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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the most severe global health and socioeconomic crisis of our time, and represents the greatest challenge faced by the world since the end of the Second World War. The academic literature indicates that climatic features, specifically temperature and absolute humidity, are very important factors affecting infectious pulmonary disease epidemics - such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS); however, the influence of climatic parameters on COVID-19 remains extremely controversial. The goal of this study is to individuate relationships between several climate parameters (temperature, relative humidity, accumulated precipitation, solar radiation, evaporation, and wind direction and intensity), local morphological parameters, and new daily positive swabs for COVID-19, which represents the only parameter that can be statistically used to quantify the pandemic. The daily deaths parameter was not considered, because it is not reliable, due to frequent administrative errors. Daily data on meteorological conditions and new cases of COVID-19 were collected for the Lombardy Region (Northern Italy) from 1 March, 2020 to 20 April, 2020. This region exhibited the largest rate of official deaths in the world, with a value of approximately 1700 per million on 30 June 2020. Moreover, the apparent lethality was approximately 17% in this area, mainly due to the considerable housing density and the extensive presence of industrial and craft areas. Both the Mann–Kendall test and multivariate statistical analysis showed that none of the considered climatic variables exhibited statistically significant relationships with the epidemiological evolution of COVID-19, at least during spring months in temperate subcontinental climate areas, with the exception of solar radiation, which was directly related and showed an otherwise low explained variability of approximately 20%. Furthermore, the average temperatures of two highly representative meteorological stations of Molise and Lucania (Southern Italy), the most weakly affected by the pandemic, were approximately 1.5 °C lower than those in Bergamo and Brescia (Lombardy), again confirming that a significant relationship between the increase in temperature and decrease in virulence from COVID-19 is not evident, at least in Italy.

This research reports the ongoing design of the HISMACITY (Historical Small Smart City) Protocol, a planning tool with a certification system. The tool is designed for small municipalities in Europe. Through the award-winning certification system, the Protocol supports the fulfillment of best practices. Such practices can enhance town attractiveness. It also counteracts excessive land use that results from urban growth, and reduces demographic decline in internal areas of each country. The research methodology is grounded on building a dynamic dataset using geo big data, local data, and mobile data via information communications technology (ICT), and real-time data through sensors. The tool aims to build algorithms to calculate indicators that measure quality standards of integrated interventions. The aim is to reach specific goals within defined priority areas of the Historical Small Smart City Protocol. Being highly adaptive, the framework follows urban responsive design principles based on weighted suitability models that can be calibrated by changing the input data and the weights of the linear combination formula. The results highlight varying framework data, including the tool’s development procedures and practicality.

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The Colli Albani volcanic complex contains the deposits of Quaternary stratovolcano. They cover over 1500 km2 around the city of Rome and have formed one of the most important aquifers for the city since the Roman age. Presently the volcano is quiescent, although it is characterised by shallow seismicity and gas emissions along the main fault systems. The area has undergone rapid urbanisation during the last 50 years and is presently characterised by intense, diffuse, and uncontrolled water withdrawal. In this paper we document a significant drop of water table, locally up to 100 m, which occurred during the last ten years. During the same period, there occurred several episodes of CO2 release in air that threatened human and animal life. We suggest a possible interplay between the dynamics of the hydrogeological system and the still active hydrothermal system, and present a Geographic Information System designed for the zonation of the area into various ‘water-yielding capacity’ classes as a function of aquifer depletion, urbanisation, and land use as well as hydrothermal activity and seismicity.