Territorial Information System Research Articles

BIM-modeling for geodetic control of construction

Problem. At each stage of the city's reconstruction, high-resolution three-dimensional photogrammetric or laser models can be superimposed and compared to pre-planned BIM objects. The issue is researching the causes of aerial photography errors and identifying the ways to eliminate them. Goal. The task of experimental research is to determine the hovering height of an unmanned aerial vehicle relative to the earth's surface and to compare the value of the height with the planned parameters of the on-board navigator. Methodology. A Phantom-3 quadrocopter, a TRIMBLE 3305DR electronic total station, and a 3T5KP optical theodolite were used for the experiment. Nivelir 2N10KL marks were pasted on the four sides of the quadcopter and the distance from the bottom of its legs to the mark was measured to guide the grid of sighting tubes of the electronic total station and theodolite. Results. As a result of the experiment, it was found that the deviation in the height of the quadcopter is + 1.22 m and + 1.38 m from the planned one, but these values do not correspond to the accuracy specified by the unmanned aerial vehicles manufacturer, which is ± 0.1 m. Originality. New BIM method creates new possibilities for geodesists on construction sites. Geodesists in their practice on construction sites when performing geodetic works have to quickly adapt to new operational procedures, requirements on spatial determination of objects, new technical equipment, SW instruments and standards exploited in BIM method. The value of geodetic works is also the transformation of the resulting spatial data into territorial information systems in 3D-representation. Practical value. The maximum deviation of the quadcopter in the plan from the starting point was 1.25 m for the planned height of the quadcopter of 20 m, and all other values do not exceed ± 1 m, which corresponds to the accuracy of keeping the quadcopter in the vertical plan. It is expedient to use situational aerial photography with the help of a quadrocopter in the study of destroyed buildings in modern urban development. It is especially necessary to obtain a general photograph of the area on which research is being carried out, when this cannot be done from the ground.

Моделирование процессов процедуры разработки плана действий по предупреждению и ликвидации чрезвычайных ситуаций для организаций

An analysis was carried out concerning the previously developed structural and functional model of the procedure for developing an Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations for Organizations built on the basis of the process approach. The relevance is shown related to further elaboration of this model to determine the mechanism of interaction of all its elements. The purpose of the article is to model the processes of the procedure for developing an Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations based on the integrated application of system analysis methods. When modeling the structural, functional approaches, decomposition, and composition methods, as well as the IDEF0 methodology were used. At the same time, the entire process of developing the Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations is presented in the form of a tree of the main processes and their decomposition to the minimum required sub-processes. For each of the identified processes and sub-processes the models were compiled in the form of diagrams according to the IDEF0 methodology. The constructed diagrams allow to establish and analyze the informational and functional relationship between various processes and subprocesses of the procedure under study. The identified mechanism of interaction between elements of processes and sub-processes in the future can become the basis for modeling the concept of a territorial information system for the development of an Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations. Such an information system will allow developers of plans to automatically receive the required information considering the specifics of the organization of activities for each territorial subsystem of the Unified State System for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations. At the same time, the information system will ensure optimal interaction between the authorities of municipalities and the developers of the Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations for their coordination. The constructed models can also be used in the future in practice in the implementation of structural and functional modeling of the procedure for developing an Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of Emergency Situations for Individual Organizations.

Il sistema informativo territoriale della “Carta del rischio del patrimonio culturale italiano” e i siti UNESCO italiani: un processo virtuoso per il monitoraggio della vulnerabilità dei beni patrimonio mondiale

The territorial information system was born following the Law of 19 April 1990, n. 84 (in Gazz. Uff., 26 April, n. 96), as an organic plan for the inventory, cataloging and elaboration of the Risk Charter for cultural heritage: first interventions. The system implements the pilot plan for the planned conservation of the cultural heritage of Umbria, a study promoted by Giovanni Urbani, then director of the Central Institute of Restoration. The Risk Map is a GIS composed of an alphanumeric database and the cartographic component, capable of exploring, superimposing and processing information relating to potential territorial and environmental risk factors linked to cultural heritage. The Risk Card system has two levels of risk. The first relates the concentration of assets and the danger of the territory, in order to evaluate, following a calamitous event, the probability of loss of the cultural heritage (Territorial risk). The second, on the other hand, evaluates the risk of loss of the individual cultural property and is implemented through the filing on the field of the vulnerability of cultural assets (evidenced by the state of conservation) and the relationship with the territorial danger around the property (Local risk). The CdR system produces and exposes the data present with WMS services (raster data), architectural and archaeological real estate (punctual, linear and polygonal), underwater archaeological files, historical centers and aggregated urban units of historical centers. It also has WFS services (vector data) of architectural and archaeological real estate (punctual, linear and polygonal), containers of movable goods (punctual), historical centers and aggregated urban units of historical centers. Since 2012, the Risk Charter has been in the interoperability of the Ministry of Culture within the territorial computerized system Constraints in the network, with which it increases the registry and georeferencing of cultural assets present for various reasons in the SigecWeb (ICCD) and Protected Assets systems (DG ABAP). Thanks to the agreement signed between the Service II - UNESCO Office of the General Secretariat and the Directorate General for Security of the Ministry of Culture, the system will be used for the assessment of the territorial risk of Italian UNESCO sites, but also, for the first time, to support the request for registration of a site on the World Heritage List. This is the candidacy of the “Via Appia. Regina Viarum "for which, with the support of ISPRA, the levels of territorial danger will be analyzed in detail, with reference to both natural disasters (earthquake, landslides, etc.) and to problems deriving from simple atmospheric agents and from pollution. In addition, the data on the state of conservation of the ancient route and the assets related to it will be collected with the appropriate cards of the Risk Card, which will allow the processing of vulnerability indicators and local risk indicators, which will be proposed to the UNESCO for monitoring the site over time.

Development of sectorial and territorial information system to monitor GHG emissions as local and regional climate governance tool: Case study in Valencia (Spain)

Regional and local decision-makers need high quality GHG emission inventories to invest efficiently available resources in climate change mitigation measures. Nevertheless, decision-makers lack of tools to achieve GHG emissions inventories with enough rigor, accuracy and completeness. Thus, a territorial and sectorial information system (SITE) has been developed to monitor GHG emissions as local and regional climate governance tool. This system combines the advantages of both, top-down and bottom-up approaches, to achieve an innovative hybrid approach to account and manage efficiently GHG emissions. The implementation of SITE in Valencia region (Spain) as a case study has quantified 163 indicators in 542 municipalities. Regional gross GHG emissions in 2019 were 30 Mt. CO2 while the fixation was 6 Mt. CO2 eq. 1.8% municipalities emit 34% of total emissions. 34% municipalities fix more than they emit. Finally, sectoral analysis demonstrates that only 20% indicators are responsible for 85% of total emissions.

Data mining and socio-spatial patterns of COVID-19: geo-prevention keys for tackling the pandemic

A geographic perspective is essential in tackling COVID-19. This research study is framed in the collaboration project set up by the University of Cantabria, the Valdecilla Hospital Research Institute (IDIVAL) and the Regional Government of Cantabria. The case study is the Santander functional urban area (FUA), which is considered from a multi-scale perspective. The main source is the daily records of micro-data on COVID-19 cases and the methodology is based on ESRI geo-technologies, and more specifically on a tool called SITAR (a Spanish acronym which stands for Fast-Action Territorial Information System). The main goal is to analyse and contribute to knowledge of the spatial patterns of COVID-19 at neighbourhood level from a space-time perspective. To that end the research is based on data mining methods (3D bins and emerging hot-spots) and exploratory geo-statistical analysis (Global Moran’s Index, Nearest Neighbourhood and Ordinary Least Square analyses, among others). The study identifies space-time patterns that show significant hot-spots and demonstrates a high presence of the virus at building level in neighbourhoods where residential and economic uses are mixed. Knowing the spatial behaviour of the virus is strategically important for proposing geo-prevention keys, reducing spread and balancing trade-offs between potential health gains and economic burdens resulting from interventions to deal with the pandemic.

GEOINFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN INDUSTRIAL CADASTRE: DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT

The article is devoted to the review of branch cadastres, their development with the use of geographic information technologies and the improvement of the legal regulation of the cadastral data system. It is established that branch cadastres are an information base for effective management of nature and environmental protection. The complex management nature necessitates to achieve a full relationship between the individual components of information support related to the characteristics of natural resources. Sectoral cadastres are the basis of territorial information systems, and the complexity of information in them is achieved through the use of calculated integrated indicators, iterative expert assessments based on the analysis of data on individual natural resources, as well as environmental monitoring data and government statistics. The importance of developing a national infrastructure of geospatial data, which will further increase their capacity to address critical public challenges, namely: emergency management, economic processes, effective governance in the field of public utilities and many other public administration functions. The development of GIS technologies in Ukraine is at the production stage of development, which is characterized by active implementation in assessing the value of modern software products, creating comprehensive and thematic electronic maps, using satellite and GPS data, using the Internet. Responsible and competent decision-making on territorial management, including the implementation of land planning and land management, requires integrated processing and analysis of information and geospatial data contained in separate departmental and sectoral cadastral and registration systems. The integration of cadastral data of different quality should be considered as one of the most urgent tasks. The development of geographic information technologies and cadastral systems requires the development of algorithms that will allow to combine geodata in an automated mode and without human intervention that have differences in the completeness of materials, their relevance, origin, reliability. The openness of the system of state branch cadastres promotes the ability of every citizen to obtain information about natural resources, protection of the rights and legitimate interests of the owners of such resources. This necessitates legislative regulation for providing procedure cadastral information as a separate stage of the cadastral process. Keywords: land resources, forest resources, water resources, geographic information system, management mechanisms, integration.

Differencing the Risk of Reiterative Spatial Incidence of COVID-19 Using Space–Time 3D Bins of Geocoded Daily Cases

The space–time behaviour of COVID-19 needs to be analysed from microdata to understand the spread of the virus. Hence, 3D space–time bins and analysis of associated emerging hotspots are useful methods for revealing the areas most at risk from the pandemic. To implement these methods, we have developed the SITAR Fast Action Territorial Information System using ESRI technologies. We first modelled emerging hotspots of COVID-19 geocoded cases for the region of Cantabria (Spain), then tested the predictive potential of the method with the accumulated cases for two months ahead. The results reveal the difference in risk associated with areas with COVID-19 cases. The study not only distinguishes whether a bin is statistically significant, but also identifies temporal trends: a reiterative pattern is detected in 58.31% of statistically significant bins (most with oscillating behaviour over the period). In the testing method phase, with positive cases for two months ahead, we found that only 7.37% of cases were located outside the initial 3D bins. Furthermore, 83.02% of new cases were in statistically significant previous emerging hotspots. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show the usefulness of the 3D bins and GIS emerging hotspots model of COVID-19 microdata in revealing strategic patterns of the pandemic for geoprevention plans.

Facing a Second Wave from a Regional View: Spatial Patterns of COVID-19 as a Key Determinant for Public Health and Geoprevention Plans.

Several studies on spatial patterns of COVID-19 show huge differences depending on the country or region under study, although there is some agreement that socioeconomic factors affect these phenomena. The aim of this paper is to increase the knowledge of the socio-spatial behavior of coronavirus and implementing a geospatial methodology and digital system called SITAR (Fast Action Territorial Information System, by its Spanish acronym). We analyze as a study case a region of Spain called Cantabria, geocoding a daily series of microdata coronavirus records provided by the health authorities (Government of Cantabria—Spain) with the permission of Medicines Ethics Committee from Cantabria (CEIm, June 2020). Geocoding allows us to provide a new point layer based on the microdata table that includes cases with a positive result in a COVID-19 test. Regarding general methodology, our research is based on Geographical Information Technologies using Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Technologies. This tool is a global reference for spatial COVID-19 research, probably due to the world-renowned COVID-19 dashboard implemented by the Johns Hopkins University team. In our analysis, we found that the spatial distribution of COVID-19 in urban locations presents a not random distribution with clustered patterns and density matters in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, large metropolitan areas or districts with a higher number of persons tightly linked together through economic, social, and commuting relationships are the most vulnerable to pandemic outbreaks, particularly in our case study. Furthermore, public health and geoprevention plans should avoid the idea of economic or territorial stigmatizations. We hold the idea that SITAR in particular and Geographic Information Technologies in general contribute to strategic spatial information and relevant results with a necessary multi-scalar perspective to control the pandemic.

A COMPLETE FOS APPROACH FOR INDOOR CROWDSOURCED MAPPING: CASE STUDY ON SAPIENZA UNIVERSITY OF ROME FACULTIES

Abstract. Indoor mapping is an essential process in several applications such as the visualization of space and its utilization, security and resource planning, emergency planning and location-based alerts and, last but not least, indoor navigation. In this work, a completely free and open-source (FOS) approach to map indoor environments, and to navigate through them, is presented. Our tests were carried out within Sapienza University of Rome public buildings; in detail, Letters and Philosophy faculty and Engineering faculty indoor environments were mapped. To reach this goal, only open source software such as Quantum GIS (QGIS) and open-source platforms like Open Street Map (OSM) and its indoor viewer, Open Level Up (OLU) were adopted. A database of indoor environments of the two faculties, completely compatible with OLU, was created through QGIS. In this way, a public territorial information system of classrooms, offices and laboratories is accessible to everyone who can, hence, add or modify the information, following the principle of crowdsourcing and of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). The developed procedure is now standard and its outputs accepted by the OSM community. Hence, the long-term developments of this project are the proposal for the volunteered and cooperative indoor mapping and design of strategic buildings and infrastructures (hospitals, schools, public offices, shopping centers, stations, airports etc.), starting from the available information (indoor layouts) and knowledge acquired through experience of people who normally work inside them and/or visit them frequently. In this context it is possible to state that the development of VGI for internal maps for strategic buildings, infrastructures and denied GNSS environments, not only supports and improves internal and external navigation without interruption, but can also have a significant positive impact on security and emergency management.

Compilazione in ambiente QGIS delle schede per la gestione degli inquadramenti topografici: il popolamento della banca dati SITAR

The Archaeological Territorial Information System of Rome (SITAR) is a project of public and shared archaeology aimed at gathering all information on its archaeological assets. Data input into the database is operated by simple rules and minimum standards, which everyone working within the Roman archaeological territory should apply in order to normalise data description. QSITAR is a project developed within the QGIS framework. It aims at making the data entry user-friendly and standardized to allow the dataset to comply with SITAR guidelines

"Strumenti" Informativi Territoriali per la gestione comunale del dato nel terremoto dell'Italia centrale: problemi e opportunità

In the transition from the post-earthquake emergency situation to the day-to-day management of the path for a difficult return to normality, the tools provided by the Territorial Information Systems can play a key role in organizing and simplifying the complex relationship of local government with citizenship. Exposing some useful data and information, in the light of the needs gathered in a sample area inserted in the crater.

The Territorial Information System for Cultural Heritage of the national territory: the case study of the south-western area of Salento Peninsula

Cultural heritage sites are threatened by a variety of natural factors and anthropogenic activities. Innovative and cost effective tools for monitoring systems and CH sites are needed to protect them. Towards this direction, the paper outlines an approach for digitally recording cultural heritage sites. This approach involves the implementation of the Territorial Information System for the Cultural Heritage of the Italian territory (SIT - Sistema Informativo territoriale per i Beni Culturali del territorio italiano) for further management and analysis. It is also for this reason that the SIT, with the primary purpose of high-level knowledge on documentation and management, is set up in such a way as to be functional to the protection and enhancement and, above all, to the planning of Public Authorities of territorial governance. The SIT is operational and tested in sample areas of central and southern Italy and is in continuous development in collaboration with research facilities (University and CNR) and tested in representative territorial areas such as the south-western sector of the Salento Peninsula, which is presented in this paper as a sample area.

Changes in emergency services to adapt to the complexity pathway within the health system

Context: In most developed countries, there is an increase of frail elderly people who are frequent users of health and social resources, often in an unplanned way. Recently, because of sustainability, there has been a significant reduction in acute hospital beds. These two phenomena have led to a saturation of the emergency services and increased the need for a new organizational model. This problem needs to be approached in a systemic way, by viewing it as a problem of the health system as a whole, not just as issue for emergency departments. To address the growing demands on the health system, the government has devised a system of pathways through the health service for the most frequently occurring medical needs of the population, for example, diabetes and, in relation to this paper, a complexity pathway. This involves the identification of patients and the development of treatment plans, and at the same time the reorganization of services to provide care in the most coordinated way possible. This paper aims to describe how an emergency service has been reorganized in the context of a complexity pathway through the health system and what impact it has had on the rate of hospitalizations and alternatives to hospitalization. Organizational changes: - Proactively detect patients who may be candidates for alternatives to hospital from the emergency department: patients already marked as complex from the community (use of territorial information systems), patients from nursing homes, patients who consult for a geriatric syndrome and patients aged over 85. - Involve all emergency service professionals through training in how to approach this demographic group. - The hospital management believes it is a strategic project. - Introduction of a short geriatric assessment in casualty departments. - Having a nurse practitioner who participates in the evaluation and management of cases and in coordinating all related intermediate care. - Having access to consultations with geriatric professionals from the acute geriatric unit or intermediate care units. Results in patients. - Up to October 2015, 437 patients were referred from emergency to intermediate care resources. 302 in the programme of sub-acute care and 135 in the hospital at home programme. - These patients are on average 81 years old, have a Barthel baseline of 61 and a high prevalence of geriatric syndromes. - The patients referred to sub-acute care had lower Barthel baseline and were classified as MACA (advanced chronic disease). Dementia diagnosis was more common. - This project has reduced the admissions in acute care of persons over 85 by 15% during the last two years. Conclusions: - Many patients were referred to hospitalization alternatives after applying this methodology. - The alternatives to hospitalization from casualty are allocated to people over 80 with a high level of frailty (geriatric syndromes, disability, advanced disease situation). - Patients have different characteristics according to which alternative they are referred to. - Hospital admissions of people > 85 to the acute hospital unit were reduced. - The participation of the nurse practitioner is the key to achieve good coordination with intermediate care.

Selected Aspects of Slovac Republic Territorial Development Visions

Paper deals with urbanization development of Slovakia regarding the rate and degree of urbanization, chances of urban spaces use of cities surroundings as consider to land rent, approximation of territorial development legislation to the free market economy conditions, regional visions creations new methods and inevitable need of territorial information systems deepening and automation.

Methods and Technologies for the Cultural Heritages in Basilicata region: a case-study from the coastal belt of Metapontum

The protection and promotion of Cultural Heritage require the application of innovative and non-invasive monitoring techniques for developing complete and detailed projects. The demand of cost-effective and rapid tools promoting long-term strategies for cultural heritage promotion and risk assessment is, therefore, urgent. These issues become indeed of paramount importance in the case of very large areas, such as the coastal ones, where the landscape morphoevolution - driven by climate changes - and the landscape modification - due to agricultural and industrial activities - have dramatically increased the exposure risk of Cultural Heritage. In such a framework, traditional monitoring methodologies appear impracticable. This is the reason why the MeTIBas (Italian acronym for Innovative Methods and Technologies for the Cultural Heritage in the Basilicata region) project has been developed. MeTIBas aims to develop an innovative geoarchaeological investigation approach for large areas (implementation of a Territorial Information System, drawing-up of an experimental digital geoarchaeological map, and creation of an open geoarchaeological database). MeTIBas has been developed in the coastal area of Metaponto, which roughly coincides with the ancient territory of the Greek settlement of Metapontum and its chora and includes a region of about 400 km2 in the Ionian sector of the Basilicata region (southern Italy). The data integration and joint analysis of the huge amount of MeTIBas heterogeneous data have been conveniently carried out in a GIS environment, thus allowing an effective combination of the information from different cognitive levels. Besides, the adoption of a Web GIS environment (a Geoplatform operating in Open Source Framework for Rich Web GIS Applications performed by geoSDI; www.geosdi.org) allows a wide dissemination of the information structured in the MeTIBas project.

New Strategies to Improve Governance in Territorial Management: Evolving from “Smart Cities” to “Smart Territories”

The economic, urban and social development of the territory that makes up the European Mediterranean area is based on many variables of very different fields. The infrastructure policy, urban growth of cities or sustainable use of land and energy resources are decisions that need to be planned in order to establish priorities to optimize these processes. However, it is important to note that all of these fields are influenced by a multitude of interrelated economic, political or social parameters. Now that numerous protocols are appearing worldwide to develop these processes within cities (the so-called “smart cities”), the real challenge for the future is to make the leap from the urban scale to the regional scale and deploy these policies in an integrated manner, in so-called “smart territories”.This article presents a model of territorial analysis that consists of more than 50 indicators implemented in territorial information systems. The model is based on research conducted in the Otremed project, a multilateral project funded by ERDF and developed between 2009 and 2013 by various countries and institutions of the Mediterranean area. Through the results and tools developed in this project, the so-called GIS retrospective analysis is proposed. This tool, designed to help in decision-making and to advance future diagnostics in territorial management, will allow the development policies of cities to be optimized, generating synergies in transport infrastructures and planning with sustainable criteria in land and other resources use. All these processes will be integrated at regional level with an innovative methodology based on the analysis of territory evolution through referenced geographic information tools.

ANTHROPIC RISK ASSESSMENT ON BIODIVERSITY

Abstract. This paper presents a methodology for risk assessment of anthropic activities on habitats and species. The method has been developed for Veneto Region, in order to simplify and improve the quality of EIA procedure (VINCA). Habitats and species, animals and plants, are protected by European Directive 92/43/EEC and 2009/147/EC but they are subject at hazard due to pollution produced by human activities. Biodiversity risks may conduct to deterioration and disturbance in ecological niches, with consequence of loss of biodiversity. Ecological risk assessment applied on Natura 2000 network, is needed to best practice of management and monitoring of environment and natural resources. Threats, pressure and activities, stress and indicators may be managed by geodatabase and analysed using GIS technology. The method used is the classic risk assessment in ecological context, and it defines the natural hazard as influence, element of risk as interference and vulnerability. Also it defines a new parameter called pressure. It uses risk matrix for the risk analysis on spatial and temporal scale. The methodology is qualitative and applies the precautionary principle in environmental assessment. The final product is a matrix which excludes the risk and could find application in the development of a territorial information system.

Land Information as a Key Issue of a Sustainable Development of Housing

Land has two major utilities: its value of use and its value of exchange. The right to housing, as recognised in a number of international human rights instruments, can be effectively provided by ensuring the use value of land. In the case of housing, this type of use is made up of two constituents: the generic residential condition as derived from the planning use given to land and its specific use as a family home. As housing affordability depends on the changing relationships between house prices and rent, and between house prices and income, one of the main alternatives that has been used to balance the equation, is the financing of the purchase price through the mortgage market. The real estate collapse that began in 2008 is attributable to many factors but two basic issues seem to be at the root of the problem: the mixture of credits of very different qualities in financial products and the lack of reliable information with regard to both the origin of the mortgage and the real estate that guaranteed it. Therefore, in order to maintain the efficiency of the mortgage market as a mechanism to provide affordable housing in conditions of sustainability, it is necessary, with a peremptory nature, to restructure the territorial information systems in such a manner so that they rely on real estate understood not just as the object of rights but also as physical objects that form part of the territory. At the same time, one of the details that must necessarily be included in the content of land information should be the use of a property as a family home, maintaining the circuit with regard to the mortgage chain of family homes permanently identified and isolated within the primary and secondary mortgage markets, both at the time of their constitution and later when the MBSs are issued.

Spatially explicit assessment of local biomass availability for distributed biogas production via anaerobic co-digestion – Mediterranean case study

Renewable energies, especially energy from biomass, contribute to the sustainable development of the territory. Simultaneously, by using biomass to produce bioenergy, bioreproductive land is devoted to supply energy. As the bioreproductive land area on the European level is decreasing, bioenergy competes against other demands like the production of food, industrial resources or cultural goods and services, among others, thus the correct assessment of the available local potential is important for local and regional planning. Moreover, bioenergy system being a socio-ecological system requires integrated approaches for the evaluation of the factors, components and interactions of such a system, considering that agriculture presents one of the major drivers of the land use change and biodiversity loss. Therefore, this work was focused on the development of the approach for and on the assessment of biogas potentials to provide a support for decision-makers and bioenergy industry at a local scale. The approach exploits the spatial relations among territorial units (i.e., a contiguity analysis), and integrates time series of continuous and discrete data. It is based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) combined with GIS-based analysis, and permitted to develop a territorial information system in support for biogas planning, perform analysis of feedstock for biogas from different sources potential and produce plausible scenarios for identification of biogas suitable territorial clusters; the analysis of the tradeoffs between the use of different local sources of the feedstock for biogas production are discussed as well.

Tecnologie e reti di conoscenza per un'agricoltura sostenibile

Technologies and knowledge networks for sustainable agriculture -Rational use of natural resources, energy saving, reduction of polluting emissions and rationalisation of product transport are just some of the watchwords that the logic of environmental sustainability is imposing on the farming industry. The new technologies available in agriculture for monitoring the environment, operations and production can today easily be linked to information and communications technologies in order to broaden knowledge of sustainable production systems. The present article discusses the Sistema Informativo Territoriale (Sit - Territorial Information System) targeted at creating networks of knowledge shared by produces, consumers, public authorities and transformation and distribution operators. As well as guiding farmers towards ‘sustainable’ forms of production, this model also provides guarantees for the consumer in terms of food safety, product quality and consumption ethics.