Search results for "Climate"
showing 10 items of 4934 documents
Climate Change in the Mediterranean Basin (Part I): Induced Alterations on Climate Forcings and Hydrological Processes
2022
In the last years, the Mediterranean basin has been widely recognized as one of the most vulnerable areas in the world to climate change; because of its high concentration of urban and industrial settlements, it is one of the most impacted areas of the world in terms of water scarcity. The present paper aims at reviewing the main observed and predicted effects of climate change on hydrological processes directly related to water availability in the Mediterranean Basin, mainly focusing on the last ten years of research. While an in-depth discussion about possible future water scarcity problem in the Mediterranean area and the sources of uncertainty affecting future climate projections and im…
Basin-scale water resources assessment in a sicilian basin under climate change scenarios using the conceptual model TOPDM
2011
Climate change resulting due to the greenhouse effect is expected to have great implications for hydrological cycle and for existing surface and groundwater resources systems. The effects of climate variability and climate change have to be fully considered in current water management and planning, since water availability, quality and streamflow are very sensitive to changes in temperature and precipitation regimes. International literature proposes several models, attempting to assess accurately the available water resources under stationary and changing climatic conditions at different spatial and temporal scales. In order to assess the potential impacts of climate change on surface and …
Heat waves and climate change: an application to Sicily (Italy)
2023
Nowadays, the effects of global warming are becoming increasingly evident and dangerous at every latitude of the planet. In such a context, the Mediterranean basin turns out to be a "hotspot". Reductions in precipitation, especially in the summer season, and increases in the intensity and frequency of extreme events, such as droughts and heat waves, have been observed in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea in recent decades. In particular, heat waves may have numerous negative impacts on human health, environment, agriculture, and the energy sectors. Indeed, consecutive days with extremely high temperatures, combined with high humidity, poses a high health risk to the population. Moreov…
Effects of climate and land use changes on runoff extremes
2017
The analysis of the hydrological changes and their interacting triggering factors are objectives defined within the Panta Rhei decade 2013-2022. Climate change and urbanization are among the most recurrent causes for hydrological changes at the global level. This work proposes a modeling framework for the analysis of the alterations in the watershed hydrological response and, more specifically, in runoff extremes, induced by such perturbations. A weather generator and a cellular automata land-use change model are used to generate hypothetical scenarios accounting for relevant trends at the global level. Such scenarios are successively considered to force a physically-based and spatial-distr…
Strategic Master Plans
2013
The MEDIWAT Project (Sustainable management of environmental issues related to water stress in Mediterranean Islands) aims to provide innovative and sustainable technical, operational and managerial solutions for tackling problems caused by water resources-quality worsening and shortage in the Mediterranean insular context. The project brings together partners from six Mediterranean islands: Sicily, Cyprus, Corsica were considered large islands because of their area and hydrological behavior. Conversely Crete, Malta and Balearic Islands were considered small islands. A detailed analysis of current and future conditions relating to freshwater availability, quality and use has been carried ou…
The use of vegetation for social housing renovations: A case study in the City of Palermo
2013
The paper shows the first results of a research carried out at the University of Palermo, which aims to indentify sustainable strategies for the renovation of social housing in the Mediterranean Basin, with focus on the use of vegetation as strategy for the enhancement of urban microclimate and thermal comfort. To achieve these goals the social housing complex of Medaglie d’Oro in the city of Palermo was chosen as case study in order to carry out some analyses for the assessment of outdoor comfort parameters of the area. By means of numerical simulations performed with the software ENVI-met, the actual state of the area was evaluated and four scenarios of renovation strategies through the i…
Soluzioni basate sulla natura per le città portuali. L’approccio “Building with nature” e i limiti di trasferibilità nel contesto italiano
2022
Achieving sustainable development goals in port cities is an increasingly challenging task as the trend is toward their expansion for global competition, thus increasing their impacts on soil, atmosphere, water, and marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The present contribution proposes to explore the Building with Nature approach developed by EcoShape and Deltares in the Dutch context through the comparison of case studies and to highlight some critical issues in its transferability to the Italian context.
Energy Use in the Building Sector and Climate Change: Modeling, Developments, and Future Trends
2020
Climate change is going to have significant impacts among a wide range of areas and domains, including the building sector, characterized by constructions which may not be designed to be resilient to the evolutions in the warming climate that will occur in the next decades. The chapter investigates methodologies and approaches connected to the assessment of the effects of climate change to the energy use within the building sector. Methodologies are compared and the most relevant future trends expected are traced for the current century.
Effect of Climate Change on Building Performance: the Role of Ventilative Cooling
2017
Climate Change represents a priority, due to the large variety of implications and importance that it has reached throughout the last decades. In an effort to address this global and local challenge and in order to restrict temperature rise to 2 °C over the next century, it will need to address this topic from several angles, as confirmed by the last COP meetings in Paris and in Marrakech. In this context, the paper presents the modelling and assessment of ventilative cooling applicability in the future of the Mediteranean area under the effects of climate change. Results show that natural ventilation will continue to be of paramount importance in the Mediterranean climate but its highest e…
An integrated building energy simulation early—Design tool for future heating and cooling demand assessment
2022
Climate change and its effects are becoming clear on a global scale either from the perspective of global warming and the increase in the rate of occurrence of weather events of extreme magnitude. This has impacts also for sure on the standard building performance analysis approach, since the buildings designed today are supposed to withstand for the following decades climate impacts that may be different than those they were designed for. The paper proposes a simple, easy to use and freely available building simulation utility which performs morphing of existing weather data files and, by connecting to the Energy Plus simulation routine, allows to perform future climate building simulation…