Abstract
Fast urbanization and industrialization have progressively caused severe impacts on mountainous, river, and coastal environments, and have increased the risks for people living in these areas. Human activities have changed ecosystems hence it is important to determine ways to predict these consequences to enable the preservation and restoration of these key areas. Furthermore, extreme events attributed to climate change are becoming more frequent, aggravating the entire scenario and introducing ulterior uncertainties on the accurate and efficient management of these areas to protect the environment as well as the health and safety of people. In actual fact, climate change is altering rain patterns and causing extreme heat, as well as inducing other weather mutations. All these lead to more frequent natural disasters such as flood events, erosions, and the contamination and spreading of pollutants. Therefore, efforts need to be devoted to investigate the underlying causes, and to identify feasible mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce negative impacts on both the environment and citizens. To contribute towards this aim, the selected papers in this Special Issue covered a wide range of issues that are mainly relevant to: (i) the numerical and experimental characterization of complex flow conditions under specific circumstances induced by the natural hazards; (ii) the effect of climate change on the hydrological processes in mountainous, river, and coastal environments, (iii) the protection of ecosystems and the restoration of areas damaged by the effects of climate change and human activities.
Highlights
During the last few decades, urbanization, which refers to an increase in population and the amount of industrialization of a settlement, has become one of the dominant forms of landscape disturbance [1]
To contribute to filling the needs identified within these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this Special Issue aimed at gathering the latest developments in advanced numerical and experimental modeling and other technologies, to provide a better understanding of the specific phenomena associated with natural disasters, and to predict and evaluate changes in river, coastal, and mountainous environments induced by extreme events and human activities
Developing the advanced macroscopic equations of mass and momentum for the interaction at an interface of flow with porous media [56]. This Special Issue has covered a wide range of contemporary issues on the impacts to the environments generated by global climate changes and human activities
Summary
During the last few decades, urbanization, which refers to an increase in population and the amount of industrialization of a settlement, has become one of the dominant forms of landscape disturbance [1]. Considering the variety of effects and areas at risk, climate change is likely to further increase community exposure to multiple risks, affecting the magnitude, frequency, and spatial distribution of hazardous and disastrous events [25,26]. To contribute to filling the needs identified within these SDGs, this Special Issue aimed at gathering the latest developments in advanced numerical and experimental modeling and other technologies, to provide a better understanding of the specific phenomena associated with natural disasters, and to predict and evaluate changes in river, coastal, and mountainous environments induced by extreme events and human activities. The articles published within this Special Issue aimed to aid local and national authorities on the design and implementation of mitigation strategies, providing tools that could secure a more accurate management of their environmental areas
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