nigrae-Ailanthetum altissimae association of the Central and SE-European Balloto nigrae-Robinion pseudoacaciae alliance.

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Exposure Profile to Traffic Related Pollution in Pediatric Age: A Biomonitoring Study

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ◽

10.3390/ijerph181910118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (19) ◽

pp. 10118

Author(s):

Arianna Antonucci ◽

Carmela Protano ◽

Maria Luisa Astolfi ◽

Vincenzo Mattei ◽

Francesca Santilli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Central Italy ◽

Motor Vehicles ◽

Methyl Tert Butyl Ether ◽

Healthy Children ◽

Pediatric Age ◽

Butyl Ether ◽

Tert Butyl ◽

Rural And Urban Areas ◽

Exposure Profile

The aim of this study was to trace an exposure profile to traffic-derived pollution during pediatric age. For this purpose, two biomonitoring campaigns for the determination of urinary (u-) methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), tert-amyl methyl ether (TAME), and diisopropyl ether (DIPE) were carried out in two different periods of the year (summer 2017 and winter 2018), among a large sample of healthy children (n = 736; 5–11 years old) living in rural and urban areas in central Italy. The quantification of u-MTBE, u-ETBE, u-TAME, and u-DIPE was performed by HS-SPME-GC/MS technique and information on participants was collected by a questionnaire. u-DIPE concentrations resulted always under the LOQ. u-TAME mean levels were similar in both seasons (18.7 ng L−1 in summer vs. 18.9 ng L−1 in winter), while u-MTBE and u-ETBE levels were, respectively, 69.9 and 423.5 ng L−1 (summer) and 53.3 and 66.2 ng L−1 (winter). Main predictors of urinary excretion resulted the time spent in motor vehicles, being male and younger.

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Regional hydrogeology for groundwater resource management policies. The Latium volcanic domain (central Italy)

Acque Sotterranee-Italian Journal of Groundwater ◽

10.7343/as-050-13-0077 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Roberto Mazza ◽

Lucia Mastrorillo

Keyword(s):

Water Supply ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Environmental Remediation ◽

Groundwater Resources ◽

Central Italy ◽

Hydrogeological Model ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

Regional Hydrogeology ◽

Conceptual Hydrogeological Model ◽

Set Up

Growing urban areas in the Latium volcanic domain has resulted in the increase of water demand. The uncontrolled increase in water withdrawals cause an inexorable reduction of springs discharges and progressive drawdown of groundwater levels. This emergency needs an urgent rationalization of groundwater management thorough understanding of qualitative and quantitative features of the aquifers. The main aim of this paper is to emphasize the importance of the method of study and the results obtained by researchers belonging to the Laboratory of Quantitative Hydrogeology (University of Roma Tre) to support the use and protection of groundwater resources. Therefore, we propose a summary of methods applied in previous hydrogeology studies that have contributed to legislation on groundwater resources management in the volcanic aquifers. The study area corresponds to the Latium volcanic domain and covers approximately 6500 km2. About 3000 stratigraphic data and about 2600 water points have been collected in order to set up a conceptual hydrogeological model. The conceptual model has been validated by the resolution of the hydrological budget. Detailed evaluation of the water supply is essential for the correct setting of the hydrological budget, in fact it represents the main output of the budget. These analysis highlight the condition of the resource. Critical areas have been identified for reshaping of water supply in order to increase environmental remediation and economic development.

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An Assessment of the Benefits and Externalities of Urbanisation in Kogi East, Nigeria

Journal of Environment and Ecology ◽

10.5296/jee.v9i1.13301 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 9 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Abalaka, L. D. ◽

Tokula A. E.

Keyword(s):

Urban Areas ◽

Wealth Distribution ◽

Spillover Effects ◽

Questionnaire Data ◽

Social Infrastructure ◽

Employment Opportunities ◽

Power Outage ◽

Average Percentage ◽

Infrastructure Improvement ◽

Income And Wealth Distribution

In this paper, the benefits and externalities (spillover effects) of urbanisation in Kogi East, Nigeria were examined. Data for the study were obtained by administering 1408 questionnaire copies to households in Ankpa, Anyigba and Idah as well as communities within 15km radius of Ankpa, Anyigba and Idah being the urbanizing centres in Kogi East. Questionnaire data was analysed using means, tables and simple percentages. Results obtained showed that population explosion, material structures and diversity of infrastructural facilities/services were the principal benefits of urbanisation in Kogi East (Ankpa, Anyigba and Idah) with average percentage of 60.8%. Others included improvement in employment opportunities and relative prosperity, enhancement of better communication, transport, housing and public/social infrastructure, improvement in income and wealth distribution among several others. The study showed that across the three locations power outage, social problems (drug addiction, crime, prostitution, alcoholism and political thuggery) and overcrowding were the essential and common urbanisation problems. The study further showed that security of life/poverty, poverty, water supply and sanitation and environmental pollution were serious problems in urban areas with higher mean scores than in the hinterland (rural).

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