Urban Geology for the Enhancement of the Hypogean Geosites: the Perugia Underground (Central Italy)

AbstractUrban geology analyses natural risks and promotes geoheritage in urban areas. In the cities, characterized by a high cultural value, the hypogean artificial cavities, often present in the downtown, offer a unique opportunity to show the geological substratum. Moreover, these places could be a point of interest in urban trekking with the abiotic component of the landscape as a topic (geotourism). To investigate these areas, rigorous bibliographic research and a geomorphological assessment are the first steps, but, besides, non-invasive methods are new techniques increasingly in demand. In this paper, we present a multidisciplinary study on the Etruscan Well (third century B.C.), one of the most important Etruscan artefacts in Perugia (Umbria region, Central Italy). The characteristics of the sedimentary deposits outcropping along the perimeter walls have been collected. Moreover, to show the underground geoheritage, we provide a 3D model of the well and the surrounding area integrating a georeferenced laser scanner survey with ground-penetrating radar prospecting. We aim to obtain a tridimensional mapping of accessible internal rooms to depict the geological characteristics of the Etruscan Well, also revealing a surrounding network of buried galleries. The results are not only a meaningful advancement in the archaeological, geological and historical knowledge of the downtown of Perugia but are a hint for the geoheritage promotion and dissemination, providing images and 3D reconstruction of underground areas

Geomorphometry 2020. Conference Proceedings

Geomorphometry is the science of quantitative land surface analysis. It gathers various mathematical, statistical and image processing techniques to quantify morphological, hydrological, ecological and other aspects of a land surface. Common synonyms for geomorphometry are geomorphological analysis, terrain morphometry or terrain analysis and land surface analysis. The typical input to geomorphometric analysis is a square-grid representation of the land surface: a digital elevation (or land surface) model. The first Geomorphometry conference dates back to 2009 and it took place in Zürich, Switzerland. Subsequent events were in Redlands (California), Nánjīng (China), Poznan (Poland) and Boulder (Colorado), at about two years intervals. The International Society for Geomorphometry (ISG) and the Organizing Committee scheduled the sixth Geomorphometry conference in Perugia, Italy, June 2020. Worldwide safety measures dictated the event could not be held in presence, and we excluded the possibility to hold the conference remotely. Thus, we postponed the event by one year - it will be organized in June 2021, in Perugia, hosted by the Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection of the Italian National Research Council (CNR IRPI) and the Department of Physics and Geology of the University of Perugia. One of the reasons why we postponed the conference, instead of canceling, was the encouraging number of submitted abstracts. Abstracts are actually short papers consisting of four pages, including figures and references, and they were peer-reviewed by the Scientific Committee of the conference. This book is a collection of the contributions revised by the authors after peer review. We grouped them in seven classes, as follows: • Data and methods (13 abstracts) • Geoheritage (6 abstracts) • Glacial processes (4 abstracts) • LIDAR and high resolution data (8 abstracts) • Morphotectonics (8 abstracts) • Natural hazards (12 abstracts) • Soil erosion and fluvial processes (16 abstracts) The 67 abstracts represent 80% of the initial contributions. The remaining ones were either not accepted after peer review or withdrawn by their Authors. Most of the contributions contain original material, and an extended version of a subset of them will be included in a special issue of a regular journal publication

Innovazione e metodi per la pianificazione territoriale

Innovazione e metodi per la pianificazione territorial

Ghost Mines for Geoheritage Enhancement in the Umbria Region (Central Italy)

The paper proposes a method to valorize abandoned mines whose traces were lost in the territory and in the collective memory. We selected two case studies in the Umbria region (central Italy) that were used as examples. The evidence of the presence of lignite mines on the Upper Tiber River Valley (northern Umbria) has been completely erased, and since they were located in rural areas, they represent an interesting challenge regarding recovering the memory of the places and proposing a no-longer-existent site as a geosite. The recovery and valorization of historical documents of the two lignite mines (Caiperino–Terranera and Carsuga) and their conversion into a digital format was carried out before constructing a geolocalized database in a GIS environment. This framework is the starting point for a promising dissemination process via a digital media app, using multimedia contents as video, 3D models and the principles of augmented reality (AR) to enhance the touristic or didactic experience and promote the cultural heritage of the territory by keeping the memory of ’ghost places’

Modelling risk hurricane elements in potentially affected areas by a GIS system

In the last decade, modelling hurricanes in potentially affected areas using geographical information systems (GIS) and geospatial cyberinfrastracture (GCI) has become a major topic of research. Despite some basic approaches, some unsolved questions are still under discussion. The disastrous effects of hurricanes on communities are well known, however there is a need to better understand the hazard contributions of the different components related to a hurricane, such as storm surges, floods and high winds. In this paper, the selected approach is to determine an onset zoning from a set of attributes that are considered to govern the hurricane while examining the influence of each individual component that produces the final exposure. To this end, this study assesses the different components using parameters derived from topography, bathymetry and hurricane physical indexes. Key attributes are the river network, the topography, the wetness index and the offline bathymetry. Complementary data include the CMORPH rain dataset and the hurricane track together with its structure model, both based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) datasets. Total hazard results were then overlaid with population data in the overall assessment of elements at risk. The approach, which made use of a number of available global and free datasets, was then validated on a regional basis using ground data collected by the World Food Programme (WFP) over the study area (Central America region) for a specific hurricane. © 2010 Taylor & Francis

A new digital lithological Map of Italy at 1:100.000 scale

We present a lithological map of Italy at a scale of 1:100.000, obtained from classification of a comprehensive digital database. We first obtained the full database, containing about 300.000 geo-referenced polygons, from the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research. We grouped polygons according to a lithological classification by expert analysis of the original 5,456 unique descriptions of polygons, following geo-mechanical criteria. The procedure resulted in a lithological map with a legend including 19 classes, intended mainly for slope stability assessment, geo-morphological and geo-hydrological purposes. Other possible applications, including geo-environmental studies, evaluation of river chemical composition, estimation of raw material resources, are also possible and encouraged