Search results for "Environmental engineering"
showing 10 items of 2674 documents
Plant invasion risk inside and outside protected areas: Propagule pressure, abiotic and biotic factors definitively matter
2023
Invasive alien species are among the main global drivers of biodiversity loss posing major challenges to nature conservation and to managers of protected areas. The present study applied a methodological framework that combined invasive Species Distribution Models, based on propagule pressure, abiotic and biotic factors for 14 invasive alien plants of Union concern in Italy, with the local interpretable model-agnostic explanation analysis aiming to map, evaluate and analyse the risk of plant invasions across the country, inside and outside the network of protected areas. Using a hierarchical invasive Species Distribution Model, we explored the combined effect of propagule pressure, abiotic …
Assessing, measuring and modelling erosion in calanchi areas: A review
2016
Calanchi are erosion landforms characterised by a heavily dissected terrain with steep, unvegetated slopes and channels with a dendritic pattern, which rapidly incise and extend headwards. Recent literature focusing on badland systems highlights their similarity with other larger fluvial landforms, stating that these behave as a full size laboratory, due to their rapid development in space and time and to the diversity of geomorphic processes involved. In this paper, a brief review of the most important results on badland research is firstly presented. Then, the morphometric similarity between calanchi and other erosion landforms is discussed. Finally, models quantitatively relating the vol…
A statistical model for predicting the inter-annual variability of birch pollen abundance in Northern and North-Eastern Europe
2018
The paper suggests a methodology for predicting next-year seasonal pollen index (SPI, a sum of daily-mean pollen concentrations) over large regions and demonstrates its performance for birch in Northern and North-Eastern Europe. A statistical model is constructed using meteorological, geophysical and biological characteristics of the previous year). A cluster analysis of multi-annual data of European Aeroallergen Network (EAN) revealed several large regions in Europe, where the observed SPI exhibits similar patterns of the multi-annual variability. We built the model for the northern cluster of stations, which covers Finland, Sweden, Baltic States, part of Belarus, and, probably, Russia and…
Predicting soil loss in central and south Italy with a single USLE-MM model
2018
Purpose: The USLE-MM estimates event normalized plot soil loss, Ae,N, by an erosivity term given by the runoff coefficient, QR, times the single-storm erosion index, EI30, raised to an exponent b1> 1. This modeling scheme is based on an expected power relationship, with an exponent greater than one, between event sediment concentration, Ce, and the EI30/Pe(Pe= rainfall depth) term. In this investigation, carried out at the three experimental sites of Bagnara, Masse, and Sparacia, in Italy; the soundness of the USLE-MM scheme was tested. Materials and methods: A total of 1192 (Ae,N, QREI30) data pairs were used to parameterize the model both locally and considering all sites simultaneously. …
Life Cycle Assessment for Supporting Eco-Design: The Case Study of Sodium–Nickel Chloride Cells
2021
The European Union is moving towards a sustainable, decarbonized, and circular economy. It has identified seven key value chains in which to intervene, with the battery and vehicle value chain being one of them. Thus, actions and strategies for the sustainability of batteries need to be developed. Since Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a strategic tool for evaluating environmental sustainability, this paper investigates its application to two configurations of a sodium–nickel chloride cell (planar and tubular), focusing on the active material and the anode, with the purpose of identifying the configuration characterized by the lowest environmental impacts. The results, based on a “from cradle…
Stationary battery systems in the main world markets: Part 2: Main trends and prospects
2017
Stationary battery systems are gaining a lot of interest in recent years, mainly because of their ability to balance generation and demand of electricity over time. The intermittent nature of renewable generation connected to the power grid is causing major stability and reliability issues in the power system, that can be solved also using stationary storage systems, able to provide the ancillary services necessary to the proper operation of the power network. Despite the considerable advantages offered by these technologies, the electrochemical storage industry is still in the nascent state and it is important to identify the main trends and prospects in relation to future technical develo…
A test of water pouring height and run intermittence effects on single-ring infiltration rates
2018
Assessing how the infiltration process depends on the water impact energy improves interpretation of hydrological processes. Impact energies vary with the height of water pouring; that is, the distance between the water delivery point and the soil surface. The effects of the height of water pouring on infiltration in an initially near saturated soil can be tested in the field by two repeated Beerkan infiltration runs separated by a short pause (30 min) and using both low (non-perturbing) and high (perturbing) heights of water application. The double two-stage Beerkan run methodology was applied in two soils. The infiltration rate at the end of the perturbing stage of the experiment was 0.2–…
Determining short-term changes in the hydraulic properties of a sandy-loam soil by a three-run infiltration experiment
2020
Soil structure-dependent parameters can vary rapidly as a consequence of perturbing events such as intense rainfall. Investigating their short-term changes is therefore essential to understand the general behaviour of a porous medium. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the effects of wetting, perturbation and recovery processes through different sequences of Beerkan infiltration experiments performed on a sandy-loam soil. Two different three-run infiltration experiments (LHL and LLL) were carried out by pouring water at low (L, non-perturbing) and high (H, perturbing) heights above the soil surface and at short time intervals (hours, days). The results demonstrate that the propos…
Water transmission properties of a sandy-loam soil estimated with Beerkan runs differing by the infiltration time criterion
2021
Abstract The Beerkan method consists of a ponded infiltration experiment from a single ring inserted a small depth into the soil. Fixed, small volumes of water are repeatedly poured into the ring to maintain a quasi-zero head on the soil surface. According to the standard Beerkan infiltration run, a new water volume is poured on the infiltration surface when the previously applied volume has completely infiltrated and the soil surface is entirely exposed to air (ta criterion). However, water could also be applied when the soil exposition to air begins (to criterion) or half the soil surface is exposed to air (tm criterion). The effect of the infiltration time criterion on determination of t…
Deep learning and process understanding for data-driven Earth system science
2017
Machine learning approaches are increasingly used to extract patterns and insights from the ever-increasing stream of geospatial data, but current approaches may not be optimal when system behaviour is dominated by spatial or temporal context. Here, rather than amending classical machine learning, we argue that these contextual cues should be used as part of deep learning (an approach that is able to extract spatio-temporal features automatically) to gain further process understanding of Earth system science problems, improving the predictive ability of seasonal forecasting and modelling of long-range spatial connections across multiple timescales, for example. The next step will be a hybri…