Integration of remotely sensed soil sealing data in landslide susceptibility mapping

Soil sealing is the destruction or covering of natural soils by totally or partially impermeable artificial material. ISPRA (Italian Institute for Environmental Protection Research) uses different remote sensing techniques to monitor this process and updates yearly a national-scale soil sealing map of Italy. In this work, for the first time, we tried to combine soil sealing indicators as additional parameters within a landslide susceptibility assessment. Four new parameters were derived from the raw soil sealing map: Soil sealing aggregation (percentage of sealed soil within each mapping unit), soil sealing (categorical variable expressing if a mapping unit is mainly natural or sealed), urbanization (categorical variable subdividing each unit into natural, semi-urbanized, or urbanized), and roads (expressing the road network disturbance). These parameters were integrated with a set of well-established explanatory variables in a random forest landslide susceptibility model and different configurations were tested: Without the proposed soil-sealing-derived variables, with all of them contemporarily, and with each of them separately. Results were compared in terms of AUC(area under receiver operating characteristics curve, expressing the overall effectiveness of each configuration) and out-of-bag-error (estimating the relative importance of each variable). We found that the parameter "soil sealing aggregation" significantly enhanced the model performances. The results highlight the potential relevance of using soil sealing maps on landslide hazard assessment procedures

Forme di urbanizzazione e tipologia insediativa

La conoscenza delle diverse forme di urbanizzazione e della tipologia insediativa è un elemento fondamentale della sostenibilità e della resilienza urbana. I processi di diffusione, dispersione urbana e di frammentazione continuano a produrre un effetto di “città diffusa” con conseguente perdita di limiti tra territorio urbano e rurale (Indovina, 1990, 2009; Simon, 2008). Il consumo di risorse e la sottrazione di qualità al territorio si presenta attraverso la creazione di centri urbani di dimensione medio-piccola all’esterno dei principali poli metropolitani, la crescita di zone di margine con insediamenti dispersi intorno ai centri, la saldatura di zone di insediamento a bassa densità in un continuum che annulla i limiti tra territorio urbano e rurale, la frammentazione del paesaggio e la mancanza di identità dei nuclei urbanizzati sparsi e senza coesione. Gli effetti ambientali e sociali dei fenomeni di espansione delle città a bassa densità e dello sprawl urbano sono rilevanti in termini di qualità ambientale, di integrità del paesaggio e di consumo di risorse naturali. L’entità di tali effetti dipende fortemente dalla modalità con la quale si realizza la trasformazione. In Europa e in Italia, l’espansione delle superfici impermeabilizzate, si manifesta nella frangia urbana e peri-urbana di molte importanti città come commistione di tipologie di uso del suolo diversificate e come aumento più marcato del consumo di suolo proprio nelle aree di margine e nei paesaggi suburbani (EEA, 2006; ISPRA, 2015). A questi fenomeni di espansione diffusa si associano, inoltre, costi pubblici e privati associati alla mobilità e alla fornitura e alla gestione delle opere di urbanizzazione primaria e secondaria. La frammentazione produce, infine, una forte riduzione della qualità della biodiversità complessiva nelle aree interessate, sia in termini di capacità residua di connessione degli ecosistemi sia di disponibilità dei servizi ecosistemici nelle unità territoriali.The knowledge of the different forms of urbanization and type of settlements are key element of sustainability and urban resilience. The processes of diffusion, urban sprawl and fragmentation continue to produce a consequent loss of boundaries between urban and rural land (Guess, 1990, 2009; Simon, 2008). Consumption of natural resources and threatening of land quality take place through the creation of small-medium sized urban centers outside of the major metropolitan, through the growth of dispersed settlements in marginal areas around the centers, through low-density settlement in a continuum that cancels the boundaries between urban and rural land, through landscape fragmentation and the lack of identity of the settlements scattered and without cohesion. The environmental and social effects of those phenomena are relevant in terms of environmental quality, integrity of the landscape and the consumption of natural resources. The magnitude of these effects depends strongly on how transformation is realized. In Europe and in Italy, the majority of expansion of the sealed areas is in urban and peri-urban fringe of many major cities, as a mixture of different types of land use, driving to the greater increase in the land take in this fringe areas and suburban landscapes (EEA, 2006; ISPRA, 2015). Is known that dispersed and fragmented urbanization is associated with widespread expansion of public and private costs associated with mobility and costs of primary and secondary urbanization. Fragmentation produces, finally, a strong reduction in the quality of the overall biodiversity, in terms of residual capacity of connection of ecosystems and the availability of ecosystem services in the territorial units

The Clinical Impact of Methotrexate-Induced Stroke-Like Neurotoxicity in Paediatric Departments: An Italian Multi-Centre Case-Series

Introduction: Stroke-like syndrome (SLS) is a rare subacute neurological complication of intrathecal or high-dose (≥500 mg) Methotrexate (MTX) administration. Its clinical features, evoking acute cerebral ischaemia with fluctuating course symptoms and a possible spontaneous resolution, have elicited interest among the scientific community. However, many issues are still open on the underlying pathogenesis, clinical, and therapeutic management and long-term outcome. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed clinical, radiological and laboratory records of all patients diagnosed with SLS between 2011 and 2021 at 4 National referral centers for Pediatric Onco-Hematology. Patients with a latency period that was longer than 3 weeks between the last MTX administration of MTX and SLS onset were excluded from the analysis, as were those with unclear etiologies. We assessed symptom severity using a dedicated arbitrary scoring system. Eleven patients were included in the study. Results: The underlying disease was acute lymphoblastic leukemia type B in 10/11 patients, while fibroblastic osteosarcoma was present in a single subject. The median age at diagnosis was 11 years (range 4–34), and 64% of the patients were women. Symptoms occurred after a mean of 9.45 days (± 0.75) since the last MTX administration and lasted between 1 and 96 h. Clinical features included hemiplegia and/or cranial nerves palsy, paraesthesia, movement or speech disorders, and seizure. All patients underwent neuroimaging studies (CT and/or MRI) and EEG. The scoring system revealed an average of 4.9 points (± 2.3), with a median of 5 points (maximum 20 points). We detected a linear correlation between the severity of the disease and age in male patients. Conclusions: SLS is a rare, well-characterized complication of MTX administration. Despite the small sample, we have been able to confirm some of the previous findings in literature. We also identified a linear correlation between age and severity of the disease, which could improve the future clinical management