Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Technologies, University of Salento
Currently I am working at the University of the Salento, where I am involved in the following research fields: Biodiversity; Ecosystem services planning; Green Infrastructure; GIS and remote sensing applications in landscape planning and agriculture; Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA, Directive 2001/42/CE). The effort spent in such fields is highlighted in a number of scientific publications in international journals and a patent, as co-inventor, for a "Method for the evaluation of land conservation", Patent n.13425046.3 (2013). I developed a professional figure able to take on key roles in different topics: planning; coordination and consultancy with responsibility in the fields of local planning; urban design; landscape and environmental design and ability to interact with a complex clientele, whether public, private sector, and with expert and non-expert interlocutors. Now, I am working in green infrastructure traying to push a cultural transition in the projects that produce land-use change from a mono or interdisciplinary approach, that many times has led to a copy-and-paste in the plant design, i.e. using the same project in different places, to a transdisciplinary approach where every contribution is used to produce a holistic vision in the project, and involving both the private and the public sector. Innovation, in this case, consists of doing the same things but in a different way. In the last two years, I am also concentrating my research on analysis of the impact of changes in olive urban forests affected by Xylella fastidiosa on ecosystem services. The study has been carried out through (i) a qualitative analysis of the potential ecosystem services changes caused by temporary transition from olive groves to uncultivated soil, (ii) a study of the potential change of land use from monumental olive groves to other types of use, and (iii) a quantitative analysis on microclimate impact due to the loss of ecosystem services in two selected neighborhoods located in the Apulia region and chosen due to their proximity to the urban context. In the last report, the focus is on microclimate and thermal comfort evaluated by two indices: the temperature of equivalent perception (TEP) and the predicted mean vote (PMV), which take into account both microclimate parameters and personal factors (heat resistance of clothing and human activity).
Tuesday, August 3, 2021
ON DEMAND