scholarly journals GPR and ERT Investigations in Urban Areas: the Case-Study of Matera (Southern Italy)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1879 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Bellanova ◽  
Giuseppe Calamita ◽  
Ilaria Catapano ◽  
Alessandro Ciucci ◽  
Carmela Cornacchia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Buried Objects ◽  
Surface Survey ◽  
Critical Zones ◽  
Ground Penetrating

This paper deals with a geophysical survey carried out in some critical urban areas of the historical city of Matera (Southern Italy). Matera has a very complex shallower stratigraphy characterized by both anthropic and natural “targets” and is affected by geological instability. Therefore, Matera represents an ideal and very challenging outdoor laboratory for testing novel approaches for near-surface explorations in urban areas. Here, we present the results of a near-surface survey carried out by jointly applying Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) methods. The survey was implemented in three different critical zones within the urban area of Matera (Piazza Duomo, Piazza San Giovanni, Villa dell’Unità d’Italia). These test sites are of great interest for archaeological and architectonical studies and are affected by ground instability phenomena due to the presence of voids, cavities and other anthropic structures. The effectiveness of the survey was enhanced by the exploitation of advanced 3D tomographic approaches, which allowed to achieve 3D representation of the investigated underground and obtain information in terms of both the location and the geometry of buried objects and structures and the characterization of shallow geological layers. The results of the surveys are now under study (or have attracted the interest) of the Municipality in order to support smart cities programs and activities for a better management of the underground space.

Geometric and kinematic characterization of landslides affecting urban areas: the Lungro case study (Calabria, Southern Italy)

Landslides ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Gullà ◽  
Dario Peduto ◽  
Luigi Borrelli ◽  
Loredana Antronico ◽  
Gianfranco Fornaro
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Southern Italy

scholarly journals Challenges and Barriers for Net‐Zero/Positive Energy Buildings and Districts—Empirical Evidence from the Smart City Project SPARCS

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Daria Uspenskaia ◽  
Karl Specht ◽  
Hendrik Kondziella ◽  
Thomas Bruckner
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Practical Experience ◽  
Positive Energy ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Multidimensional Representation

Without decarbonizing cities energy and climate objectives cannot be achieved as cities account for approximately two thirds of energy consumption and emissions. This goal of decarbonizing cities has to be facilitated by promoting net-zero/positive energy buildings and districts and replicating them, driving cities towards sustainability goals. Many projects in smart cities demonstrate novel and groundbreaking low-carbon solutions in demonstration and lighthouse projects. However, as the historical, geographic, political, social and economic context of urban areas vary greatly, it is not always easy to repeat the solution in another city or even district. It is therefore important to look for the opportunities to scale up or repeat successful pilots. The purpose of this paper is to explore common trends in technologies and replication strategies for positive energy buildings or districts in smart city projects, based on the practical experience from a case study in Leipzig—one of the lighthouse cities in the project SPARCS. One of the key findings the paper has proven is the necessity of a profound replication modelling to deepen the understanding of upscaling processes. Three models analyzed in this article are able to provide a multidimensional representation of the solution to be replicated.

scholarly journals Building Smarter Cities through Social Entrepreneurship

2017 ◽  
pp. 327-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Bernardino ◽  
J. Freitas Santos
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Non Profit ◽  
Social Interventions ◽  
Social Ventures ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
The City ◽  
Disadvantaged People

The objective of the present study is to examine the extent to which social ventures are able to increase the “smartness” of cities. To achieve this goal, we adopt a qualitative approach using a case study method to obtain valuable insights about different characteristics and strategies of Cais (a non-profit association dedicated to helping disadvantaged people in urban areas). Through our analysis of Cais's activities, we assess whether its social interventions match the dimensions proposed by Giffinger et al. (2007) to rank smart cities' performance; specifically, it has smart: economy, people, governance, mobility, environment, and living. The research shows that the action pursued comprises elements from all the above-mentioned dimensions. Further, the analysis reveals that Cais reinforces the smartness of the city in which it acts (in terms of attributes such as living, economy, people, and environment).

scholarly journals Environmental monitoring of soil pollution in urban areas (a case study from Heraklion city, Central Crete, Greece)

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 963
Author(s):  
E. Kokinou ◽  
C. Belonaki ◽  
D. Sakadakis ◽  
K. Sakadaki
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Susceptibility ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Magnetic Measurements ◽  
Topographic Map ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Thermomagnetic Analysis ◽  
Geological Features ◽  
Digital Elevation ◽  
Elevation Model

Main scope of the present study is to combine topographic and geological data, magnetic susceptibility and thermomagnetic analysis in order to investigate the magnetic properties of the near surface soils in possible polluted urban areas. For this purpose, a power plant with a dense traffic net around it, located in the NW section of Heraklion city in Crete was selected to be the study area. Surface soil samples have been collected from the area under investigation and they were analyzed in order to estimate the spatial distribution of the magnetic susceptibility. Loci of high values of the magnetic susceptibility within the study area gave rise to further proceed to thermomagnetic analysis of the selected samples. GIS techniques were used for mapping the magnetic measurements on the various topographic and geological features of the area. The digital elevation model was created by the digitization of the topographic map contours (1:5000 scale maps). The combination of the above techniques indicate high values of the magnetic susceptibility especially in the northeastern part of the investigated area, possibly related to pollution due to the presence of heavy metals.

Geophysical characterization of an engineering infrastructure: laboratory tests.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Fornasari ◽  
Luigi Capozzoli ◽  
Gregory De Martino ◽  
Valeria Giampaolo ◽  
Enzo Rizzo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Reinforced Concrete Frame ◽  
The Public ◽  
Civil Infrastructures ◽  
Concrete Frame ◽  
Geophysical Application ◽  
Ground Penetrating

<p>The increase of the metropolises stresses the urban areas and intensive planning works is necessary. Therefore, the development of new technologies and methodologies able to explore the subsoil and manage its resources in urban areas becomes an important source in terms of saving time and money. In the last decade, a new subdiscipline in the Applied Geophysics started: Urban Geophysics (Lapenna, 2017). Urban Geophysics analyzes the contribute, in terms of limits and potentialities, that geophysical methodologies can give for providing useful information about the subsoil, environment, buildings and civil infrastructures and supporting the public administrations in planning interventions in urban scenarios.</p><p>This work introduces a laboratory test, that was performed at the Hydrogeosite CNR-IMAA laboratory of Marsico Nuovo (Basilicata region, Italy). The test consisted in a multisensor geophysical application on an analogue engineering model. Thanks to the possibility to work in laboratory conditions, a detailed knowledge of the structure was available, providing great advantages for assess the capability of the geophysical methodologies for analyze engineering issues, regarding the characterization of the infrastructural critical zone placed at the interface soil-structure. For this purpose, geoelectrical and electromagnetic methodologies, including Cross hole Electrical Resistivity Tomography and Ground Penetrating Radar, were used to characterize the geometry of the foundation structures and the disposition of the rebar for the reinforced concrete frame. Finally, new geophysical approaches were applied in order to define the corrosion rate of reinforcement.</p>

scholarly journals A SAP-DoA Method for the Localization of Two Buried Objects

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Meschino ◽  
Lara Pajewski ◽  
Giuseppe Schettini
Keyword(s):  
Ground Penetrating Radar ◽  
Near Field ◽  
Dielectric Materials ◽  
Arrival Direction ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Buried Objects ◽  
Radar Applications ◽  
Ground Penetrating ◽  
Detection And Localization ◽  
Dielectric Objects

A localization technique for buried metallic and dielectric objects is proposed and tested. An array of isotropic antennas investigates a scenario with cylindrical targets buried in a dielectric soil. The targets are in the near field of the array, and a Sub-Array Processing (SAP) approach is adopted: the array is partitioned into subarrays, and Direction of Arrival (DoA) algorithms are used to process the electromagnetic field received by each subarray and estimate the dominant arrival direction of the signal. By triangulating all the estimated DoAs, a crossing pattern is obtained. It is filtered by a Poisson-based procedure and subsequently elaborated by the -means clustering method in order to distinguish between targets and background, estimate the number of targets, and find their position. Several simulations have been performed to compare different DoA algorithms and to test the localization method in the presence of two buried cylinders. Different values of the permittivity of the involved dielectric materials have been considered; the target positions and size have also been varied. The proposed procedure can be useful for ground-penetrating radar applications, near-surface probing, and for the detection and localization of defects in a hosting medium.

scholarly journals The Sensitivity of Urban Meteorology to Soil Moisture Boundary Conditions: A Case Study in Melbourne, Australia

2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (8) ◽  
pp. 2155-2172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Jacobs ◽  
Ailie J. E. Gallant ◽  
Nigel J. Tapper
Keyword(s):  
Soil Moisture ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Weather Research And Forecasting ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Australian Water ◽  
Surface Temperatures ◽  
Order Of Magnitude

AbstractThe sensitivity of near-surface urban meteorological conditions to three different soil moisture initialization experiments under heat-wave conditions is investigated for the city of Melbourne, Australia. The Weather Research and Forecasting Model is used to simulate a domain over Melbourne and its surrounding rural areas. The experiments employ three suites of simulations. Two suites initialize the model with soil moisture from the top layer of the ERA-Interim soil moisture data with a 3-month and 24-h coupled spinup period, respectively. The third suite initializes the model with the arguably more realistic soil moistures from the Australian Water Availability Project (AWAP), which are an order of magnitude drier than the ERA-Interim data, again using a 24-h spinup period. The simulations employing the AWAP data are found to have smaller errors when compared with observations, with biases in urban maximum temperature reduced by 4.1°C and biases in the skin temperature reduced by 3.0°C relative to the biases of the 3-month-spinup experiment. Despite urban areas only having a small proportion of soil-covered surfaces, the results show that urban soils have a greater influence on urban near-surface temperatures at night, whereas rural soils have a greater influence on urban near-surface temperatures during the daytime.

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