Ethics, scientific research and goals of public usefulness

In the research activity, often the necessary fulfillment of administrative and bureaucratic practices can lead to neglecting the transfer of scientific results to the community, with the effect of a loss in terms of cultural growth for society itself, which has indirectly financed the products of that research and at the end risks not to have advantage by using them. In a research project, it is necessary to find the right balance between the scientific-technical work and the financial and administrative management, and to assess time needed to develop the project in all its components, including the space for the dissemination and popularization of results respectively to professionals and citizens: the former could not be able to use achieved scientific advances for their application on the territory, the latter could remain passive people in decisions regarding the environment they inhabit, without the possibility for accessing to accurate information on natural hazards from which they must and can defend themselves. The authors will show how the different modalities of financing and managing of two research projects have influenced the achievement and the usability of the results, with diverse consequences in the social contexts where these results would find their suitable application. In addition, through the two experiences, they will highlights the importance of collaboration between research and professional world for pursuing goals of public usefulness

Applying the Values of Geoethics for Sustainable Speleotourism Development

AbstractEstablishing sustainable and responsible speleotourism development is a major challenge and involves complex activities. Adequate theoretical starting point is the application of geoethical values related to the conservation and protection of the caves to be used for touristic purposes. Positive and negative cases of human behaviors towards speleological geoheritage are discussed, in order to highlight what should be done in cave management to avoid malpractices and on what elements could be founded adequate strategies aimed at promoting sustainable speleotourism. This is important to tourism management organizations involved in the promotion of caves and in creating economic opportunities for local populations, while respecting cave ecosystems. Modern cave management must be focused on the protection of the cave ecosystems, finding ways to achieve at the same time an economic development of local communities. But this approach needs the adoption of a geoethical framework of values to be shared by all stakeholders involved so that successful cooperation can be achieved despite differences in interests and expectations. The aim of this paper is to raise the awareness about the need to apply the values of geoethics to speleotourism, stimulating new fields of discussion within the scientific and technical communities involved in studies and activities related to geotourism and geoheritage. The possibilities of developing new ways to manage caves, in order to promote a sustainable socio-economic development of local communities, have to be balanced with the protection of natural environments as much as possible. The proposed theoretical frameworks have the goal to increase the discussion on the best ways of connecting speleotourism to sustainable and responsible cave management, presenting two case studies, and pointing out potential solutions

The Cape Town Statement on Geoethics

Recently the interest by geoscientists in (geo)ethical aspects of geoscience knowledge, education, research, practice and communication has grown considerably. Today the topic of geoethics has gained a significant visibility within the scientific community. The IAPG – International Association for Promoting Geoethics (http://www.geoethics.org), founded in 2012, has worked to widen the discussion and create awareness about issues of ethics as applied to the geosciences. Thanks to continuous voluntary work, the respectful exchange, and fruitful sharing of ideas, the IAPG community has produced a conceptual substratum on which to base the future development of geoethics, by clarifying the meaning of the word “geoethics”, formalizing its definition, and better identifying a framework of reference values on which the geoscience community can base more effective codes of conduct and guidance. The members of the IAPG community have published various books and articles in peer-reviewed international journals, and organized numerous scientific sessions to bring geoethics to the most important geoscience conferences. Geoethical issues have been also included in the European project ENVRI-Plus, which is dedicated to the environmental and solid Earth research infrastructures. The tangible result of these efforts is that, now, many prestigious geoscience organizations recognize geoethics as a fundamental issue, worthy of attention. This result was confirmed by the high quality of content and the large participation of scientists in the six technical sessions and a panel session on geoethics organized by IAPG at the 35th IGC – International Geological Congress, held in 2016 in Cape Town (South Africa). Largely successful due to the cooperative work of different geoscience organizations (IUGS-TGGP – Task Group on Global Geoscience Professionalism; GSL - Geological Society of London; EFG - European Federation of Geologists; EGS - EuroGeoSurveys; AGI – American Geosciences Institute; AGU – American Geophysical Union, and AAWG – African Association of Women in Geosciences). The IAPG considers the 35th IGC as the scientific event that opened a new phase for furthering the concept of geoethics. In order to mark this milestone, the "Cape Town Statement on Geoethics" (CTSG) was tabled by the IAPG and reviewed in an international effort. It shall focus the attention of geoscientists on the development of shared values, policies, guidelines, strategies and tools, with the long-range goal of fostering the regular adoption of ethical values and practices within the geoscience community. The document summarizes the values, concepts, and contents developed by IAPG so far, providing a perspective for the future development of geoethical thinking. This paper addresses in detail the content of the “Cape Town Statement on Geoethics”, which is now supported officially by several geoscience organizations

life cycle assessment of steel produced in an italian integrated steel mill

The purpose of this work is to carry out an accurate and extensive environmental analysis of the steel production occurring in in the largest integrated EU steel mill, located in the city of Taranto in southern Italy. The end goal is that of highlighting the steelworks' main hot spots and identifying potential options for environmental improvement. The development for such an analysis is based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of steel production with a cradle to casting plant gate approach that covers the stages from raw material extraction to solid steel slab production. The inventory results have highlighted the large solid waste production, especially in terms of slag, which could be reused in other industries as secondary raw materials. Other reuses, in accordance with the circular economy paradigm, could encompass the energy waste involved in the steelmaking process. The most burdening lifecycle phases are the ones linked to blast furnace and coke oven operations. Specifically, the impact categories are influenced by the energy consumption and also by the toxicity of the emissions associated with the lifecycle of steel production. A detailed analysis of the toxicity impacts indicates that LCA is still not perfectly suitable for toxicity assessments and should be coupled with other more site specific studies in order to understand such aspects fully. Overall, the results represent a first step to understanding the current levels of sustainability of the steelworks, which should be used as a starting point for the development both of pollution control measures and of symbiotic waste reutilization scenarios needed to maintain the competitiveness of the industrial plant

Introduction: geoethics goes beyond the geoscience profession

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Microzonazione sismica di un centro abitato di piccole dimensioni: il caso studio di Sant’Agata Fossili (AL)

In questo lavoro sono descritte le attività svolte nell’ambito del Progetto Europeo Strategico RISKNAT riguardanti l’analisi di microzonazione di Sant’Agata Fossili (AL). Sono in particolare descritte tutte le indagini ed analisi numeriche condotte al fine di ottenere una microzonazione sismica di livello 3 secondo quanto previsto nelle recenti linee guida nazionali degli. Al fine inoltre di valutare le ricadute di tipo applicativo di una corretta microzonazione sismica del territorio, sono state realizzate delle simulazioni di scenario adottando come riferimento gli spettri di risposta ottenuti dall’analisi di microzonazione. Le valutazioni di scenario ottenute sono state infine confrontate con le previsioni di scenario realizzabili a priori sulla base dell’adozione degli spettri di risposta definiti nelle Norme Tecniche per le Costruzioni

The SEE-GeoForm WebGIS: a tool for seismic data and hazard analysis

The SEE-GeoForm project (Site Effects Evaluation - Geological Form) is born to share and make easily accessible via Internet seismic hazard data for Italy at different scales and for different administrative units (regions, provinces, municipalities), from existing database or new dataset carried out in this project. Using a WebGIS (http://www.seegeoform.it) a tool to archive, display and elaborate information has been developed. In particular, the website allows the user to query the basic and local seismic hazard values for single municipalities or to calculate those for any single point only by clicking on the maps. In order to make the WebGIS more flexible, the system has been fully implemented using open source technologies, based on the guidelines expressed by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC); in this way, it has been possible to develop some thematic modules for data elaborations and queries as integrated web services such as WMS, following all of the internationally-acknowledged best-practices in this field. The WebGIS has three frames: the data panel, the display area, the map layers directories. The data panel has several modules concerning respectively: basic and local hazard data for all Italian municipalities calculated by National Institute of Geophisics and Volcanology (INGV) or from other studies, such as horizontal peak ground acceleration values for different return periods (considering the exceedance probability in 50 years), and soil classes with the corresponding lithostratigraphic amplification factors according to the EuroCode8; a regular grid of 16.810 points, with a step equal to 0.05°, used by INGV for the seismic hazard elaborations (http://zonesismiche.mi.ingv.it/): values that are necessary to draw the site-dependent response spectra, according to the Italian seismic code, are linked to each point; the calculation on user demand of basic seismic hazard parameters for a site selected by clicking on geographical layers; composite seismogenic sources from DISS (Database of Individual Seismogenic Sources, vers. 3.1.1.: http://diss.rm.ingv.it/diss/), with their relative parameters (maximum moment magnitude, strike, dip, etc.). Finally, there are two modules regarding litoseismic classes and subsoil categories: the first one is linked to a map obtained by reclassifying the 46 litothypes of the Lithological Map of Italy at 100000-scale by Geological Survey of Italy (National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research - ISPRA) into 12 litoseismic classes, considered homogeneous regarding to their seismic behavior; while the second one permits to know the subsoil category, according with Italian seismic provisions (Norme Tecniche per le Costruzioni – NTC 2008), for a single point by clicking on the map. This has been possible by elaborating a subsoil categories map at 100000-scale derived from the litoseismic map at the same scale, by blending different litoseismic classes into 5 categories. Datasets have been built starting from 2007 within the ReLUIS Project (http://www.reluis.it) and are being improved within the 2009-2012 EUCENTRE project (http://www.eucentre.it), that partially financed the WebGIS development, as a result of the strong collaboration between researchers from INGV and ISPRA. The SEE-GeoForm web-tool aims to become the focal point to display in a simple way many databases containing information on seismic hazard of Italian territory, allowing user-friendly elaborations for researchers and professionals

Addressing the challenges of making data, products, and services accessible: an EPOS perspective

Novel measurement technologies, additional sensors and increasing data processing capacities offer new opportunities to answer some of the currently most pressing societal and environmental questions. They also contribute to the fact that the available data volume will continue to increase. At the same time, the requirements for those providing such data rise and the needs of users to access it. The EPOS Delivery Framework aims to support this endeavour in the solid Earth domain by providing access to data, products, and services supporting multidisciplinary analyses for a wide range of users. Based on this example, we look at the most pressing issues from when data, products, and services are made accessible, to access principles, ethical issues related to its collection and use as well as with respect to their promotion. Among many peculiarities, we shed light on a common component that affects all fields equally: change. Not only will the amount and type of data, products, and services change, but so will the societal expectations and providers capabilities

Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) di un’azienda polisettoriale della Provincia di Taranto

Con la Raccomandazione del 9 aprile 2013, la Commissione europea in collaborazione con il Joint Research Centre di Ispra ha dato avvio alla sperimentazione della metodologia Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) per misurare l’impronta ambientale delle organizzazioni nella prospettiva del ciclo di vita. Lo strumento si prefigge di ridurre gli impatti ambientali connessi alle attività delle organizzazioni, tenendo conto di tutte le attività della catena di approvvigionamento (dall’estrazione delle materie prime alla gestione finale dei rifiuti), al fine di migliorare l’efficienza delle risorse delle imprese e la loro competitività. Il presente lavoro illustra i risultati dell’applicazione dello strumento OEF ad un’importante impresa polisettoriale localizzata nel Comune di Taranto, la “Italcave S.p.A.”, con lo scopo di identificare i punti critici dell’attività organizzativa nel suo complesso e valutare le possibili soluzioni da apportare all’organizzazione in termini di riduzione degli impatti ambiental