Urban imperviousness effects on summer surface temperatures nearby residential buildings in different urban zones of Parma

Rapid and unplanned urban growth is responsible for the continuous conversion of green or generally natural spaces into artificial surfaces. The high degree of imperviousness modifies the urban microclimate and no studies have quantified its influence on the surface temperature (ST) nearby residential building. This topic represents the aim of this study carried out during summer in different urban zones (densely urbanized or park/rural areas) of Parma (Northern Italy). Daytime and nighttime ASTER images, the local urban cartography and the Italian imperviousness databases were used. A reproducible/replicable framework was implemented named "Building Thermal Functional Area" (BTFA) useful to lead building-proxy thermal analyses by using remote sensing data. For each residential building (n = 8898), the BTFA was assessed and the correspondent ASTER-LST value (ST_BTFA) and the imperviousness density were calculated. Both daytime and nighttime ST_BTFA significantly (p < 0.001) increased when high levels of imperviousness density surrounded the residential buildings. These relationships were mostly consistent during daytime and in densely urbanized areas. ST_BTFA differences between urban and park/rural areas were higher during nighttime (above 1 °C) than daytime (about 0.5 °C). These results could help to identify "urban thermal Hot-Spots" that would benefit most from mitigation actions

Air temperature-related human health outcomes: Current impact and estimations of future risks in Central Italy

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Using a morpho-functional approach to assess phytoplankton dynamics in two adjacent high-mountain lakes: a 10-year survey

Colbricon Superiore and Inferiore are two small adjacent high-mountain lakes located in the Paneveggio Natural Park (Italy). The lakes differ by size and depth while sharing the same bedrock setting and catchment basin. Changes in the phytoplankton communities were studied over a 10-years period to individuate which environmental variables would determine the main differences in biotic assemblages across time and between the two lakes.The study was conducted with fortnightly samplings, assessing the density and biomass of algal taxa. Relationships of each of the biological variables with water temperature, pH, conductivity, transparency, water level, previous week rainfall, and relative water column stability were analyzed by correlation and regression analyses, cluster analysis, and by canonical correspondence analysis. The most significant variables resulted air temperature, hydrologic water level and pH. The smaller Colbricon Inferiore had about double the amount of phytoplankton density and biomass than did the larger Colbricon Superiore. The same lake had higher diversity and lower evenness in structure of the phytoplankton community. Notwithstanding their proximity each lake appears to follow independent species composition dynamics, however parallel patterns were interestingly revealed when data were analyzed by pooling taxa into morpho-functional groups. Morpho-functional groups (MFGs) 1b, 3a, 6b, 7a, 9b were differentially most abundant in warm periods, while 2c, 3b, 11c, 5e, 10a prevailed in cold years. MFGs 1b, 2d, 3a and 3b were more characteristic of Lake Colbricon Superiore, while Colbricon Inferiore preferentially featured MFGs 5a, 5e, 9a, 9b, 10a, 11a and 8a. The role of the meteo-climatic parameters was pointed out in driving the different patterns observed in the two lakes

Italian codified hashtags for weather warning on Twitter – who is really using them?

Abstract. During emergencies, an increasing number of messages are shared through social media platforms, becoming a primary source of information for lay people and emergency managers. Weather services and institutions have started to employ social media to deliver weather warnings even if sometimes this communication lacks in strategy. In Twitter, for example, hashtagging is very important to associate messages with certain topics; in recent years, codified hashtagging is emerging as a practical way to coordinate Twitter conversations during emergencies and quickly retrieve relevant information. In 2014, a syntax for codified hashtags for weather warning was proposed in Italy: a list of 20 hashtags, realized by combining #allertameteo (weather warning) + XXX, where final letters code the regional identification. This contribution presents a monitoring of Twitter usage of weather warning codified hashtags in Italy (since July 2015) and an analysis of different contexts. Twitter messages were retrieved using TwitterVigilance, a multi-users platform to crawl Twitter data, collect and store messages and perform quantitative analytics, about users, hashtags, tweets/retweets volumes. The Codified Hashtags data set is presented and discussed with main analytics and evaluation of regional contexts where it was successfully employed

Willage: A Two-Tiered Peer-to-Peer Resource Sharing Platform for Wireless Mesh Community Networks

The success of experiences such as Seattle and Houston Wireless has attracted the attention on the so called wireless mesh community networks. These are wireless multihop networks spontaneously deployed by users willing to share communication resources. Due to the community spirit characterizing such networks, it is likely that users will be willing to share other resources besides communication resources, such as data, images, music, movies, disk quotas for distributed backup, and so on. In other words, it is expected that peer-to-peer applications will be deployed in such type of networks. In this paper we propose Willage, a platform for resource localization in wireless mesh community networks with mobile users. The platform is based on a two-tiered architecture: resources are made available at the lower tier, which is composed of mobile terminals, whereas information on their localization is managed at the upper layer, which is composed of wireless mesh routers. We also introduce Georoy, an algorithm for the efficient retrieval of the information on resource localization based on the Viceroy algorithm. Simulation results show that Willage achieves its goal of enabling efficient and scalable peer-to-peer resource sharing in wireless mesh community networks