Starting from March 28, 2020 our journals launched a series of special calls for papers related to coronavirus disease.
The collection includes contributions published in regular issues, as well as articles currently in Press, awaiting publication in the upcoming Journals issues. All articles, including Articles in Press, have undergone the peer review process.
All these articles are freely accessible.
(links updated on April 13, 2021)
The following list covers published & In Press articles related to Covid-19 across Natural Sciences & Biomedics, including Chemistry, Geography, Ecology, Medical Science and Statistics.
Bio based and applied economics Journal
Rethinking wine consumption after Covid-19: the Italian scenario between new and disrupted habits
Giulia Gastaldello, Daniele Mozzato, Luca Rossetto, University of Padova, Italy
In Italy, wine is an integral part of most people’s habits and lifestyle. The advent of a traumatic event as the Covid pandemic, though, brought deep changes in people’s life: economic instability and normality disruption led consumers to revise their priorities and to modify their consumption and purchase behavior. The following study analyses the impact of socio-demographics, psychological and context-related modifications induced by the pandemic on wine consumption and purchase patterns. An online structured survey was delivered to a sample of Italian wine consumers and Logistic Regression was applied. Results highlight consuming wine is a deeply rooted habit in Italian consumers’ life which resisted the great context modifications following the pandemic. Changes in wine consumption, moreover, are connected to that of other alcoholic beverages. Psychological difficulties show no direct effect on variations in wine consumption frequency, while some significant indirect effects emerged. Information collected is paramount to understand wine consumers reaction and behavioral changes induced by the pandemic and effectively plan market(ing) strategies during new peaks of infection.
Published Online: 2020-11-24 |DOI: 10.13128/bae-10044 | full text
Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana
How COVID-19 Lockdown Impacted on Mobility and Environmental data
C. Badii, P. Bellini, S. Bilotta, D. Bologna, D. Cenni, A. Difino, A. Ipsaro Palesi, N. Mitolo, P. Nesi, G. Pantaleo, I. Paoli, M. Paolucci, M. Soderi, University of Florence, Italy
According to the COVID-19 lockdown and successive reopening a number of facts can be analysed. The main effects have been detected on: mobility and environment, and specifically on traffic, environmental data and parking. The mobility reduction has been assessed to be quite coherent with respect to what has been described by Google Global mobility report. On the other hand, in this paper a number of additional aspects have been put in evidence providing detailed aspects on mobility and parking that allowed us to better analyze the impact of the reopening on an eventual revamping of the infection, also taking into account of the Rt index. To this end, the collected data from the field have been compared from those of Google and some considerations with respect to the Imperial college Report 20 have been derived. For the pollutant aspects, a relevant reduction on most of them has been measured and rationales are reported. The solution has exploited the Snap4City IOT smart city infrastructure and data collector and Dashboard in place in Tuscany
Accepted: 2020-06-03 | Published Online: 2020-06-26 | DOI: 10.13128//bsgi.v2i2.932 | full text
Bollettino della Società Geografica Italiana
COVID-19 pandemic and the Sustainable Development Goals. Strategies to Spanish mass tourist destinations restructure
A. Gabarda-Mallorquí, R.M. Fraguell, Department of Geography, University of Girona, Spain
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has put the mass tourism sector in Spain in check. The measures to contain the spread of the virus have led to the loss of millions of euros and thousands of jobs in the sector. There are three factors regarding mass tourism management that make the sector even more fragile, jeopardizing its recovery once the pandemic is under control: currently, tourist destinations cannot yet guarantee physical distance, their work structure is not inclusive, and there are not enough multi-sector global alliances. These three circumstances do not allow the sector to be more resilient and able to face future outbreaks. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are, today more than ever, essential for the adaptation of the sector to new post-COVID-19 phases. Thus, with a strategy based on objectives 3, 8 and 17, the sector will move towards healthier, more inclusive and more cooperative tourist destinations, being able to face new outbreaks and even future health crises.
Accepted: 2020-07-18 | Published Online: 2020-08-03 | DOI: 10.13128//bsgi.v2i2.940 | full text
Cambio Journal
Technological welfare as an answer to the pandemic emergency: education and healthcare in the Italian case
Federico Sofritti, Francesco Orazi, Polytechnic University of Marche, Italy
The “forced” digitalization induced by Covid-19 raised the issue of the relationship between technology and society (Carboni 2020). The New Technologies (NTs) represent a social inclusion tool and a dangerous source of inequalities. The emergency is putting pressure on the welfare systems and is making it necessary to “govern” the processes without abandoning them to forms of technological laissez-faire. The pandemic has highlighted the systemic fragilities in Italian digitalization, as shown by the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) 2020 survey. This work will shed light on two of these fragilities: the healthcare system and the school and university distance learning. In particular, it will be investigated how these two sectors are facing the emergency in Italy.
Received: 2020-08-10| Published Online: 2020-10-01 | DOI: 10.13128/cambio-9579 | full text
Cambio Journal
La mascher(in)a della fiducia/sfiducia
Alessandro Cavalli, Università di Pavia, Italy
The situation is dramatic, to say the least, and now, when the virus seems to be receding (at an exasperatingly slow pace, moreover), we shall see the medium- to long-term consequences and there is a fear that the worst is yet to come. However, in the immediate future, a few observations/reflections can be made on our own and our fellow human beings’ ways of acting, which are perhaps not entirely useless. And if any reader thinks they are, I apologise in advance for the time wasted, hopefully saved only from the boredom of this domestic confinement. Among the many questions raised by the condition in which we are immersed, there is one that we should always ask ourselves because it concerns the resource that, for better or worse, holds human societies together, namely trust. Physical distance cuts off all those gestures through which human beings in their relationships show (or pretend to show) mutual trust in one another: the handshake, the hug, the pat on the back. Facial expressions are also seriously compromised by the use of the mask; looks remain, it is true, but their expressiveness is limited by the need to hide the face in which the eyes are set.
Received: 2020-05-03 | Published Online: 2020-05-11 | DOI: 10.13128/cambio-8882 | full text
Cambio Journal
A New Civilising Impulse? Society and the Stress of Immunisation
Reinhard Blomert, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany
Eighty to ninety people all sit together, the humble with the rich and noble, men, women and children without distinction. All get on with what seems to them necessary: one washed his clothes and hangs them on the stove to dry, another washes his hands. But the bowl is so spotless that another one is needed to cleanse them of its water. The scent of garlic and other strong smells swirl around, people spit here and there regardless, someone cleans his boots on the table. The food is then served. Each dips his bread into the common soup, bites a chunk off and then dips the rest in the soup again. The room is far too warm, everyone is perspiring, reeking, wiping the sweat away
Received: 2020-04-29 | Published Online: 2020-05-05 | DOI: 10.13128/cambio-8857 | full text
Cambio Journal
Germany and Corona
Adrian Jitschin, Norbert Elias Foundation, Germany
The quarantine occurred completely unexpectedly in Germany. We were very busy with ourselves. Germany was in major debates, which we all took seriously: what about gender equality? How do we deal with the flare-up of right-wing radicalism? Who will be the new ruling party leader? And above all, the question of climate change. In the middle of the discussion about stopping CO2 emissions, and whether we stick to the exit from nuclear energy, whether we shut off the coal-fired power plants before having built enough wind and solar plants, the crisis broke out
Received: 2020-04-03 | Published Online: 2020-04-20 | DOI: 10.13128/cambio-8506 | full text
Contesti Journal
Il diritto alla città della cura. La condizione anziana in tempi di pandemia
Elena Dorato, Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Ferrara, Italy
Maria Giulia Bernardini, Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Università di Ferrara, Italy
Throughout this contribution, an urban planner and a philosopher of law wonder about the meaning assumed today by the expression “city of care” and its potential for the elderly population. Moving from a critical perspective, the Authors introduce an interdisciplinary dialogue that is the first step to an urban vision aimed at recognizing the subjectivity and rights of older people, thus overcoming the established logic where the elderly person is precluded access to the public dimension of contemporary urban living. Starting from the assumption that it is fundamental not only to recognize the right of older people to accessibility to the public sphere, but also their full ownership of the “right to the city”, the contribution moves from the tragic effects of the global health emergency to affirm the need for a radical change that is a cultural change, even before a health-care and an urban one.
Keywords: Covid-19, right to the city, elderly people, public space, social health
Accepted: January 2021 | Published Online: January 2021 DOI: 10.13128/contest-12263 | full text
Substantia Journal
A cohort of cancer patients with no reported cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection: the possible preventive role of Methylene Blue
Marc Henry*, Mireille Summa, Louis Patrick, Laurent Schwartz, Université de Strasbourg, Chimie Moléculaire du Solide, Institut Le Bel, Strasbourg, France
We report the case of a cohort of 2500 French patients treated among others with methylene blue for cancer care. During the COVID-19 epidemics none of them developed influenza-like illness. Albeit this lack of infection might be by chance alone, it is possible that methylene blue might have a preventive effect for COVID-19 infection. This is in line with the antiviral activity of Chloroquine, a Methylene blue derivative. Both Chloroquine and Methylene blue have strong antiviral and anti- inflammatory properties probably linked to the change in intracellular pH and redox state.
Accepted: 2020-03-30 | Published Online: 2020-03-31| DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-888 | full text
Substantia Journal
A Possible Scientific Answer to Covid-19 Among Open Science, Big Data, Old and New Expertise and Knowledge: the Position Paper of Chemistry
Luigi Campanella*, Maurizio Anastasio, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
“The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance is the virus”. This statement was made by Joshua Lederberg in 1958 in the occasion of his Nobel Lecture. This claim cannot be forgotten in this period while we are looking for a reason of hope and this hope, after ensuring adequate sanitary services and responsible behaviour of citizens, can come only from Science. Medical sciences represent undoubtedly the queen disciplines, but many other disciplines can play a very important role. At this particular moment the basic core of knowledge is provided by the group of biosciences such as medicine, virology, biology, biotechnology. It is fundamental to have an intradisciplinary group that speaks the same language at the start of any research activity.
Accepted: 2020-03-30 | Published Online: 2020-04-01| DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-890 | full text
Substantia Journal
Covid-19: Physical Distancing Will Make Science Closer to Citizen Participation in Decision Making
Stefano Cinti, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy
Nowadays, social distancing is mandatory in various countries worldwide. It is defined as a non-pharmaceutical interventions for preventing the spread of COVID-19, by maintaining a distance among people and reducing the frequency of contacts with each other. However, the correct definition, as reported somewhere, should be physical distancing. Populations are “socially” close, citizens are experimenting novel approaches of communication, and novel way to help. Of course, in the era of social networks, everybody is enabled to get in touch, even with people that were missing since lot of time. The velocity of how life goes, the necessity of getting results, the demonstration of own value and the invention of brand-new strategies to overcome the generic “everyday” issues, covering all the fields such as family, job, friends, etc., are facing with a pandemic monster.
Accepted: 2020-04-08 | Published Online: 2020-04-08 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-900 | full text
Substantia Journal
A Providential Last Warning
Vincenzo Balzani, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
In the past few months a dangerous and highly contagious virus, Covid-19, has been circulating on the spaceship Earth. Waiting to fight it with a vaccine, we defend ourselves with the obnoxious weapon of social distancing. According to scientists, the virus passed from wild animals to humans because of one or more of the following mistakes in our relationship with Nature: exaggerated use of resources, environmental degradation, climate change, increasing consumption of animal products, exaggerated anthropization of the soil, loss of biodiversity and the search for wild food by the poorest populations. Viruses are somehow “refugees” of the environmental destruction caused by our aggressiveness. They were fine in the forests and in the bodies of some animals, we gave them the opportunity to multiply.
Accepted: 2020-04-14 | Published Online: 2020-04-15 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-907 | full text
Substantia Journal
Coronavirus and the Heterogenesis of Ends: Underpinning the Ecological and Health Catastrophe is a Political Crisis
Donato Bergandi, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France
The coronavirus catastrophe that we are experiencing is first of all the result of an ecological catastrophe, but its underlying fundamental cause is the political crisis that our democracies are living. The sustainable development model is a smokescreen that will lead not to making deep-going changes to the economic paradigm but to continuing with business as usual. The betrayal of the elites, both political and economic, supported by a system that is no longer democratic, has exposed the population to this type of sanitary problem. A deep transformation of our political system is urgently needed. The people must take part in a true democracy, a direct democracy, that initiates a new democratic revolution capable of countering the sinister interests of the elites, of the caste in power.
Accepted: 2020-04-21 | Published Online: 2020-04-22 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-911 | full text
Substantia Journal
Even Covid-19 Could Teach Us Something if We Were Good Students!
Luigi Campanella, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
In these dramatic times most of the attention is paid to the statistics of recovered, dead and infected people. But here I would point out another aspect that can make us able to forget even for a very short moment the terrible statistics I mentioned above and open us to hope. While we are closed and locked in our homes nature seems to take a breath. Some days ago, a family of ducks walking around in a desert Florence and looking for something to eat inspired an incredible feeling of tenderness. This was just the latter of a series of images available on the web, at the same time disquieting, romantic and bucolic, that illustrate the amazing transformation of nature and of fauna in the time of this pandemy.
Accepted: 2020-04-22 | Published Online: 2020-04-27 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-917 | full text
Substantia Journal
Considerations for Treating CoronaVirus (Sars-Cov-2) Infection with Passive Immunotherapy
Abraham Karpas*, Douglas Bainbridge, Stephen Ash, Cambridge University Clinical School, United Kingdom
The corona viruses are transient RNA viruses; once an infected individual recovers he or she becomes virus-free and immune. One could expect that in SARS-Covid-19 also, infected individuals who recover will have developed some form of protective immunity. Very little is yet known about its development, when and for how long it might last, and though it is very likely to involve virus-neutralising antibodies, to what extent it might depend on the appearance of such antibodies. However in a recent report 10 very advanced corona patients were treated with a single 200 ml dose of plasma obtained from individuals recovered from the infection. There was impressive clinical improvement.
Accepted: 2020-05-03 | Published Online: 2020-05-04 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-924 | full text
Substantia Journal
From Spillover to Pandemic
David Quammen, American Scientist, USA
This excerpt, published in 2012 in the American edition of the book Spillover, came after 500 pages in which I described the phenomenon of zoonotic diseases (those caused by viruses and other pathogens passed from nonhuman animals to humans), the importance of those diseases amid the problems of global human health, the work of the scientists who study such diseases, and the danger that a virus newly emerged from an animal host could cause a terrible pandemic. Immediately preceding this section, I had recounted my visit with Dr. Robert Webster, one of the world’s leading influenza researchers, who worried that a highly pathogenic form of avian influenza, known as H5N1, might evolve the capacity to transmit human-to-human. “And then God help us,” he said. Another senior authority, as you’ll see below, warned me especially about the coronaviruses. And now here we are.
Accepted: 2020-05-09 | Published Online: 2020-05-11 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-930 | full text
Substantia Journal
Open Science in Times of Coronavirus: Introducing the Concept of Real-Time Publication
Alexandre Hocquet, Université de Lorraine, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Nancy, France
Who doesn’t have an opinion about hydroxychloroquine? The recent developments of the latest research in Marseilles on the potential of this antimalarial drug to reduce the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 have been heating up. Obviously, the current pandemic is a sudden and unprecedented health crisis. Unexpectedness and scale are turning the outbreak into widespread panic: science is summoned to find solutions as soon as possible. In a sense, the worldwide situation is a way of asking how fast can science go. The famed publication from Didier Raoult’s group 2 allows us to highlight an evolution in peer review practices, and this trend allows us to question what it means to be “open” in science.
Accepted: 2020-05-21 | Published Online: 2020-05-22 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-937 | full text
Substantia Journal
Stand on the Same Side – Preventing a Second Wave of Covid-19’s Outbreak
Lorenzo Corbetta, University of Florence, Italy
Shiyue Li, Jing Li, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, China
Shuliang Guo, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, China
Paolo Bonanni, University of Florence, Italy
Felix JF Herth, University of Heidelberg, Germany
Javier Flandes, Univestity Autonoma Madrid, Spain
Mohammed Munavvar, University of Manchester, UK
Li Qiang, Shanghai Oriental Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, China
Na Wang, Shanghai Oriental Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University, China
This document is the direct transcription of a Webinar organized by Prof. L. Corbetta of the University of Florence on April 29th, 2020.
Accepted: 2020-05-22 | Published Online: 2020-05-29 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-950 | full text
Substantia Journal
The Universe, the Light, the Earth, the Life: the Reality is Greater than We Are
Vincenzo Balzani, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
The pandemic caused by Covid-19 locked us at home for several weeks. Some clever town councillors took this opportunity to offer their citizens cultural pills. In my little town I was asked to present a few short lectures on general scientific concepts. I tried to link together four entities of reality (Universe, Light, Earth and Life) showing that reality is much more complex than we think and much greater than us. E.g.: age of the Universe vs age of human civilization (~1.3×1010 vs ~ 1×104 years), size of universe vs human size (~1×1025 m vs ~1 m), velocity of light vs velocity of sound (3×108 vs 3.5×102 m/s), number of stars in the sky (~ 1×1023), number of molecule in a drop of water (~ 3×1021), number of atoms in a human body (~ 1×1027). Although we know reasonably well how Universe, Light, Earth and Life “work”, we are still surrounded by profound mysteries related to the why questions, i.e., the “questions of meaning”, that science cannot answer. Such questions, e.g., why is there the Universe? Why is there Life in this insignificant fragment of the Universe called Earth? Why did the evolution of Life lead to human? What’s the meaning of my life? What is the meaning of the Covid-19 pandemic? The answers to the these “questions of meaning”, that cannot be given by science, are discussed in the enciclic Laudato si’ of pope Francis in relation to the ecological and social crisis we are going through.
Accepted: 2020-06-03 | Published Online: 2020-06-05 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-957 | full text
Substantia Journal
Modeling Social Groups, Policies and Cognitive Behavior in COVID-19 Epidemic Phases. Basic Scenarios
Franco Bagnoli*, Daniele Lorini, Pietro Lió, University of Florence & INFN, Italy
The Covid-19 pandemic is distinct from Spanish flu of 1918 from many aspects among which the contrast between the overabundance of worldwide exchange of information (infomedia) and the actual scarce knowledge of the pathogen and the infection mechanism. Another important distinction is that the epidemics threaten society components, social groups, communities and jobs in very different ways and different death tolls. With this in mind, we start with simple models of pandemics and we drive the reader to more complex models that take into accounts social compartments and communities. The discrete-state models are built by adding elements, first in a mean-field approximation, then adding age classes and differential contact rates, and finally inserting the social group dimension. The novel element we insert is the effect of restrictions in contacts and travels, filtered by the risk perception, according with the growth of the number of infected or recovered people. Assimilating risk perception with cognitive behavior, we obtain several coarse-grain scenarios, that can be used for instance to calibrate the level of restrictions so not to exceed the capacity of the health system, and to speed the post-emergency recovery.
Accepted: 2020-06-05 | Published Online: 2020-06-11 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-914 | full text
Substantia Journal
Stand on the Same Side Against Covid-19 – Diagnostic, Screening Tools and Pathways for Clinical and Preventive Purposes
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This document is the direct transcription of a Webinar organized by Prof. L. Corbetta of the University of Florence on May 19th, 2020.
Accepted: 2020-06-16 | Published Online: 2020-06-20 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-967 | full text
Substantia Journal
The Concept of Organization and the Strategic Position of Chemistry in a Generic Research and Development Project Focused on SARS-CoV-2
Luigi Campanella*, Maurizio Anastasio, Department of Chemistry, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
The tragic events relating to the spread and pathologies caused by SARS-CoV-2 have prompted the authors, whose work interests have always been academic and industrial scientific research, to provide their experiential contribution by planning a generic applied research project. This is focused on the synergy between the management organization of a research team and the strategic position Chemistry must occupy among other scientific disciplines for the same technological-scientific project.
Accepted: 2020-06-26 | Published Online: 2020-06-29| DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-941 | full text
Substantia Journal
Distance Education in Chemistry during the Epidemic Covid-19
Valentina Domenici, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
During the epidemic Covid-19, in most of the countries schools of all grades and universities had to face a long period of closure without interrupting the educational mission. Distance education, which has been introduced first in UK in the Nineteen century as “correspondence learning” and then in USA and Australia, with the institution of “Open Universities” (i.e. MOOC and e-learning platforms), became the only way to guarantee the continuity in teaching during the pandemic Covid-19. The present contribution is a short overview of the literature about limits and advantages of distance education of chemistry, in particular at high school and university levels, with a focus on the experiences and peculiarities of the distance education in the period of the Covid-19 emergency.
Accepted: 2020-06-18 | Published Online: 2020-06-25 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-961 | full text
Substantia Journal
Stand on the Same Side Against Covid – 19 Clinical Management of Covid-19
This document is the direct transcription of a Webinar organized by Prof. L. Corbetta of the University of Florence on May 29th, 2020.
Accepted: 2020-07-20 | Published Online: 2020-07-20 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-1022 | full text
Substantia Journal
Stand on the Same Side Against Covid – 19, the Future Strategies Against an Unknown Enemy
Lorenzo Corbetta*, Leonardo M. Fabbri, Duccio Cavalieri, Paolo Bonanni, Mohammed Munavvar, Alvaro Cruz, Adrian Rendon, Laura De Paoli
Associate Professor of Respiratory Diseases – University of Florence Scientific and Website Director of the European Association for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology (EABIP)
Accepted: 2020-09-04 | Published Online: 2020-09-07 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-1059
This document is the direct transcription of a Webinar organized by Prof. L. Corbetta of the University of Florence on July 7th, 2020.
Accepted: 2020-09-07 | Published Online: 2020-09-07 | DOI: 10.13128/Substantia-1059 | full text
Scienze del Territorio Journal
Se il pianeta è malato lo saremo anche noi: crisi climatica, ambientale e sanitaria
Luca Mercalli, Società Meteorologica Italiana and ISPRA, Italy
It is widely known that all environmental alterations have an interconnected role which, sooner or later, directly or indirectly affects the health of humanity. However, the fundamental inactivity of politics and economy in countering this drift makes things worse, with the growing risk of triggering brutal and irreversible changes in the Earth-system. Ironically, the global health emergency has shown that rapid and radical choices can generate immediate positive effects in environmental terms: think of the drastic reduction in climate-altering emissions caused by the lockdown. Thus, such forced response indicates, perhaps, the way to more reflective strategies able to teach us (again) to live in harmony with nature.
Accepted: 2020-10-17 | Published Online: 2020-10-18 | DOI: 10.13128/sdt-12137 | full text
Scienze del Territorio Journal
Mappe dei contagi e condizioni eco-territoriali
Sergio Malcevschi*, Riccardo Santolini, Gianmarco Paris, Paola Pluchino, Italy
The article presents the maps and data at the provincial level of COVID infections in Italy in the first phase of the epidemic (March-May 2020). The bio-geography of infections in Italy was very articulated, with a spatial imprint that was maintained in the months considered despite significant variations in the total number of infections within the period considered. In addition to a North-South macro-gradient, infra- and supra-regional territorial areas with specific characteristics have been produced. The situations less affected by the infections occurred in areas without significant metropolitan components, characterized by a more balanced relationship from an ecological and landscape point of view. Some implications for better management of future epidemic risks are discussed. The so-called ‘green deal’ development models, in addition to the new contents for economic productions, need to have greater awareness of the bio-physical risks associated with an inadequate government of the territory: it will be necessary that they concretely assign a relevant role to multi-scalars networks of ecosystems and landscapes and the resilience services they offer.
Accepted: 2020-12-03 | Published Online: 2020-12-04 | DOI: 10.13128/sdt-12290 | full text
Scienze del Territorio Journal
Verso le comunità energetiche
Monica Bolognesi, Alberto Magnaghi, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Moving from the critique of the deterritorialisation process that led to the concentration of services and activities in metropolitan areas and the consequent desertification of peripheral and marginal territories, the paper reflects on the implications of the traditional centralized model of energy production and on its criticalities amplified by the ongoing pandemic, then analyzing the opportunities of an energy transition characterized by return to territory. The creation of energy communities represents an opportunity to overcome the social acceptance paradigm and the traditional sectoral approach to experiment with a model of territorial energy patrimonialisation, through the integration of specific locally defined energy mixes, calibrated on the resources’ availability and reproducibility and respectful of the bioregion assets. Dynamic energy communities in which the inhabitants participate, interpret, co-plan, are involved in the identification of local resources and take an active role as protagonists in the definition and management of the transition process of their territories towards a self-sustainability prospect.
Accepted: 2020-12-04 | Published Online: 2020-12-05 | DOI: 10.13128/sdt-12330 | full text
Scienze del Territorio Journal
Il virus architetto
Aimaro Isola, Isolarchitetti, Turin, Italy
Once confined Art and Architecture, which for a long time did guide us, in the autonomous spaces of aesthetics, critique, the market, disputes among connoisseurs, the advent of the virus seems now to induce unpredictable changes even in thinking new places for living. But a quick look at the contemporary world astride the virus, flying like the Baron of Münchhausen on a cannonball, reveals that the virus has already been here, that crises, catastrophes, plagues and wars have always oriented the production of human landscape; and presses us on reconnecting the broken ‘threads’ of an interweaved design, on being not only subjects ‘in’ the nature but, ‘with’ the nature, inhabitants of a common atmosphere, of a single landscape.
Accepted: 2020-10-04 | Published Online: 2020-10-07 | DOI: 10.13128/sdt-12097 | full text
Scienze del Territorio Journal
Il futuro è già qui
Guido Viale, Independent economist and author
Despite the authoritative warnings (from IPCC to COP 21, from Pope Francis to Greta Thunberg) climate crisis is reaching irreversibility. Besides essential mitigation measures (stopping as soon as possible extraction and use of fossils, useless and harmful Major Projects, relocations to save on environmental and labour costs, and analogous) adaptation measures must be put in place as soon as possible to face life conditions becoming more and more difficult. International institutions and governments have not been up to the task, therefore local communities must lead the turn, recreating inside themselves and in their mutual relations conditions that promote a wider autonomy both in managing their own territories and in the production field through the reterritorialisation of many activities now spread throughout the planet. Efficiency and energy generation from local and differentiated renewable sources; ecological, proximity and multifunctional agriculture and farming for a healthy and sustainable diet; ecodesign finalized to zero waste; drastic reduction of mobility based on private motorization and care of hydrogeological systems. These are the core intervention fields for the unavoidable ecological conversion: a process requiring a strong popular participation, but also an inevitable conflict with the established powers.
Accepted: 2020-12-05 | Published Online: 2020-12-07 | DOI: 10.13128/sdt-12342 | full text
Ri-Vista Journal
Cities after COVID-19: how trees and green infrastructures can help shaping a sustainable future
Francesco Ferrini, Antonella Gori
University of Florence, Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry
There is no doubt that metropolitan areas are, and will increasingly be, the engines of economic growth and fertile grounds for the development of technology, creativity and innovation and this will need a shift in the future cities planning and management especially regarding the increase in green areas. This must be done through a regeneration process that can only refer to the 17 objectives of sustainable development (UN, 2019) that are frequently neglected in regeneration programs and this is likely to result in unsustainable urban renewal in many cities. Three main challenges for sustainable urban regeneration can be identified: – environmental (climate change, carbon emissions and use of resources), – social (inequality, cohesion and health), – institutional (governance). We need to promote the start of a real “green revolution”, a revolution that, through the increase in plant cover, will make our cities a better place, doing it with an inclusive approach. The “green” city cannot therefore remain only a set of abstract, portable, stereotyped ideas because it must be the place that will constitute the territory of activity of our life.
Accepted: 2020-05 | Published Online: 2020-05-13 | DOI: 10.13128/rv-8553 | full text