Search results for "Pact"

The Impact of Climate, Resource Availability, Natural Disturbances and Human Subsistence Strategies on Sicilian Landscape Dynamics During the Holocene

2022

This paper presents a multidisciplinary summary of the most recent discoveries and hypotheses concerning factors driving the human subsistence economy and landscape shaping in Sicily during the Holocene. A number of scientific papers have recently pointed out the key role played by paleogeography, resource (water, food) availability and natural disturbances (volcanic eruptions, tsunamis) in local human activities. Modern anthropology and archaeology increasingly use biological remains (e.g. soils, bones, wood, plant macroremains, pollen) to better understand how human communities managed to survive and spread. Likewise, refined reconstructions of past human demographic fluxes and socio-econ…

Development, human impact and habitat distribution in submarine canyons of the Central and Western Mediterranean

2015

We present in this paper different studies on canyon systems, adopting distinct approaches, temporal and spatial scales. Most of our study areas coincide with the NW Sicilian canyons, which present striking differences in their morphologies in response to the Plio-Quaternary tectonic evolution of the northern Sicilian margin. In the present-day, active sedimentary processes inferred from bedform analyses along some of the studied canyons could drive to enhanced biological activities along them. This is also confirmed by an on-going study of the impact of trawling fishery on the morphology and sedimentary environments of the Sicilian margin, where intense deep-sea bottom trawling activities …

Evaluating the effects of man-induced topographic changes in landscape structure on soil erosion by water: a case study in Sicily

2012

Infrastructure, Tariff and Legal Action: How to Achieve a Climate-Friendly Transport System

2011

Transportation absorbs about 70% of oil consumption in EU countries. The fuels that burn in the field of transport are composed of 96% of oil. Energy efficiency of road and air traffic must also be improved. But transport environmental impacts reductions should be made necessarily through a transfer of traffic from the car, lorries and aircraft to train, ship, and non motorized two-wheelers into the EU cities. In fact the former are large producers of greenhouse gases, while the latter are more environmentally friendly means of transport in climate. Reaching an annual increase of 1% of the modal split in favour of more sustainable means of transport on the environment must be set as a goal …

Helicopter operations: the environmental impact and ground facilities. Procedures and operational standards for the system’s acceptance.

2012

The link between the heliports, environmental quality and safety is an important challenge in the field of helicopter transport. This challenge is especially crucial when the helicopter operations are carried out on densely urbanized areas. Often these areas have significant constraints and obstacles, particularly in terms of noise pollution. These constraints make the approach/takeoff maneuvers very complicated. The theme of the environmental sustainability of the rotorcraft is strongly felt in many countries. The production of noise is subjected to numerous rules and procedures, which tend to improve the acceptability of the helicopter by residents in neighboring areas to verti/heliports.…

Life cycle environmental assessment of retaining walls in unsaturated soils

2022

Abstract Retaining structures above groundwater level support soils that are usually in a state of partial saturation and subject to the actions of atmospheric agents. The current design approach considers the possible extremes of soil conditions – either totally dry or totally saturated – but it neglects matric suction’s contribution to soil shear strength. This work aims to describe how unsaturated-soil mechanics of can positively influence the sustainability of retaining structures through a holistic, multidisciplinary, geotechnical, and environmental analysis. The geotechnical analysis allows to estimate the lateral earth pressure of a geostructure in both unsaturated and extreme soil c…

Role of Stress History on the Swelling-Shrinkage Behavior of Compacted Scaly Clay

2022

Compacted scaly clays are complex geomaterials widely used for the realization of dam cores and waste dump liners. This research aims to investigate the swelling/shrinkage behavior of these geomaterials subjected in an oedometric cell to complex hydromechanical stress paths, including different sequences of cyclic variations of suction and stress. Microstructure investigations, based on scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) techniques, highlighted the microstructural characteristics of the material, which are the distinctive microfabric features (particles assemblages and scales) and the double-porosity networks, where micro- and macropores coexist. More…

The void ratio dependency of the retention behaviour for a compacted scaly clay

2010

Environmental assessment of 2030 electricity generation scenarios in Sicily: An integrated approach

2020

Abstract This paper deals with the environmental assessment of two electricity scenarios in Sicily, for 2030, characterized by a high exploitation of renewable energy sources in order to quantify the potential contribution of the local strategies in the achievement of the European climate policies and the potential improvement in the future electricity mix, compared to the current one (2014). In order to match these goals, authors integrate the Life Cycle Assessment with a scenario analysis. The future electricity mix scenarios, characterized by a share of renewables (57% for 2030-BS scenario and 51% for 2030-DS scenario) show a reduction of the greenhouse gases emissions per kWh of electri…

From biomass waste to tri-generation: a life-cycle experience in the “agro-combined” of Thibar

2018

The paper presents a Life Cycle Assessment of the energy tri-generation from biomass waste in a plant located in Tunisia. The analysis included the plant construction and end-of-life, the supply of biomass, its use for biogas production and the electricity, heating and cooling generation from biogas. The study is one of the first applications of environmental analysis to tri-generation from biomass waste in developing countries. The results showed that the plant construction is responsible of 76% of primary energy consumption and gives a contribution higher than 88% on resource depletion and ionising radiation. The operation causes 66% of the impact on human toxicity - cancer effects and mo…