Unburnable and Unleakable Carbon in Western Amazon: Using VIIRS Nightfire Data to Map Gas Flaring and Policy Compliance in the Yasun\ued Biosphere Reserve

In the Amazon Rainforest, a unique post-carbon plan to mitigate global warming and to protect the exceptional bio-cultural diversity was experimented in 2007\u20132013 by the Ecuadorian government. To preserve the rainforest ecosystems within the Yasun\ued-ITT oil block, the release of 410 million metric tons of CO2 would have been avoided. The neologism \u201cyasunization\u201d emerged as an Amazonian narrative on \u201cunburnable carbon\u201d to be replicated worldwide. Considering the unburnable carbon, petroleum-associated gas flaring represents the unleakable part. Flaring is an irrational practice that consists of burning waste gases, representing not only a leak of energy but also a pollution source. The general aim of the paper is to monitor gas flaring as a tool, revealing, at the same time, the implementation of environmental technologies in the oil sector and the compliance of sustainable policies in the Amazon region and the Yasun\ued Biosphere Reserve. Specific objectives are: (i) identifying and estimating gas flaring over seven years (2012\u20132018); (ii) mapping new flaring sites; iii) estimating potentially affected areas among ecosystems and local communities. We processed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Nightfire annual dataset, based on the elaboration of imagery from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and developed a GIS-based novel simple method to identify new flaring sites from daily detections. We found that 23.5% of gas flaring sites and 18.4% of volumes of all oil industries operating in Ecuador are located within the Yasun\ued Biosphere Reserve (YBR). Moreover, we detected 34 additional flaring sites not included in the NOAA dataset\u201412 in the YBR and one in Tiputini field, a key area for biological and cultural diversity conservation. We also found that at least 10 indigenous communities, 18 populated centers and 10 schools are located in the potentially affected area. Gas flaring can be used as a policy indicator to monitor the implementation of sustainable development practices in complex territories

Rethinking the Urban Green Spaces by the Lens of GIScience: the Experience of the Project Living Urban Parks

In Italy, soil sealing is a major threats in terms of soil degradation and the loss of urban ecosystem services. The increase in new artificial surfaces or settlement areas at the expense of green and rural areas is intensifying the effects of climate change, in particular extreme weather events, such as the increase in intense precipitation and heatwaves. In this context, the Municipality of Padua is a paradigmatic case study. According to the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (2022), almost 50% of the municipal territory is completely sealed, making it the Italian city with the fifth highest values of soil sealing. To contrast the phenomenon, the EU soil strategy for 2030 suggested, among other strategies, the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions, strengthened with the participation and involvement of non-expert actors to be more efficient and effective. This study was developed within the Living Urban Parks (LUP) project (Key Action 3, Erasmus + Programme EU) during two years of research and participatory activities (2020–2022) within the Municipality of Padua. It aims to involve youths aged 18–30 in a public process to reconceive of the urban green spaces of the city and to develop ideas and proposals for more sustainable urban planning, promoting participatory methodologies by using geographical tools (digital and traditional cartography). More than 400 participants were directly involved in the project. All the ideas and proposals mapped during the seminars and workshops have been uploaded to the geoplatform Geocitizen. This geotool is usable on smartphones and tablets and, thanks to its interactive features and a geodatabase, allows the collection of georeferenced ideas, good practices and urban issues regarding green areas and parks. By the end of the project, 118 points had been collected on Geocitizen. Beyond the Geocitizen platform, the participants had the opportunity to test other geotools, such as Geopaparazzi and Google Earth Pro. In addition, the participants were able to present their ideas collected on the platform and directly interact with the local decision-makers who were involved to discuss and promote effective and efficient actions for the enhancement of the green areas and urban parks of the city. The use of different geographic technologies combined with participatory mapping approaches allowed an increase in the knowledge of the urban territory by making people more aware of the issue of soil sealing and urban regeneration opportunities. Finally, LUP allowed to reconception and design of green spaces to promote the restoration of degraded and abandoned areas and to propose the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions

L’Italia si adatta? La definizione delle politiche di adattamento al cambiamento climatico alla scala regionale

Nelle politiche di adattamento la scala locale è centrale per delineare le vulnerabilità dei diversi territori e progettare azioni realmente efficaci. Il contributo presenta un’analisi critica delle politiche di adattamento individuate alla scala regionale in Italia focalizzando l’attenzione su alcune chiavi di lettura: l’impostazione generale delle politiche stesse, la governance messa in atto per l’implementazione, l’integrazione tra le politiche dal punto di vista orizzontale e verticale, la presenza e tipologia dei processi partecipativi, la considerazione delle caratteristiche dei singoli territori all’interno della progettazione delle politiche. Dalle ricerche qui illustrate emerge una situazione di luci ed ombre: su 21 amministrazioni, solo 4 hanno completato l’iter, mentre almeno 5 non hanno ancora iniziato a mobilitarsi in questa direzione

De Marchi, Massimo

Con il rapido sviluppo delle tecnologie digitali per la raccolta, gestione diffusione di dati spaziali, la ricerca geografica ha beneficiato in anni recenti di numerosi contributi basati sulla partecipazione o collaborazione di cittadini, singolarmente o in gruppo, facilitata da tecnologie dell’informazione geografica, geotool, geoapp. Processi di questo genere possono essere catalogati sotto diverse terminologie: Citizen Science, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Participatory Mapping, Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) e altre ancora. Uno dei campi di applicazione più diffusi delle ricerche basate sull’interazione tra ricercatori e cittadini è la realtà urbana, in special modo le azioni di mappatura di tematismi rilevanti dal punto di vista sociale o ambientale. Nel Laboratorio GIScience e Drones for Good attivo presso il Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile Edile e Ambientale dell’Università di Padova, e con la collaborazione di altri dipartimenti, il gruppo di ricerca collegato al Master di II livello in GIScience e Sistemi a Pilotaggio Remoto per la gestione integrata del territorio e delle risorse naturali sviluppa da alcuni anni una linea di ricerca fondata su metodologie di mappatura partecipata a supporto di analisi sulla sostenibilità urbana. In questo contributo vengono illustrati tre dei progetti afferenti a tale linea di ricerca: “Il Valore del Suolo”, per mappare la permeabilità delle superfici in un quartiere campione di Padova; “Piste riCiclabili”, per individuare le criticità dei percorsi ciclabili padovani; “MUES – Mapping Urban Empty Spaces”, per la mappatura di spazi abbandonati nel comune di Padova. Per ogni progetto si descrivono obiettivi, metodologie, tecnologie dell’informazione geografica utilizzate, attori coinvolti e risultati ottenuti, allo scopo di trovare connessioni tra questi elementi e ragionare su pregi e limiti di tali operazioni.The rapid development of digital technologies to collect, manage and spread spatial data has led the geospatial research field to be involved in a great number of projects based on participation by citizens, both individually and in groups, facilitated by geographic information technologies, geotools, geoapps. Such processes may be classified under different terms and definitions: Citizen Science, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Participatory Mapping, Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) and more. One of the most common fields of application for interaction-based geographical researches is the urban context, especially mapping features and themes which are relevant from a social or environmental point of view. Within the GIScience e Drones for Good Lab, part of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering of University of Padova, and with the collaboration of other departments, the group linked to the post-graduate Master in GIScience and UAV has been leading for several years a line of research based on participatory mapping methodologies in support of urban sustainability analysis. Here, three of the performed projects are presented: “Il Valore del Suolo”, to map perviousness of surfaces in a sample neighbourhood in Padova; “Piste Riciclabili”, to detect critical issues in Padova cycle paths; “MUES – Mapping Urban Empty Spaces”, to map abandoned sites in Padova. For each of these projects, objectives, methodologies, involved geographic information technologies and actors, results are described, with the aim to find connections between such elements and think about pros and cons of these kinds of processes

A Participative GIS approach to map and to model soil sealing in Padua

Soil sealing is, at present, one of the most important environmental issue in urban context. By the increasing of concrete surfaces and by the implementation of new buildings and urban infrastructures, soil sealing is directly and indirectly affecting soil system and related ecosystem services: carbon sequestration, microclimate regulation, hydrogeological risk mitigation, water and air purification. Even if the awareness of citizens about this theme is constantly increasing through both implementations of SDG and institutional tools, and glocal initiatives and networks such as the World Soil Day and People4Soil, there is still a lack of social processes for spatial data collection and generation. The general aim of this research is to involve university students to map the territory of Padua and to generate detailed spatial data about soil sealing in the city. The approach used is known as Participatory GIS (PGIS) and it brings GIS technologies to support public participation for a variety of applications by the inclusion and the empowerment of no expert population. In this way citizens, who generate spatial information, have the control, the comprehension and use of sensitive spatial data. In the present survey 25 volunteered university students, with different background and ages, were involved in the project and they were supervised by researchers which shared criteria and methodologies to extract geographical features from high resolution aerial images. The results obtained by the students were: 1) the detailed generation of spatial data about land cover in Forcellini, a residential neighbourhood of Padua of about 300 ha located in the east of the city centre, and the application of an ecological urban index named Biotope Area Factor (BAF) about the permeability of surfaces. Moreover, students performed a participative land use mapping, deepening spatial knowledge of the city in which they are living in, and increasing skills by open source GIS technologies in a collective learning environment

Ojo de aguila. Riflessioni e prospettive su droni e geografia tra Amazzonia e Master in GIScience e droni

Ojo de aguila è l’espressione con la quale un’anziana donna Waorani riassumeva il fascino di osservare dall’alto foreste, fiumi e case nello schermo del radiocomando del drone che stava pilotando. Il contributo intende offrire alcune riflessioni e prospettive su droni e geografia, a partire da alcuni anni di pratiche di gruppo tra Amazzonia e “Master in GIScience e droni”. Ricerca, didattica, attivismo facilitato dalle tecnologie dell’informazione geografica, offrono occasioni di incontro tra sguardi ricorsivi, visioni indigene, agroecosistemi, risorse energetiche, sfide della sostenibilità urbana, tentativi di adattamento di pratiche co-evolutive

BAF Index e mappatura del consumo di suolo a Padova: quantificazione e simulazione di scenari alternativi

L\u2019aumento di consumo di suolo rappresenta, oggigiorno, una problematica sempre pi\uf9 urgente che coinvolge principalmente le aree urbane e peri-urbane: cemento, asfalto, nuove costruzioni e infrastrutture limitano, o sovente annullano, il corretto svolgimento delle funzioni ecologiche ed idrauliche del suolo. Tale fenomeno incide sui servizi ecosistemici forniti, direttamente o indirettamente, dal sistema-suolo: sequestro di carbonio, regolazione micro-climatica, mitigazione del rischio idrogeologico, purificazione di aria e acqua. Il suolo \u201cconsumato\u201d, in Italia, si attesta a 21.100 km2 (circa il 7%), assegnando al Veneto, ed in particolare alla provincia di Padova, i valori pi\uf9 alti: 40.310 ettari impermeabilizzati, ossia il 18,8% del territorio provinciale. La citt\ue0 di Padova risulta essere tra i venti comuni con i valori pi\uf9 elevati, con 4.558 ettari consumati solamente nel 2015 (ISPRA, 2016). Gli obiettivi generali del presente studio intendono stimare l\u2019evoluzione del consumo di suolo nel Comune di Padova, quantificandone la perdita e simulando scenari di mitigazione come il \u201crooftop greening\u201d. Il calcolo del consumo di suolo si \ue8 basato su analisi landuse a grandissima scala (1:800) mediante ortofoto (2015) ad altissima risoluzione (20 cm) e modellizzazione del Biotope Area Factor Index in ambiente GIS per il ranking della permeabilit\ue0 delle superfici mappate. Ne \ue8 un esempio l\u2019analisi spaziale fatta per il quartiere di San Lazzaro che mostra come nel 2015 le superfici totalmente impermeabilizzate (BAF =0) ricoprono circa il 62,3% e sono principalmente localizzate nell\u2019area del distretto industriale, mentre il 31,75 % sono superfici completamente permeabili (BAF =1). Nello scenario \u201crooftop greening\u201d c\u2019\ue8 una riduzione al 41% delle superfici con BAF Index di valore 0 ed un aumento di quelle con valore 0,7. L\u2019utilizzo di ortofoto ad alta risoluzione (Regione Veneto) per un\u2019analisi di uso di suolo di dettaglio e la modellazione spaziale in ambiente GIS dell\u2019indice BAF per l\u2019analisi del consumo di suolo rivelano le potenzialit\ue0 delle tecnologie di remote sensing nel monitoraggio del territorio