The use of energy in the Mediterranean fishing catching sector. A Sicilian perspective

This article address an issue of paramount importance in the Mediterranean area, that is the efficient use of energy and sustainability of fishing sector. A recent study concerning the situation of Fishery and Aquaculture in Sicily highlighted that the Sicilian fishing system requires a bigger amount of energy than the typical Italian or European situation, in order of getting the product available to the market. On the other hand this involves an higher level of environmental pollution, for a given quantity of catch. One of the main findings is that there is a need for a clear, scientifically-founded panorama of the situation and that further studies should be undertaken to provide fishing…

Valutazione degli impatti esercitati dalla filiera della pesca

Lo studio si colloca sulla scorta dei risultati elaborati nell’ambito del Rapporto Annuale del 2009, nel quale è stata presentata una rassegna generale dello stato del settore della pesca in Sicilia, con particolare riguardo ai consumi energetici, all’impatto ambientale ed all’innovazione tecnologica nella filiera della pesca e dell’acquacoltura in Sicilia. In questo studio si analizzeranno più in dettaglio alcune situazioni di aziende della filiera ritenute emblematiche delle condizioni del settore in Sicilia, allo scopo di delinearne le esigenze ed i limiti, anche in vista della proposta di introdurre innovazioni tecnologiche mirate e puntuali. Ancora una volta, il tema dell’efficienza en…

Comparison Between Conventional and Vegetated Roof by Means of a Dynamic Simulation

In this paper, a dynamic simulation of a building located in the Campus University of Palermo, Italy, has been carried out. We considered two different scenarios; in the first one, the building as it is, with a conventional covering, while in the second one the roof was equipped with a green roof. The results of the two simulations have been compared, suggesting that such building component could contribute to the energy savings of the building. However, it has to be considered as part of other possible actions devoted to improve the energy efficiency of the whole building. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://…

Old or new occupants of energy rehabilitated buildings. Two different approaches for hierarchizing group of buildings

Abstract Public Administrations are frequently entitled to intervene in building stocks with energy rehabilitation actions. Unfortunately, the monetary budget at their disposal is generally limited and, consequently, a prioritization criterion is needed to optimize its allocation. The classification of the building energy performance is increasingly used by Public Administrations for this purpose. Here we argue that a proper prioritization criterion should depend upon the potential subjects to which the rehabilitated buildings are given back. If the energy rehabilitation is conducted on buildings that will be assigned to new dwellers, it would be preferable to use the energy class – which i…

An integrated environmental indicator for urban transportation systems: description and application

A simplified version of the ecological footprint method is proposed for assessing the environmental performances of urban transportation systems. The method, starting from the knowledge of the composition of the running vehicular fleet, is here applied to a southern Italian province. It represents a synthetic indicator of the environmental pressure exerted by the system also matching the pollutant emissions with the carrying capacity of the site. Particularly, the forested area needed to absorb the CO2 emissions of the system is compared with the total forested area of the province. The results of the case-study indicates the yearly maximum distance that each vehicle of the fleet can cover …

Gli strumenti finanziari nazionali di supporto alla riduzione dei consumi energetici negli edifici delle pubbliche amministrazioni

Public Administrations are currently constrained, in their aims of carrying out actions and projects for the limitation of the energy consumption of buildings, by the scarcity of adequate budgets and by the need of observing the Growth and Stability Pact. On the contrary, the availability of (and the access to) suitable financial sources would represent significant opportunities for an economic development characterized by energy and environmental sustainability. This paper, after a short review of the domestic financial tools actually available for the reduction of their energy consumption of municipalities, analyses the technical and economic barriers that limit their effective utilizatio…

Impatto potenziale dei programmi sviluppabili dal Distretto in termini di innovazione, sviluppo e risparmio energetico sulle imprese della filiera

Se da un lato l’energia ed il suo costo rappresentano da tempo una delle più serie limitazioni alla sostenibilità del settore della pesca, dall’altro lato affrontare questo tema in un’ottica di innovazione può costituire un interessante fattore di sviluppo e di innovazione del settore stesso. Non è del resto un caso che ai temi della sostenibilità siano ispirate le linee guida del nuovo programma europeo Horizon 2020, Work Programme 2014-2010; come è noto, tra le sette sfide principali del programma europeo, una è espressamente riservata alla ricerca marina e marittima (“Food Security, Sustainable Agriculture, Marine and maritime research and the bio-economy”). Nell’ambito dei programmi svi…

Vegetation growth parameters and leaf temperature: Experimental results from a six plots green roofs' system

Abstract The paper provides a contribution for populating database of three physical parameters needed to model energy performance of buildings with green roofs: “coverage ratio” ( σ f ), leaf area index (LAI) and leaf temperature ( T f ). On purpose, six plant species were investigated experimentally: Phyla nordiflora, Aptenia lancifolia , Mesembryanthenum barbatus , Gazania nivea, Gazania uniflora , and Sedum . Proper ranges of the cited parameters have been found for each species. The here indicated ranges of σ f values refer to different growth levels of the species in the same lapse of time, that is four months. Single measured LAI values are also reported for the same plants. As for t…

Toward a holistic environmental impact assessment of marble quarrying and processing: proposal of a novel easy-to-use IPAT-based method.

Marble is a natural dimension stone that is widely used in building due to its resistance and esthetic qualities. Unfortunately, some concerns have arisen regarding its production process because quarrying and processing activities demand significant amounts of energy and greatly affect the environment. Further, performing an environmental analysis of a production process such as that of marble requires the consideration of many environmental aspects (e.g., noise, vibrations, dust and waste production, energy consumption). Unfortunately, the current impact accounting tools do not seem to be capable of considering all of the major aspects of the (marble) production process that may affect th…

Visually low-impacting methods for the measurement of parameters related to IAQ risk indicators in exhibition halls

Microclimate for cultural heritage plays a fundamental role in the degradation process of artefacts exhibited in museums. Generally, the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring inside museums is based on conventional measurements of thermo-hygrometry parameters and longtime averaged measurements of atmospheric pollutants’ concentration. Unfortunately, all these approaches require electric supply and are usually characterized by a noticeable visual impact on the exhibition space, which clearly negatively affects the visitors’ experience. This paper intends to revisit and discuss a methodology (and its test application on field, to estimate the risk of damage of three artefacts displayed in an ol…

Visually low-impacting methods for the measurement of parameters related to IAQ risk indicators in exhibition halls

Microclimate for cultural heritage plays a fundamental role in the degradation process of artefacts exhibited in museums. Generally, the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) monitoring inside museums is based on conventional measurements of thermo-hygrometry parameters and longtime averaged measurements of atmospheric pollutants’ concentration. Unfortunately, all these approaches require electric supply and are usually characterized by a noticeable visual impact on the exhibition space, which clearly negatively affects the visitors’ experience. This paper intends to revisit and discuss a methodology (and its test application on field, to estimate the risk of damage of three artefacts displayed in an ol…

Materiali naturali in edilizia: analisi sperimentali e primi risultati.

Note sull'applicazione del marchio Ecolabel agli edifici

La qualità ambientale nella gestione dei siti di ricerca: considerazioni sulla registrazione EMAS di un dipartimento universitario

Composite Building Materials: Thermal and Mechanical Performances of Samples Realized with Hay and Natural Resins

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552 Recent years have seen an increasing public interest in issues related to energy saving and environmental pollution reduction in the building sector. As a result, many directives have been issued, the most important being the Directive 2010/31/EU (EPBD Recast) on the energy performance of buildings, which requires that "Member States shall ensure that by 31 December 2020 all new buildings are nearly zero-energy buildings". This goal can be obtained not only by reducing energy demand for heating and cooling, but also, for example, by improving building envelope performances. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal and structural behavi…

A simplified method for the environmental impact of urban transportation

The role of the transportation phase for a green management of municipal solid waste

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) constitutes a high challenging issue to cope with to move towards sustainability of the urban policies. Despite new standards call for recycling and reusing materials contained in the city waste, several municipalities still use extensive landfills. Other than the environmental pressure exerted by these plants, the waste transportation from the recovery points of towns to landfills needs consideration to correctly assess the whole burden of the waste management. In this paper, the Ecological Footprint indicator is applied to the MSWM of the town of Palermo (Sicily). Results show that the effects produced by the involved transportation vehicles, both i…

Le contraddizioni del solare fotovoltaico. Il caso emblematico della Sicilia

Thermo-hygrometry and IAQ Related Measurements of the Indoor Physical Conditions of Exhibition Halls for Complying International Rules and Standards

Off-line methods for detecting the indoor physical parameters of museums are important tools in order of continuously monitoring the conditions at which works of art are exposed. These conditions, in fact, are mandatory established by several rules and technical standards aimed at preserving the specific artifacts. Moreover, indoor microclimate parameters must also take into account the comfort conditions for visiting people. Both the above-cited requirements suggest to perform the indoor monitoring with equipment visually low impacting. In this paper, some examples of visually low impacting off-line monitoring methods, applied to three artifacts displayed in the “Museo Regionale” of Palerm…

Generation of a Test Reference Year (TRY): an application to the town of Palermo

The improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings calls for the availability of tools for evaluating and simulating the thermal behaviour of buildings, needing as input climatic databases. These databases contain a very large amount of data, resulting in long computational time analysis. Therefore, simple aggregation methods are used, among which the test reference year (TRY). In this paper, a comparison between two statistical methodologies for compiling a TRY, the Belgian and the Sandia methods, is presented. Then, the two methods have been utilized for compiling the TRY for the town of Palermo, Italy, and compared both statistically and by means of two simple applications, obtaining …

On the architectural and energy classification of existing buildings: a case study of a district in the city of Palermo

Town Administrations are increasingly facing the challenge to identify smart planning actions to reduce the cities' energy demand by improving the efficiency of the urban energy systems. Buildings play an important role in this regarding both the demand and supply energy. In this scenario, the neighborhood or district scale seems to be the most appropriate to implement a multi-disciplinary approach on which smart planning relies. This paper shows the application, to a district of the city of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), of a methodology for architectural-energy classification of existing buildings. Such methodology provides, regarding the building sector, an easy tool that can support smart pla…

Marchi di eccellenza ambientale: la trasferibilità agli edifici del marchio Eco-label per le strutture turistiche.

Condizioni termoigrometriche per la conservazione di beni artistici in ambienti indoor: il museo archeologico Baglio Anselmi di Marsala

I beni artistici, anche se collocati in ambienti chiusi, sono ugualmente esposti ad un processo di degrado che non è possibile evitare ma sul quale si può intervenire per rallentarne il decorso. I materiali che costituiscono un bene variano nel tempo a causa di trasformazioni fisiche, chimiche, biologiche e meccaniche: entro certi limiti di modificazione del bene si parla di invecchiamento, ma se tali limiti vengono superati e viene compromessa la possibilità di fruizione del bene stesso si parla di vero e proprio degrado. Le condizioni ambientali all’interno dei musei dovrebbero, pertanto, essere tali da preservare le opere d’arte dal degrado e da ridurre la frequenza degli interventi di r…

Off-line methods for determining air quality in museums

This paper will examine three methodologies deployed in off-line research relating to air quality in museums. These methodologies made use of sensors based on the different chemical-physicalproperties of various materials (corrosiveness, hardness and absorption). Various field applications were applied to case studies, which were performed in two museums in Palermo, Italy: the Regional Gallery of Palazzo Abatellis and the Diocesan Museum. This review of methodologies and sensors examines which protocol should be put into practice in museums in monitoring the air quality of display spaces and the conservation of cultural artefacts.

Greening MSW management systems by saving footprint: The contribution of the waste transportation.

Abstract Municipal solid waste (MSW) management constitutes a highly challenging issue to cope with in order of moving towards more sustainable urban policies. Despite new Standards call for recycling and reusing materials contained in the urban waste, several municipalities still use landfilling as a waste disposal method. Other than the environmental pressure exerted by these plants, waste transportation from the collection points to the landfill needs a specific attention to correctly assess the whole burden of the waste management systems. In this paper, the Ecological Footprint (EF) indicator is applied to the actual MSW of the city of Palermo (Sicily). Results show that the effects pr…

Comparison of methodologies for Test Reference Year (TRY) generation for Mediterranean sites

The improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings calls for the availability of tools for evaluating and simulating the thermal behaviour of buildings. These simulation tools generally need a complete input data set and, in particular, information referring to the climatic conditions of the site where buildings are built-up. Among climatic issues, particularly important for the thermal energy balance is the solar radiation. However, this huge mass of data is not very useful in this form, so simple aggregation methods have been developed in order to run these simulation computer programs: the test reference year (TRY) is one of the most used methods. In this paper the comparison of two m…

ANALISI DELLE RISORSE FINANZIARIE NAZIONALI PER LA RIDUZIONE DEI CONSUMI ENERGETICI NELLE PUBBLICHE AMMINISTRAZIONI

The compliance with the Italian Internal Stability Pact represents a relevant constraint for Public Administrations in their aims of improving the efficiency with which they use energy, despite several interesting financial tools have been released for helping these institutions in the imple mentation of effective actions. The available domestic financial tools are here shortly revised, particularly about their compatibility with the Stability Pact. The role of the socalled rotative founds is moreover described as a tool for supporting Public Administrations in improving their energy efficiency, even in the observance of the limits established by the Stability Pact.