Assessing the Environmental Performance of New Mobility

This report has two main goals. First to improve methodologies of new mobility services .Second identify the solution to improve new mobility in urban transportation to decrease energy loss and decline climate change. This report also compares energy use and greenhouse gasses (GHG) emission impact for new mobility and all transportation modes. Having focus on central estimates and a range of possible alternatives to enhance the result to advance environmental effects. This analysis and research help to identify the possible solutions to make new mobility more sustainable

Citizen science as a tool for the environmental quality assessment of the Mediterranean coastal habitats

The growing need to assess the environmental status of the Mediterranean coastal marine habitats and the large availability of data collected by Reef Check Italia onlus (RCI) volunteers suggest the possibility to develop innovative and reliable indices that may support decision makers in applying conservation strategies. The aims of this study were to check the reliability of data collected by RCI volunteers, analyse the spatial and temporal distribution of RCI available data, resume the knowledge on the biology and ecology of the monitored species, and develop innovative indices to asses the ecological quality of Mediterranean subtidal rocky shores and coralligenous habitats. Subtidal rocky shores and coralligenous were chosen because these are the habitats more attractive for divers; therefore mlst data are referring to them, moreover subtidal rocky bottom are strongly affected by coastal urbanisation, land use, fishing and tourist activities, that increase pollution, turbidity and sedimentation. Non-indigenous species (NIS) have been recognized as a major threat to the integrity of Mediterranean native communities because of their proliferation, spread and impact on resident communities. Monitoring of NIS’ spreading dynamics at the basin spatial scale is difficult but urgent. According to a field test, the training provided by RCI appears adequate to obtain reliable data by volunteers. Based on data collected by RCI volunteers, three main categories of indices were developed: indices based on species diversity, indices on the occurrence non-indigenous species, and indices on species sensitive toward physical, chemical and biological disturbances. As case studies, indices were applied to stretches of coastline defined according to management criteria (province territories and marine protected areas). The assessments of ecological quality in the Tavolara Marine Protected Area using the species sensitivities index were consisten with those previously obtained with traditional methods.

Economic and Environmental Optimization of Ornamental Stone Block Cutting with a 3D Algorithm

This thesis focuses on finding the optimum block cutting dimensions in terms of the environmental and economic factors by using a 3D algorithm for a limestone quarry in Foggia, Italy. The environmental concerns of quarrying operations are mainly: energy consumption, material waste, and pollution. The main economic concerns are the block recovery, the selling prices, and the production costs. Fractures adversely affect the block recovery ratio. With a fracture model, block production can be optimized. In this research, the waste volume produced by quarrying was minimised to increase the recovery ratio and ensure economic benefits. SlabCutOpt is a software developed at DICAM–University of Bologna for block cutting optimization which tests different cutting angles on the x-y-z planes to offer up alternative cutting methods. The program tests several block sizes and outputs the optimal result for each entry. By using SlabCutOpt, ten different block dimensions were analysed, the results indicated the maximum number of non-intersecting blocks for each dimension. After analysing the outputs, the block named number 1 with the dimensions ‘1mx1mx1m’ had the highest recovery ratio as 43% and the total Relative Money Value (RMV) with a value of 22829. Dimension number 1, also had the lowest waste volume, with a value of 3953.25 m3, for the total bench. For cutting the total bench volume of 6932.25m3, the diamond wire cutter had the lowest dust emission values for the block with the dimension ‘2mx2mx2m’, with a value of 24m3. When compared with the Eco-Label standards, block dimensions having surface area values lower than 15m2, were found to fit the natural resource waste criteria of the label, as the threshold required 25% of minimum recovery [1]. Due to the relativity of production costs, together with the Eco-Label threshold, the research recommends the selection of the blocks with a surface area value between 6m2 and 14m2.

Evaluation of the sustainability level of a dairy and poultry farm: The Response-Inducing Sustainability Evaluation (RISE) method

Within this master thesis, various aspects related to the issue of sustainability in the food sector were addressed, focusing on the greenhouse gas emissions derived from livestock production. The increment in population number and wealth is directly related to the growing demand for meat products, which is, in turn, related to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Consumers are becoming more and more aware of these environmental issues and, therefore, sustainability factors are becoming even more relevant also from the environmental point of view. A very useful tool in this field is Response-Inducing Sustainability Evaluation (RISE), a software that allows you to determine the sustainability of a farm under many aspects, like energy consumption, livestock management and soil use. The RISE software processes the information obtained through a questionnaire submitted by the farmer, in which 10 different areas of sustainability in the farm are covered. For each theme, the results are expressed clearly with a score that goes from 0 to 100. The experimentation discussed in this work included two different projects, one regarding a dairy farm and the other regarding a poultry farm. The first one was conducted on a dairy farm in Germany and the results allowed to highlight the weakest areas of the farm on which recommendations were given for ecological improvement. The second project was conducted on a chicken broiler farm in Italy, on an experimental basis since it was the first time that the software was applied to poultry. The results pointed out the aspects that can be improved in the RISE software in order to make it more suitable for future poultry studies.

Nature-based solutions for urban heat island effect mitigation: the case study of Isla, Malta

Global population growth reflects how humans increasingly exploited Earth's resources. Urbanization develops along with anthropization. It is estimated that nearly 60% of the world's population lives in urban areas, which symbolize the denaturalized dimension of current modernity. Cities are artificial ecosystems that suffer most from environmental issues and climate change. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect is a common microclimatic phenomenon affecting cities, which causes considerable differences between urban and rural areas temperatures. Among the driving factors, the lack of vegetation in urban settlements can damage both humans and the environment (health diseases, heat waves caused deaths, biodiversity loss, and so on). As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development increasingly depends on successful management of urban areas. To enhance cities’ resilience, Nature-based Solutions (NbSs), are defined as an umbrella concept that encompasses a wide range of ecosystem-based approaches and actions to climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR). This paper analyzes a 15-days study on air temperature trends carried out in Isla, a small locality in the Maltese archipelago, and proposes Nature-based Solutions-characterized scenarios to mitigate the Urban Heat Island effect the Mediterranean city is affected by. The results demonstrates how in some areas where vegetation is present, lower temperatures are recorded than in areas where vegetation is absent or scarce. It also appeared that in one location, the specific type of vegetation does not contribute to high temperature mitigation, whereas in another one, different environmental parameters can influence the measurements. Among the case-specific Nature-based Solutions proposed there are vertical greening (green wall, façades, ground based greening, etc.), tree lines, green canopy, and green roofs.