ADCP velocity profiles analisys in the Castellammare gulf

Velocity profiles have been collected in three points within the Castellammare gulf at around 1500 m far from the coastline. This area is characterized by the presence of an aquaculture farm that positioned 5 floating cages in this zone. The impact of this activity on the environment strictly depends on the currents and water exchange. The general aim of this research is the characterization of the circulation characteristics of this area. The analysis of the free surface oscillations shows the typical behaviour of tide forcing, with high minima and maxima during the night, due to the higher moon attraction during these hours compared with the morning hours. A prevalent current direction from South-West to North-East has been recorded at each depth. This direction is almost parallel to the coastline. This behaviour is probably determined by morphology of the area and the general circulation of the Castellammare gulf

Floodability: A New Paradigm for Designing Urban Drainage and Achieving Sustainable Urban Growth

For a large part of human history, urbanization was focused on two main objectives: defence and resource harvesting. The first objective was always achieved in a broad sense, i.e., defending the population from other humans and from natural events. Focusing on human activities, this defensive approach was also applied to urban drainage, which resulted in a systematic underestimation of the impacts of urbanization on natural systems. Environmental sustainability was introduced in an attempt to mitigate these impacts, as they had the potential to endanger future developments; thus, the possibility that urban floods may be the lesser evil was accepted. Resilience was then introduced to improve not only defence of urban areas but also their ability to recover from negative events, even though physical resilience is not always accompanied by social resilience. This paper attempts to address the philosophy of urban drainage design, introducing the new concept of floodability as an evolution of flood resilience by identifying its requirements and drivers and by using real examples to present the new concept

Soil water content assessment: Critical issues concerning the operational application of the triangle method

Knowledge of soil water content plays a key role in water management efforts to improve irrigation efficiency. Among the indirect estimation methods of soil water content via Earth Observation data is the triangle method, used to analyze optical and thermal features because these are primarily controlled by water content within the near-surface evaporation layer and root zone in bare and vegetated soils. Although the soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer theory describes the ongoing processes, theoretical models reveal limits for operational use. When applying simplified empirical formulations, meteorological forcing could be replaced with alternative variables when the above-canopy temperature is unknown, to mitigate the effects of calibration inaccuracies or to account for the temporal admittance of the soil. However, if applied over a limited area, a characterization of both dry and wet edges could not be properly achieved; thus, a multi-temporal analysis can be exploited to include outer extremes in soil water content. A diachronic empirical approach introduces the need to assume a constancy of other meteorological forcing variables that control thermal features. Airborne images were acquired on a Sicilian vineyard during most of an entire irrigation period (fruit-set to ripening stages, vintage 2008), during which in situ soil water content was measured to set up the triangle method. Within this framework, we tested the triangle method by employing alternative thermal forcing. The results were inaccurate when air temperature at airborne acquisition was employed. Sonic and aerodynamic air temperatures confirmed and partially explained the limits of simultaneous meteorological forcing, and the use of proxy variables improved model accuracy. The analysis indicates that high spatial resolution does not necessarily imply higher accuracies

Errata: Mapping soil water content under sparse vegetation and changeable sky conditions: comparison of two thermal inertia approaches

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Water and Energy Saving in Urban Water Systems: The ALADIN Project

The ALADIN project was aimed at contributing to environmental and energy sustainability of the urban water system by means of a decision support tool able to allow an evaluation of the energy impact related to each different macro-sectors of urban water cycle highlighting the main energy flows and to assess the system energy balance and identify the possible energy-efficient solutions. Moreover the tool suggests the most efficient actions in reducing water losses. In the present paper the main features of the developed tool are presented. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license

Multicriteria performance analysis of an integrated urban wastewater system for energy management

The optimization and management of an integrated urban wastewater system is a complex problem involving many processes and variables. The possible control options are defined by several management strategies that may differently impact the economic, operational or environmental performance of the system. The present paper aims to contribute to the environmental and energy sustainability of urban wastewater systems by means of a multicriteria performance analysis. The paper begins with a complete analysis of the system performance in several fields of interest (energy, environment, quality of service, operation, economy and financial resources), and it highlights the management strengths and weaknesses in each subsystem. The analysis was carried out by means of a prototype, developed during the ALADIN project, which enables understanding the system, planning effective improvement actions and assessing their possible effects in each part of the urban water cycle. To demonstrate the potential of such an approach, it was tested on an actual integrated urban wastewater system in Sicily