Aestimum

A life cycle perspective for infrastructure management

2021-06-16T15:24:25+00:00

Circular Economy, founded on the self-generative economic system concept, can be traced back to the Life Cycle Thinking, that conceives the project as a process along its whole life cycle, at the different scales: material, component, system, building, urban district and territorial area, infrastructure. In Italy, as in the main part of European Countries, a great portion of infrastructures was built in reinforced concrete before 1960 and is approaching the end-of-life stage. Thus, aim of this article is to propose an operative modality for supporting the preventive maintenance investments planning in function of life cycle costs and benefits, assuming the presence of uncertainty over time. Firstly, a recalling of the Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) approach is presented. Secondly, the Life Cycle Cost Benefit Analysis (LCCBA) approach is proposed, as a tool for supporting long-term investments, management of public services and maintenance planning activities in the infrastructure sector. Thirdly, by integrating CBA and LCCBA, an operative modality is proposed. On the background, life cycle management, optimal maintenance planning and durability concepts are assumed.

Opportunity-spaces for self-regenerative processes: assessing the intrinsic value of complex peri-urban systems

2021-05-11T13:05:42+00:00

The research aims at evaluating the ability of a peri-urban system to activate territorial self-regenerative processes, according to Circular Economy principles. The adopted methodology identifies opportunity-spaces, through indices of space heterogeneity and of the relational dynamics, established in collective spaces. Through a site-specific set of indicators, it evaluates opportunity-spaces intrinsic value, adopting Analytic Network Process (ANP) as Multi-Criteria Decision Aid method (MCDA). As a result, five categories of opportunity-spaces are defined and spatialised, within hill area of Naples, in the South of Italy.

Climate change and urban well-being: a methodology based on Sen theory and imprecise probabilities

2021-06-21T13:11:01+00:00

The phenomenon of urban heat waves are becoming a significant public health problem in the summer season. Global warming is therefore not only an environmental problem, but also an ethical and political issue of climate justice. The research was based on the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen. The aim of the study is to (1) identify a set of indicators that allows to estimate the risk of decreased individual well-being; (2) implement these indicators in a probabilistic model that allows to explicitly consider the lack of certain knowledge on the effects of climate change; (3) provide high resolution urban mapping for climate change adaptation strategies.
The research focused on the vulnerable people (elderly people and children) in the city of Rosignano Solvay.
The combination of the results, obtained through the aggregation Dempster’s rule, allows to identify the most critical areas on which it is necessary to intervene or through mitigation or urban regeneration.

Towards sustainable and inclusive communities: an integrated approach to assess sustainability in rural areas

2021-06-16T15:24:29+00:00

Sustainable development is a priority in EU rural development strategies. Due to the multidimensionality of the sustainability issue, this paper presents a Spatial Decision Support System to assess territorial sustainability and help decision-makers in rural planning process. Four globally valid sustainability dimensions were considered (long-term ecological sustainability, satisfaction of basic human needs, promotion of intragenerational and intergenerational equity), measured by a set of socio-cultural-political-environmental indicators by using the Mazziotta and Pareto method.
The results of the S-DSS, implemented and verified in Basilicata region (southern Italy), provide the maps of sustainability values for each dimension at municipalities level, showing the usefulness of the tool to identify and monitor rural areas that require priority interventions and resources, in order to foster sustainable rural development.

Circular Economy and adaptive reuse of historical buildings: an analysis of the dynamics between real estate and accommodation facilities in the city of Naples (Italy)

2021-06-16T15:24:19+00:00

The urban regeneration of historic centres is an extremely topical issue in the contemporary debate and is an essential prerequisite for the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals. Adaptive reuse of the abandoned heritage represents an effective strategy to give new life to abandoned or underused portions of territory, hosting functions more suited to the needs of the contemporary city and its characterizing phenomena. This work is the result of an experimentation that has as object of investigation the historic centre of Naples where, according to some recent data, there has been a significant increase in Bed and Breakfasts, some often as result of cultural heritage reuse processes. After having spatially represented the market values of residential buildings through the elaboration of a Geographic Information System, it was possible to verify the existence of a relation between the dynamics of the real estate and the rise of new accommodation facilities, often located in historic buildings subjected to adaptive reuse processes.

The role of fiscal and monetary policy in stimulating Circular Economy in Iraq

2021-06-16T15:24:37+00:00

The issue of the Circular Economy is not a new issue to several countries, especially the developed ones. Here in Iraq it is considered newly introduced, despite the few attempts to establish projects that concern recycling most of them were doomed to fail, due to two main reasons: the first one is the financial and administrative corruption widespread in all departments of the country, the second one is the priorities of public spending. It is well known that Iraq was subjected to two major attacks, the ISIS entry attack in 2014 to Iraq. ISIS occupied about a third of Iraqi lands which resulted in a collapse in oil prices, as Iraq depends almost entirely on oil revenues in its budget which is the second attack. This made the Iraqi governments point public spending towards the priority of preserving national security and liberating Iraqi lands. Therefore, the circular economy project proposals were not considered a priority under these circumstances.

Short-Term City Dynamics: Effects and Proposals before the Covid-19 Pandemic

2021-06-16T15:24:03+00:00

Sharing platforms have been changing urban balances and triggering historical cities’ transformation from a structural, economic, and social perspective before the Covid-19 Pandemic.
In particular, Airbnb influences urban space, production through physical impacts and the tendency to mystify places, appealing to authenticity and experiential tourism. New images of reality, mediated by the platform, constitute the symbolic production of the city’s tourist palatability, which is intertwined with new uses and the exasperation of the consumption of a part of the cultural heritage. The research aims to structure a hybrid methodological approach combining investigation and assessment for identifying and understanding the impacts of touristification and over-tourism on the urban dimension and develop intervention strategies consistent with the Circular Economy perspective. In Southern Italy, Naples City is chosen as a case study and field test.

Modelli Decisionali Multi Criterio per l’analisi della vulnerabilità sismica a scala territoriale: il caso studio della Garfagnana (Toscana).

2021-06-16T15:24:08+00:00

Italy is one of the countries with the greatest historic heritage in the world, but also one of the most seismic. In this context an earthquake can cause significant damage. Usually, the vulnerability of a building is verified with in-depth and expensive structural assessment, without considering spatial relations and local context. In this study a method is proposed for the assessment of Territorial Seismic Vulnerability, based on both building characteristics and morphological and spatial parameters. It is an urban-scale approach that allows an objective classification of buildings using an economical procedure. The method, based on the development of a geographical Multiple Criteria Decision Making model and on the participatory approach of the Analytic Hierarchy Process, has been tested in the study area of Garfagnana (Tuscany). The model can be a useful support tool for urban planning, allowing the optimization of public resources in the most vulnerable areas.

Transitioning agri-food systems into circular economy trajectories

2021-06-16T15:24:13+00:00

Circular Economy (CE) might be the paradigm to re-conceptualize future agri-food industries and recreate a balanced co-existence of ecological and economic systems. Research is then called to find solutions for transitioning into CE. The current paper will apply the theory of socio-technical transitions as a framework to build a step by step procedure to analyze and manage agri-food circular economy transitions and support stakeholders involved. The agro-ecological (cultivation and harvesting), agro-industrial (food processing) and consumption (food purchase) subsystems of agri-food supply chains are analysed to address the main challenges for the transition into CE. The current paper final goal is to generate an analytical framework, for practitioners and policy makers, to identify suitable technological, market, coordination and regulative solutions to orient future CE trajectories.

Urban Ecosystem Services to support the design process in urban environment. A case study of the Municipality of Milan

2021-06-16T15:23:59+00:00

In dense urban areas nature capital is a vital resource for providing numerous ecosystem services important for human welfare and survival but at the same time cities provide several different private and public services. Both, natural and human services, contribute to the overall well being of the citizens. The present paper aims at mapping and evaluating the “Urban ecosystem services” (UESs) that are generated from natural capital in combination with human-derived capital, and that contribute, directly or indirectly, to human well-being in urban areas. This paper aims at analysing, mapping and evaluating different types of UESs both natural and human origin in the case study of the municipality of Milan. A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) approach has been implemented to synthetize and map the UESs. Finally, the paper describes how the present approach can support the design and urban planning process.

Evaluation of environmental impacts of historic buildings conservation through Life Cycle Assessment in a circular economy perspective

2021-06-16T15:23:54+00:00

Decarbonizing the economy is one of the main ambitions for the European Union. The construction sector contributes to global warming, during all buildings life cycle phases. Greenhouse gas emissions are present in the whole process of construction, use/operation and dismissing/demolishing. The Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an evaluation approach to assess CO₂ and other greenhouse gases emissions during the whole life cycle of a building or product. The aim of this paper is to test the LCA methodology for the evaluation of environmental impacts of historic buildings, towards a circular economy approach in the adaptive reuse of cultural heritage. The case study is an abandoned monastery in Salerno, Italy. Results show that LCA can effectively inform the design phase of cultural heritage adaptive reuse, comparing different conservation and design alternatives.