Silvana Di Sabatino

University of Bologna | UNIBO · Department of Physics and Astronomy DIFA

The growing exposure to hydro-meteorological hazards translates into increasing risks for people, territories, and ecosystems. The frequency of occurrence and magnitude of these hazards are expected to further increase in the next decades urging tangible decisions to reduce anthropogenic climate change and adapt to the risks to be faced. In this co...

The morphological complexity of urban environments results in a high spatial and temporal variability of the urban microclimate. The consequent demand for high-resolution atmospheric data remains a challenge for atmospheric research and operational application. The recent widespread availability and increasing adoption of low-cost mobile sensing of...

Flooding events, like in Germany in 2021, highlight the need for re-naturalising banks of rivers and streams to naturally mitigate future flooding. To identify potential areas for Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), the NBS Toolkit—a decision-support tool for Europe—was developed within the H2020 OPERANDUM project. The tool builds on suitability mapping,...

The present study reconstructs the river discharge climatology and its respective historical series for all rivers of the Adriatic Sea with averaged climatological daily river discharge above 1 m³s⁻¹, to reach a better representation of the Adriatic rivers in hydrodynamic models and, consequently, to develop a more realistic freshwater balance in t...

Investigating solutions capable of mitigating both the Urban Heat and Pollution Islands is key to realising cities that are resilient to climatic change. Stable atmospheric stratification, typical of heatwave events, exacerbates the heat island effect and increases the risk to human health and wellbeing. Here we examine for the first time the mitig...

The morphological complexity of urban environments results in a high spatial and temporal variability of the urban microclimate. The consequent demand for highly-resolution atmospheric data remains a challenge for atmospheric research and operational application. The recent widespread availability and increasing adoption of low-cost mobile sensing...

The challenges associated with reliably observing and simulating hazardous hailstorms call for new approaches that combine information from different available sources, such as remote sensing instruments, observations, or numerical modeling, to improve understanding of where and when severe hail most often occurs. In this work, a proxy for hail fre...

The international community, particularly across the European Union (EU), is increasingly recognizing and promoting Nature-based Solutions (NBS) as long-term and sustainable measures against hydro-meteorological hazards such as flooding, coastal erosion, heat waves and landslides. Yet, scaled implementation of NBS at EU and global level presently r...

After the general description of the project, and of the activities to evaluate and promote changes in individual behaviour and improve monitoring opportunities through citizen science, the presentation went on to discuss the first results on the evaluation of the Carbon Footprint (CF) and the environmental footprint (EF) in the Living Labs areas....

The knowledge derived from successful case studies can act as a driver for the implementation and upscaling of nature-based solutions (NBS). This work reviewed 547 case studies to gain an overview of NBS practices and their role in reducing the adverse impact of natural hazards and climate change. The majority (60 %) of case studies are situated in...

This work presents an innovative method of estimating the impact of lifestyle changes on greenhouse gases and air pollutants emissions based on a multi-modeling approach developed within the I-CHANGE H2020 project (2021-2025) http://ichange-project.eu . The ultimate goal of this project is to raise awareness on environmental and climate issues with...

The case study of 'Bosco Fontana', a densely-vegetated forest located in the north of Italy, is analysed both experimentally and numerically to characterise the internal ventilation of a finite forest with a vertically non-homogeneous canopy. Measurements allow for the evaluation of the turbulent exchange across the forest canopy. The case study is...

Observations acquired in the stable surface layer during two field experiments (The Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations Program and the Climate Change Tower Integrated Project) are considered to test different parametrizations of the dissipation rate of turbulence kinetic energy (TKE). Particular attention is dedicated to the eff...

I-CHANGE main objective is to raise awareness on the impacts of climate change and related natural hazards, through direct collection of environmental and socio-economic data with novel and user-friendly tools (sensors, monitoring devices, simplified models, data resources) The promotion of a co-designed learning approach will improve citizen knowl...

This paper investigates the surface-layer processes associated with the morning transition from nighttime downslope winds to daytime upslope winds over a semi-isolated massif. It provides an insight into the characteristics of the transition and its connection with the processes controlling the erosion of the temperature inversion at the foot of th...

Regional reanalyses allow us to better describe weather patterns related to rapidly evolving high‐impact events thanks to substantially finer detailing than global datasets. However, most regional datasets still do not permit the explicit representation of deep convection. SPHERA (High rEsolution ReAnalysis over Italy) is a new high‐resolution conv...

Regional reanalyses allow to describe better weather patterns related to rapidly-evolving high-impact events thanks to substantially finer detailing than global datasets. However, most regional datasets still do not permit the explicit representation of deep convection. SPHERA (High rEsolution ReAnalysis over Italy) is a new high-resolution convect...

A Heatwave (HW) is a large-scale meteorological event characterised by persistent and extremely high-temperature condition. At the local scale, the Urban Heat Island (UHI) is another thermal-related phenomenon defined as an urban area warmer than its surrounding regions due to different surfaces’ capabilities to absorb and store heat. However, the...

Observations acquired in the stable surface layer during two field experiments (The The Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Observations Program and the Climate Change Tower Integrated Project) are considered to test different parametrizations of the dissipation rate of mean turbulence kinetic energy (TKE). Particular attention is dedicated t...

The incorporation of nature-based solutions comprising green and blue infrastructure is often touted as a way to cool cities and enhance pollutant removal. However, there is little agreement between different methodologies to measure the effect of any single intervention. Here, we present 3D steady RANS simulations to investigate the influence of w...

Nitrogen dioxide is one of the most hazardous pollutants identified by the World Health Organisation. Predicting and reducing pollutants is becoming a very urgent task and many methods have been used to predict their concentration, such as physical or machine learning models. In addition to choosing the right model, it is also critical to choose th...

The present study aims to validate the river discharge (RD) within the Adriatic Sea basin extracted from the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) to estimate five climate indicators into the 1991-2020 period foreseen in the AdriaCLIM project : RD-1 River Discharge, RD-2 Mean River Flow, RD-3 Minimum River Flow, RD-4 Standardized Flow Index (SFI),...

The effects of green infrastructure on pollutant concentrations are greatly variable, essentially depending on the surrounding built-up environment and on local meteorological conditions. To simulate the effects of the presence of trees at urban scale, a reliable methodology is the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) approach, however it needs high...

Nature-based Solutions function as an umbrella concept for ecosystem-based approaches that are an alternative to traditional engineering solutions for Disaster Risk Reduction. Their rising popularity is explained partly by their entailing additional benefits (so called co-benefits) for the environment, society, and economy. The few existing framewo...

This paper concerns an in-depth analysis of an exceptional incursion of mineral dust over southern Europe in late March 2020 (27–30 March 2020). This event was associated with an anomalous circulation pattern leading to several days of PM10 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter less than 10 µm) exceedances in connection with a dust sourc...

In this paper, an analytical model based on inertial oscillations (Van15 De Wiel et al, 2010) is used to replicate the evolution on a LLJ in complex terrain and then modified to diagnose the occurrence of a double-nosed LLJ driven by surface wave activity. Using an already-analysed case study from the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Obser...

In this paper, an analytical model based on inertial oscillations (Van15 De Wiel et al, 2010) is used to replicate the evolution on a LLJ in complex terrain and then modified to diagnose the occurrence of a double-nosed LLJ driven by surface wave activity. Using an already-analysed case study from the Mountain Terrain Atmospheric Modeling and Obser...

Urban trees affect urban climate via three processes: shading effect, evapotranspiration and wind resistance. However, large differences existed in the performance of different tree species and planting patterns. To quantify the effects of trees, we extended a heat-moisture coupled model by adding a new vegetation sub-model. The results showed that...

Heatwaves (HWs) are meteorological extreme events on the scale of a few thousand kilometres characterized by persistent extremely hot temperature conditions. Due to their duration and intensity, HWs have been proven to affect thermal risk and mortality in different kinds of environment, but they result particularly dangerous in urban areas with hig...

Urban heat island (UHI) is a phenomenon associated to the different temperature diurnal cycle of the urban and surrounding rural environment, typically leading to higher air temperature in cities during the night. Heat waves (HWs) are intended as a climate related phenomenon associated to persistent high-pressure systems leading to high air tempera...

The presence of waves is proven to be ubiquitous within nocturnal stable boundary layers over complex terrain, where turbulence is in a continuous, although weak, state of activity. The typical approach based on Reynolds decomposition is unable to disaggregate waves from turbulence contributions, thus hiding any information about the production/des...

In the realm of boundary-layer flows in complex terrain, low-level jets (LLJs) have received considerable attention, although little literature is available for double-nosed LLJs that remain not well understood. To this end, we use the MATERHORN dataset to demonstrate that double-nosed LLJs developing within the planetary boundary layer (PBL) are c...

This work discusses the impact of biogenic VOC (bVOC) emissions from an idealized park of Quercus ilex L. on the ozone ground concentration in a Mediterranean city located in southern Italy. Emissions were calculated as a function of leaf temperature and photosynthetically active radiation. Numerical simulations were performed for a week in July 20...

This paper concerns an in-depth analysis of an exceptional incursion of mineral dust over Southern Europe in late March 2020. This event was associated with an anomalous circulation pattern leading to several days of PM10 exceedances in connection with a dust source located in Central Asia a rare source of dust for Europe, more frequently affected...

The abatement performance of photocatalytic coatings on NOx concentrations in real-world street canyons remains an open question considering the very different conclusions reached by the few previous field studies. To fill this gap, an intensive experimental campaign was carried out in summer 2018 in the outskirts of Bologna in Italy. The experimen...

Techniques for improving the removal of pollution from urban canyons are crucial for air quality control in cities. The removal mainly occurs at the building roof level, where it is supported by turbulent mixing and hampered by roof shear, which tends to isolate the internal canyon region from the atmospheric flow. Here, a modification of roof infr...

Anabatic flows are common phenomena in the presence of sloping terrains, which significantly affect the dynamics and the exchange of mass and momentum in the low-atmosphere. Despite this, very few studies in the literature have tackled this topic. The present contribution addresses this gap by utilising high-resolved large-eddy simulations for inve...

Nature-based solutions (NBS) for climate change adaptation and natural hazard management are receiving much attention in Europe and across the world. It is now seen broadly as a valid measure to manage flood risk sustainably whilst providing significant multiple benefits. However, there is little information regarding its implementation and cost-ef...

Thermal convective flows are common phenomena in real urban canyons and strongly affect the mechanisms of pollutant removal from the canyon. The present contribution aims at investigating the complex interaction between inertial and thermal forces within the canyon, including the impacts on turbulent features and pollutant removal mechanisms. Large...

Nature-based solutions are increasingly implemented to tackle disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. Their rising popularity over grey solutions is partially explained by their number of additional benefits (so called co-benefits) for the socio-ecological system (SES). Frameworks are available to monitor and assess co-benefits, howe...

Heatwaves (HWs) are extreme weather conditions characterized by persistent high temperatures with considerable impacts on society in terms of mortality, thermal stress and energy demand of the population. One of the most interesting aspects of HWs concerns the interaction with the phenomenon of urban heat island (UHI). The UHI is the tendency of ur...

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) refer to the sustainable management, protection and use of nature to preserve the ecosystem and prevent the loss of biodiversity. Given the multiple environmental, social, and economic benefits they provide to society, NBS have been increasingly promoted and implemented in cities, especially for air pollution mitigation...

The adoption of Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) represents a novel means to mitigate natural hazards. In the framework of the OPERANDUM project, this study introduces a methodology to assess the efficiency of the NBSs and a series of Open-Air Laboratories (OALs) regarded as a proof-of-concept for the wider uptake of NBSs. The OALs are located in Finl...

Under climate change scenarios, it is important to evaluate the changes in recent behavior of heavy precipitation events, the resulting flood risk, and the detrimental impacts of the peak flow of water on human well-being, properties, infrastructure, and the natural environment. Normally, flood risk is estimated using the stationary flood frequency...

The aim of this study is to characterize the air quality in a Mediterranean port city. The impact of ship emissions on both gaseous and particulate pollutants has been investigated through an integrated methodology which includes atmospheric flow and dispersion numerical modelling as well as chemical composition and statistical analyses. Specifical...

Travel demand management measures/policies are important to sustain positive changes among individuals’ travel behaviour. An integrated agent-based microsimulation platform provides a rich framework for examining such interventions to assess their impacts using indicators about demand as well as supply side. This paper presents an approach where in...

An experimental field campaign is designed to unveil mechanisms responsible for turbulent exchange processes when mechanical and thermal effects are entwined. The focus is an urban street canyon with a mean aspect ratio H/W of 1.65 in the business centre of a mid-size Italian city (H is the mean building height and W is the mean canyon width). The...

The complex interaction between the Urban Heat Island (UHI), local circulation, and air quality requires new methods of analysis. To this end, this study investigates the multiple scale nature of the UHI and its relationship with flow and pollutant dispersion in urban street canyons with and without the presence of vegetation. Two field experimenta...

Motivated by the increasing interest on passive control solutions to lower pollutant concentrations in cities, this paper introduces a novel methodology to demonstrate the potential of photocatalytic coatings in abating air pollution in real-world urban environments. The methodology introduced in this paper is based on an original application of Co...

Vegetation in the urban environment has various impacts on microclimate. While optimal strategies for investigating these impacts are the subject of ongoing research, most approaches rely on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. We evaluate mean wind and turbulence fields simulated using the fast-running Quick Urban & Industrial Complex (...

Irrigation is a method of land management that can affect the local climate. Recent literature shows that it affects mostly the near-surface variables and it is associated with an irrigation cooling effect. However, there is no common parameterization that also accounts for a realistic water amount, and this factor could ascribe one cause to the di...

The ambition of OPERANDUM is to provide science-based evidence for the usability of nature-based solutions (NBS) ranging from local to landscape scales, and to foster the market opportunities, upscaling and replication of NBS in Europe and other non-European territories. It is important to develop a set of co-designed, co-developed, deployed, and d...

Heat exchange processes between building walls and external air within street canyons is an important topic in air quality modelling considering that the thermal fields largely affect local flow dynamics and pollutant concentration distribution. Despite the abundance of numerical studies, many questions still remain unanswered, ultimately limiting...

Low-cost sensors based on optical particle counter (OPC) are increasingly used to collect particulate matter (PM) data at high space and time resolution. In spite of their huge explorative potential practical guidelines and recommendations for their use are still limited. In this work, we outline a few best practices for the optimal use of PM low-c...

A novel set of wind tunnel measurements of the drag force and its spatial distribution along aligned arrays of cubes of height H and planar area index lambdap (air gap between cubes) equal to 0.028 (5H) to 0.69 (0.2H) is presented and analysed. Two different types of measurements are compared: one type where the drag force is obtained using the sta...

Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) refer to the sustainable management, protection and use of nature to mitigate risks and to preserve ecosystems, demonstrating environmental, social and economic benefits. The goal of the OPERANDUM project is to provide a science-based assessment of the usability and effectiveness of NBS. The assessment is complex consid...

As part of H2020 OPERANDUM project, a multi-dimensional, open and user-friendly platform is being developed, named OPERANDUM Geospatial Information Knowledge Platform (GeoIKP), which enables stakeholders and end-users to improve their knowledge of nature-based solutions (NBS) as a long-term and sustainable measure for mitigation and reduction of fl...

During the past decades, risk assessment experienced increasing interest in social science but also natural science and other disciplines. At the same time, risk reduction and mitigation gained in interest from local to global level due to the shift from reactive to proactive management. Hazard and risk assessment have been approached on different...

Various frameworks for vulnerability and risk assessment of social-ecological systems (SES) to natural hazards have been developed addressing different contexts. However, none were specifically developed in the context of implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) to hydro-meteorological risks. Since the basic concepts and principles of NBS are main...

Extreme hydro-meteorological events are often defined by the statistical analysis of some parameter that measures the strength of the event over a long enough time series. The parameter could refer to the intensity of the event in terms of energy or to the impact of the event on the environment. This attribution becomes even more relevant when used...

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are being promoted as adaptive measures against predicted increasing hydrometeorological hazards (HMHs), such as heatwaves and floods which have already caused significant loss of life and economic damage across the globe. However, the underpinning factors such as policy framework, end-users’ interests and participation...

In this work, the climatic impacts of modifying urban surface characteristics are examined for the medium-sized city of Vantaa, Finland, in the current climate and in a projected future climate of 2040–2069. In simulations with the SURFEX air-surface interaction model with a horizontal resolution of 500 m, the fraction of green spaces and relativel...

The rapid technological development of the past few decades has allowed for an unprecedented wealth of data about ourselves and our planet. The cost reduction of space platforms, the microelectronic revolution and the nearly exponential increase in computer power have been generating novel opportunities to explore and understand the world around us...

Irrigation is crucial in sustaining food production and it is found to have a cooling effect. Changes at the surface affect both the circulation and the precipitation. The magnitude depends on the model used, the irrigation description and the water amount, as well as the region. The study focuses on northern Italy (the Po Valley) due to its vulner...

The definition of accurate input datasets, appropriately representing urban morphology characteristics , has been identified as a crucial point for improving the simulation of urban boundary layer (UBL) dynamics by means of mesoscale numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. However, the scarcity of suitable data to adequately describe urban morph...

Travel demand management measures/policies are important to sustain positive changes among individuals' travel behaviour. An integrated agent-based microsimulation platform provides a rich framework for examining such interventions to assess their impacts using indicators about demand as well as supply side. This paper presents an approach, where i...

Hydro-meteorological risks due to natural hazards such as severe floods, storm surges, landslides and droughts are causing impacts on different sectors of society. Such risks are expected to become worse given projected changes in climate, degradation of ecosystems, population growth and urbanisation. In this respect, nature-based solutions (NBSs)...

Irrigation is crucial for sustaining agriculture in certain regions; however, there are effects on the local climate. Previous studies discussed that the irrigation signal might depend on the geographical region as well as the synoptic and climatic conditions. The work presented here aims to investigate the mechanisms behind changes in the irrigati...

The increase of temperature attributed to anthropogenic emissions is projected to continue in future climate scenarios. Protocols and policies are being put in place in several European countries to reduce both emissions and impact of human activities on climate. The Irish Reforestation policy is a good example of such protocols. Nevertheless, ofte...

Informational interventions are important to bring positive changes in attitudes and perception among individuals. In relation to the individual’s mobility behavior, habits, attitudes, and perceptions are difficult to change. Therefore, it is vital to identify relatively soft aspects of travel behavior with a potential to reduce the negative impact...

This Policy Brief provides some compelling evidence in support of the adoption of green infrastructure in European cities, for improving urban air quality and reducing human exposure to air pollutants, as well as mitigating the impacts of climate change and thus contributing to a more sustainable urban environment.

Hydro-meteorological hazards (HMHs) have had a strong impact on human societies and ecosystems. Their impact is projected to be exacerbated by future climate scenarios. HMHs cataloguing is an effective tool to evaluate their associated risks and plan appropriate remediation strategies. However, factors linked to HMHs origin and triggers remain unce...

Irrigation is one of the land managements that can affect the local climate. Recent literature shows that it affects mostly the near-surface variables and it is associated with an irrigation cooling effect. However, there is no common parameterization that also accounts for a realistic water amount, and these factors could be ascribed as causes of...

Hydro-meteorological risk (HMR) management involves a range of methods, such as monitoring of uncertain climate, planning and prevention by technical countermeasures, risk assessment, preparedness for risk by early-warnings, spreading knowledge and awareness, response and recovery. To execute HMR management by risk assessment, many models and tools...

A novel set of wind tunnel measurements of the drag force and its spatial distribution along aligned arrays of cubes of height H and planar area index λp (air gap between cubes) equal to 0.028 (5H) to 0.69 (0.2H) is presented and analysed. Two different types of measurements are compared: one type where the drag force is obtained using the standard...

Natural hazards such as severe floods, storm surges, landslides, avalanches, hail, windstorms, droughts, heat waves and forest fires occur almost daily. This situation is likely to become worse given the projected changes in climate, degradation of ecosystems, population growth and urbanisation. The new concepts such as Ecosystem-based Adaptation,...

Green infrastructure (GI) in urban areas may be adopted as a passive control system to reduce air pollutant concentrations. However, current dispersion models offer limited modelling options to evaluate its impact on ambient pollutant concentrations. The scope of this review revolves around the following question: how can GI be considered in readil...

Motivated by progressive climate-change influence on ice degradation in caves, in this paper we present a novel methodology to investigate the link between air dynamics and ice melting. Specifically, we use surveys available for the Leupa ice cave (LIC), located in the Canin-Kanin group in the southeastern Alps and a general purpose computational f...

This review paper provides an overview of current understanding of local scale flows and dispersion with attention to the urban canopy layer and related spatial and temporal scales. The presence of buildings and topographic features are responsible for a vast number of processes ranging from simple drag and friction effects, wakes, corner vortices,...