Geomorphological mapping as a tool to characterize and manage quarry dump deposits: the case study of Carrara marble basins

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Alderighi ◽  
Carlo Baroni ◽  
Maria Cristina Salvatore
Keyword(s):  
Debris Flows ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Running Water ◽  
Carrara Marble ◽  
Geomorphological Mapping ◽  
Risk Assessment Models ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Apuan Alps

<p>The peculiar landscape of Carrara (Apuan Alps) is well renown all over the world for the many naturalistic and anthropic landforms which are strictly related to quarrying activity. The valuable white Apuan marble was exploited since the first millennium BC predating the Roman period and was chosen by many artists, as Michelangelo, for their masterpieces. The pluri-millennial quarrying activity left a high density of quarries (among the highest in the world), determining a unique landscape dominated by anthropic landforms including the huge quarry dump deposits, locally called “<em>ravaneti</em>”.</p><p>Waste materials from marble quarrying of Carrara basin retain typical textural characteristics closely linked to the different techniques adopted over time for marble extraction. Therefore, quarry dumps represent a key access for reconstructing the evolution of the Apuan marble exploitation. For this reason, ancient ravaneti assume an inestimable value within the historical and cultural heritage of Italy.</p><p>In this highly dynamic context, the shape of quarry dump deposits is frequently modified because of their continuous addition and re-exploitation, also due to the necessity of preventing slope processes inducing instability (i.e. debris flows). In fact, during the last decades widespread debris flows frequently affected the area representing serious hazardous events for quarrying activity, infrastructures as well as urban centres.</p><p>Here we present the “Geomorphological Map of<em> Ravaneti</em> of Carrara Marble Basins”, developed applying a detailed landscape analysis, updated to 2017, using remote sensing data and field surveys in key sites. All the data were managed in GIS environment and collected into a properly created geomorphological database of the Apuan Alps. The map shows the spatial distribution of quarry dumps according to their geomorphological and sedimentological characteristics.</p><p>We identified and quantified the number and the extent of areas affected by natural processes, as debris flows, landslides and running water erosional landforms. Quarry dump deposits were distinguished on the basis of the size of the debris, the weathering of the clasts surface and different vegetal cover degree. The presence and abundance of fine matrix in quarry dump deposits play a relevant role in favouring their stability and in regulating their reservoir effect during intense precipitation events. The geomorphological characterization represents a relevant tool for the monitoring and management of <em>ravaneti</em> suggesting both potentially removable and potentially worthy of geo-conservation quarry dumps on the bases of ì) their historical heritage, ìì) their role in slope instabilities, and ììì) their role in preventing hazardous flooding events, being this sector among the rainiest regions of Europe.</p><p>Considering that <em>ravaneti</em> are highly hazardous being widely affected by debris flows, the updated geomorphological data will be relevant for evaluating most susceptible areas and for developing risk assessment models.</p><p> </p>

Permafrost vulnerability to contemporary climate changes in Eastern Chukotka coastal plains (NE Russia)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey Maslakov ◽  
Nina Komova ◽  
Evgeny Egorov ◽  
Polina Mikhaylyukova ◽  
Mikhail Grishchenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Changes ◽  
Remote Sensing Data ◽  
Permafrost Degradation ◽  
Coastal Plains ◽  
High Concentration ◽  
Human Disturbances ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Contemporary Climate ◽  
Ne Russia

<p>Recent permafrost degradation is detected in many cold regions of the world. This process is due to surface lowering caused by ice-rich sediments thaw and massive ice beds melt. Eastern Chukotka coastal plains polygon is one of the key sites for studying climate change's impact on permafrost conditions and human activity. This region is the habitat of indigenous people, concentrated in the coastal villages. The study site is approximately 400 km<sup>2</sup> in area and characterized by a variety of landscape, geomorphological, and permafrost conditions. Using remote sensing data, field observations, and shallow drilling results, we ranked and delineated the areas on their susceptibility to thermokarst, thermal erosion, and solifluction activation due to the further air temperature increasing and potential human disturbances. Spatial analysis on current thaw settlement rates combined with drilling data allowed us to map the areas with a high concentration of surficial massive ice beds. These studies provide a better understanding of permafrost conditions in Eastern Chukotka and its response to human impact and climate change.</p>

Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Its Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Migration Control ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Way

In an era of mass mobility, those who are permitted to migrate and those who are criminalized, controlled, and prohibited from migrating are heavily patterned by race. By placing race at the centre of its analysis, this volume brings together fourteen essays that examine, question, and explain the growing intersection between criminal justice and migration control. Through the lens of race, we see how criminal justice and migration enmesh in order to exclude, stop, and excise racialized citizens and non-citizens from societies across the world within, beyond, and along borders. Neatly organized in four parts, the book begins with chapters that present a conceptual analysis of race, borders, and social control, moving to the institutions that make up and shape the criminal justice and migration complex. The remaining chapters are convened around the key sites where criminal justice and migration control intersect: policing, courts, and punishment. Together the volume presents a critical and timely analysis of how race shapes and complicates mobility and how racism is enabled and reanimated when criminal justice and migration control coalesce. Race and the meaning of race in relation to citizenship and belonging are excavated throughout the chapters presented in the book, thereby transforming the way we think about migration.

Trust, but verify.. Power relations and control practices in a smart working environment

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-50
Author(s):  
Silvia Doria
Keyword(s):  
Power Relations ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Top Down ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Smart Working ◽  
Banking Institution ◽  
And Control

The world of working is changing and the technological transformations are playing a relevant role in this change. In particular, new technologies are making the physical boundaries of traditional offices increasingly permeable, allowing the diffusion of New Ways of Working (Demerouti et al., 2014; Koops and Helms, 2014), such as smart working. This paper, based on a qualitative research and discursive interviews, intends to reflect on the introduction and top-down management of smart working within a banking institution. At the same time, it aims to grasp the role attributed to and played by technology in its implementation. Starting from the two reconstructed stories, I shall show if and how the innovations introduced whereby technologies enable us to work remotely, are changing existing power relations and what control dynamics emerge from the field.

scholarly journals Polvere di stelle The Italian platform for data-sharing and data-preserving of modern and ancient astronomical resources

2018 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 07002
Author(s):  
Mauro Gargano ◽  
Antonella Gasperini ◽  
Luisa Schiavone ◽  
Francesca Brunetti
Keyword(s):  
Data Sharing ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Web Portal ◽  
Digital Resources ◽  
Bibliographic Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Astronomical Research ◽  
The Web

Polvere di stelle (Stardust) is the web portal of the National Institute for Astrophysics(INAF) dedicated to the Italian astronomical libraries, archives and museums. It offers different tools and databases created to support astronomical research and increase the value of one of the richest astronomical heritages in the world. In a single virtual space one can find useful tools for sharing digital resources and other services for current research. Besides the OPAC, consisting of bibliographic data of ancientand modern books and serials, the portal offers to astronomers, scholars, students, amateur astronomers and historians of science the possibility to search at the same time other databases: manuscripts, instruments, archival documents and biographies of astronomers. Furthermore, a digital showcase of rare books plays a relevant role in the portal. This paper illustrates the ongoing developments and perspectives of Polvere di stelle.

Questioning Nature and Environmental Ethics in Schools

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Moreira ◽  
Fátima Alves ◽  
Ana Mendonça
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
The World ◽  
Relevant Role ◽  
Educational Paradigm ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Diversity Of Life

Contemporary sciences and societies are facing several problems when analyzing the relationship between the natural and social dimensions of the world as reflected in the field of education. A serious effort must be urgently made to identify and tackle environmental problems in order to understand the world in which we live, in ways that are beneficial to present and future life on Earth. In this context, it is fundamental to create a new social order in a way that thinking “out of the box” can emerge with other orders closer to the diversity of life that coexist on the planet. Consequently, the awareness of the complexity and multidimensionality of our world requires the building of new forms of reflexivity and the development of critical thinking, reversing the still predominant characteristics of modern societies such as compartmentalization of knowledge, unhealthy competition, profit-seeking motivations, the exploitation of nature, and excessive individualist and anthropocentric approaches. In this regard, educational institutions play a relevant role in shaping future human actions to be more ethically harmonic (both environmentally and socially) as they are sites of knowledge production and sharing. Hence, it is crucial to rethink the entire educational paradigm and learning system (objectives, curricula, pedagogical strategies, instruments, competencies, school management framework, and even school buildings), because schools often function as “islands,” isolating students from nature, the community, and the “real world,” not preparing them to be well-informed and conscious citizens nor for the challenges that lie ahead. Some theoretical and practical alternatives are needed since schools actually embody the paradoxes and dilemmas of the current societal malaise but have not yet been able to deal with them or to provide adequate effective responses.

An Analysis of the State’s Obligation to Provide Access to Sufficient Water: A South African Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Desan Iyer ◽  
Dev Datt Tewari
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Running Water ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
The World ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
South African Constitution

Abstract Many people in Africa, and around the world, do not have access to pipe or running water despite efforts being made to actualise socio-economic rights. South Africa is no different. The advent of the South African Constitution, as well as a strong commitment to advancing social and economic rights and values, has seen post-apartheid reforms in South Africa as well as an evolving water framework being confronted with new binary challenges. The era of social change has consequently underscored the need for an urgent redress of incongruences that still exist in respect of access to sufficient water. Despite South Africa adopting progressive policy frameworks for water in recent times, stark inequalities between communities in respect of access to sufficient water remain a contentious issue. The article will seek to analyse the developmental mandate of local government’s responsibilities in respect of safeguarding and giving effect to a key socio-economic right in South Africa.

Sediment Induced Disasters in the World and 1999-Debris Flow Disasters in Venezuela

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahisa Mizuyama ◽  
◽  
Shinji Egashira ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Debris Flows ◽  
Pyroclastic Flows ◽  
Hazard Maps ◽  
Strong Earthquakes ◽  
Control Structures ◽  
The World ◽  
Hazard Education ◽  
And Control ◽  
Landslides And Debris Flows ◽  
Sediment Disaster

Many sediment related disasters have occurred in many areas of the world. The table of sediment related disasters from 1997 to 2006 is shown. It shows strong earthquakes and super hurricanes/typhoons cause large landslides and debris flows. Climate change may trigger larger disasters more frequently in the future. Stratovolcanoes are geologically weak and cause huge landslides and debris avalanches. Active volcanoes release lava flows and pyroclastic flows, which cause serious damages. As an example of a typical sediment disaster, a disaster which occurred in Venezuela, in 1999 is briefly reported. The disaster was caused by unusual heavy rainfall. Many people were killed by many debris flows and shallow landslides. The disaster shows information on hazards such as hazard maps and rainfall is necessary and control structures may reduce damages if they had existed. Proper land-use and hazard education are needed.

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