Search results for "Environmental Sciences"
showing 10 items of 11199 documents
Re-Inhabiting Inner Areas Triggering New Regeneration Trajectories: The Case Study of Sicani in Sicily
2022
The Italian debate on the so-called ‘inner areas’ has received a much-needed boost, following the COVID-19 pandemic, which has further highlighted the differences between metropolitan and inner areas. While the progressive depopulation of inner areas is a worrying phenomenon, the limits of incessant urbanisation and the concentration of settlement and infrastructure policies in large conurbations have become evident. Departing from the framework of the B4R-Branding4Resilience research project of national interest and, by continuing in the furrow initiated by the SNAI, but also surpassing it, the aim of the University of Palermo’s research is to define the requirement for a…
Preliminary Evaluation of Plasmix Compound from Plastics Packaging Waste for Reuse in Bituminous Pavements
2021
Finding an appropriate technical solution for reusing waste plastics is crucial for creating a circular plastic economy. Although mechanical recycling is the best option for recycling post-consumer plastics, some heterogeneous mixed plastics cannot be recycled to produce secondary material due to their very low properties. In this case, alternative routes should be considered in order to limit their disposal as much as possible. Therefore, in order to solve the environmental problems in the landfills of plastic waste recycling, and to improve the mechanical performance of bitumen for road pavement, the reuse of these post-consumer plastic wastes are preliminarily evaluated for the modificat…
Nutrition et protection de la vigne par la symbiose mycorhizienne à arbuscule
2021
National audience; La vigne, comme la majorité des espèces de plante d’intérêt agronomique, forme une symbiosemutualiste avec les Champignons Mycorhiziens à Arbuscules (CMA). En contrepartie deproduits issus de la photosynthèse, les CMA soutiennent leur(s) plante(s) hôte(s) dansl’acquisition de nutriments et la lutte contre leur(s) pathogène(s). En tant que biofertilisants, cessymbiontes obligatoires représentent une alternative de choix à l’égard des pratiques agricolesconventionnelles pour le développement d’une agriculture, et notamment d’une viticulturedurable. Les échanges entre les deux partenaires sont permis par la mise en place de structuresfongiques spécialisées appelées arbuscule…
Solving Conflicts among Conservation, Economic, and Social Objectives in Boreal Production Forest Landscapes: Fennoscandian Perspectives
2018
This chapter discusses challenges and possibilities involved in preserving biological diversity and the diversity of ecosystem services in the boreal zone and yet at the same time maintaining intensive timber extraction in boreal forests. Our focus is on Fennoscandian forests at the landscapes level, and we consider economic, social and ecological in the sustainability of forest management. We provide an outlook to boreal forest ecosystems and their history, and an overview of the forestry practices and policies that aim to ensure multi-functionality of Fennoscandian forests, i.e. diversity of efforts on sustaining biodiversity, timber production and other ecosystem services from forest lan…
Caractérisation et diagenèse thermique des roches mères pétrolières de la série des Schistes d'âge néocomien moyen-barrémien dans le bassin intérieur…
2006
8 pages; International audience
Simultaneous optimization of harvest schedule and measurement strategy
2013
In many recent studies, the value of forest inventory information in the harvest scheduling has been examined. Usually only the profitability of measuring simultaneously all the stands in the area is examined. Yet, it may be more profitable to concentrate the measurement efforts to some subset of them. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that stochastic optimization can be used for defining the optimal measurement strategy simultaneously with the harvest decisions. The results show that without end-inventory constraints, it was most profitable to measure the stands that were just below the medium age. Measuring the oldest stands was not profitable at all. It turned out to be profitable t…
Tube transport of water vapor with condensation and desorption
2013
Attenuation and delay of active tracers in tube transport is an important current problem, but its full explanation is still lacking. To this end a model is introduced, where part of a tracer undergoes condensation and evaporation, treated as a diffusion-type process, in addition to Taylor dispersion. Condensation of water was verified by high-speed imaging, and the model solution fitted the breakthrough curves of laboratory measurements with pulses of water vapor of varying relative humidity. The model provides a transfer function whose performance was verified against field measurements. peerReviewed
Comparing Conservation Value Maps and Mapping Methods in a Rural Landscape in Southern Finland
2015
We tested to what extent conservation value maps are different if the valuation and mapping method is changed. We compared 66 different conservation value and 4 different ecosystem service maps. Using remote sensing and other georeferenced data, we produced 2 different habitat type maps, which were 50 % similar. We valued each mapped habitat type based on rarity corrected potential number of vascular plant species and naturalness using 6 different valuation alternatives. We mapped habitat type connectivity and complementarity using 2 main approaches. The habitat type valuation alternatives were quite similar, but if the habitat type naturalness was taken into account, differences were large…
Hydro-mechanical modelling of MX-80 bentonite: one dimensional study
2016
As a first step towards modelling the coupled Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) behaviour of bentonite, the Barcelona Basic Model (BBM) has been implemented into Numerrin finite element code. This model has been fully coupled with the single phase flow equation for unsaturated soils which models liquid water transport. Suction obtained from solving the flow equation is used as an input for the BBM model and the volumetric deformations from the mechanical analysis are used to update the pore water pressure field. As an alternative, BBM is used alongside the Kröhn’s model which assumes that bentonite re-saturation is mainly driven by water vapour diffusion. The paper simulates one dimen…
Iron and pH regulating the photochemical mineralization of dissolved organic carbon
2017
Solar radiation mineralizes dissolved organic matter (DOM) to dissolved inorganic carbon through photochemical reactions (DIC photoproduction) that are influenced by iron (Fe) and pH. This study addressed as to what extent Fe contributes to the optical properties of the chromophoric DOM (CDOM) and DIC photoproduction at different pH values. We created the associations of Fe and DOM (Fe-DOM) that cover the range of loadings of Fe on DOM and pH values found in freshwaters. The introduced Fe enhanced the light absorption by CDOM independent of pH. Simulated solar irradiation decreased the light absorption by CDOM (i.e., caused photobleaching). Fe raised the rate of photobleaching and steepened…