A system for the evaluation of environmental risk for lagoon arachaeological sites

The project Archeorisk is presented. The objective is to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) for the safeguard and the management of the underwater archaeological patrimony in the Lagoon of Venice. The DSS has been completed in the form of a software prototype working as an extension of a geographic informative system. The DSS allows to evaluate the entity, the type and the distribution of the decay risk to which the lagoon archaeological sites are subjected. Its development has requested the acquisition of experimental data on the decay of the findings and about the main causes. In particular, the decay of ceramic and wooden objects has been studied. The system, that can be adapted to different environmental and archaeological contexts, is destined to the Archaeological Superintendence and permits to integrate the safeguard of the cultural heritage with that of the natural environment

Correction to: Joint X-ray/NMR structure refinement of multidomain/multisubunit systems

The article “Joint X-ray/NMR structure refinement of multidomain/multisubunit systems” written by “Azzurra Carlon, Enrico Ravera, Giacomo Parigi, Garib N. Murshudov and Claudio Luchinat” was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal (currently SpringerLink) on 11 October 2018 without open access

Risk assessment of contaminated sites

Dottorato di ricerca in scienze chimiche. 12. ciclo. A.a. 1997-99. Relatore Antonio MarcominiConsiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Biblioteca Centrale - P.le Aldo Moro, 7, Rome; Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale - P.za Cavalleggeri, 1, Florence / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal

Towards Common References for Risk Assessment of Contaminated Sites in Europe

In the last 20 years Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) methodologies have been increasingly applied for setting environmental quality criteria. With concern to soil quality, only few European countries have adopted ERA for the definition of screening values and emediation targets. In particular. the application of ERA at site specific scale is still seldom included in the decisional process. Three main reasons for this delay are the poor interest for the ecosystem protection in comparison with that of human health, the lack of operational methods to deal with scientific uncertainty and the need for European common references. To overcome these constraints, the JRC launched a long term research framework, named HERACLES, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment for Contaminated Land in European States, aimed at promoting the development of common references of risk assessment for contaminated land in Europe.JRC.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure

The HERACLES Research Framework to Promote the Development of Common References of Site Specific Ecological Risk Assessment for Contaminated Land in Europe

The site specific ecological risk assessment (SS-ERA) is seldom considered and still poorly applied in the mangement of contaminated land. It is mainly dur to the lack of a general framework, providing operational options to include SS-ERA in the decisional process. For this scope, there is certain consensus on the need of Common European technical references of SS-ERA, HERACLES, Human Ecological Assment for Contaminated Land in European Member States, is a long term research framework launched by the JRC and aimed at promoting the development of common references of risk assessment for contaminated land in Europe. It intends to be a dynamic process, which couples the working groupd consultation with pilot projects and desk studies.JRC.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure

DESYRE: Decision Support System for the Rehabilitation of Contaminated Megasites

DESYRE (DEcision Support sYstem for the REqualification of contaminated sites) is a GIS-based decision support system (DSS) specifically developed to address the integrated management and remediation of contaminated megasites (i.e., large contaminated areas or impacted areas characterized by multiple site owners and multiple stakeholders). In the DESYRE conceptual design and development the main aspects pertaining to a remediation process--analysis of social and economic benefits and constrains, site characterization, risk assessment, selection of best available technologies, creation of sets of technologies to be applied, analysis of the residual risk, and comparison of different remediation scenarios--were included. The DESYRE DSS is a GIS-based software composed of 6 interconnected modules. In the characterization module, chemical and hydrogeological data are organized in a relational database and contaminants' distributions are mapped by using geostatistic tools. The socioeconomic module addresses the socioeconomic constraints though a fuzzy logic analysis to select the best land use. The risk assessment module is divided into 2 phases. In the preremediation phase, an original procedure allows assessing and representing the spatial distribution of risks posed by contaminants in soil and groundwater, providing a risk-based zoning of the site. Then, in the technology assessment module, a selection of suitable technologies and creation of different technology sets, taking into account both technical requirements and site-specific features, are performed by experts supported by multicriteria decision analysis tools. In the postremediation risk assessment, a simulation of applied technologies provides residual risk maps with related uncertainty maps. Finally, in the decision module, alternative remediation scenarios are described by a set of indices and can be compared and ranked by interested stakeholders using multicriteria decision analysis methodologies. The paper highlights original procedural steps and functionalities of DESYRE nd analyzes its main points of strength and potentialities, as well as limits