Environmental Earth Sciences - Call for Papers

Geoenvironmental resources and risks: management strategies and techniques for eco-sustainable development and planning of fragile territories

Guest Editors: Gioacchino Francesco Andriani, Domenico Calcaterra, Ratan Das, Lidia Loiotine, Michael Tarullo

Natural and anthropogenic factors have caused many types of disasters throughout the world, especially during the 20th and 21st century in conjunction with changes in climate and its variability.
Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, landslides, floods, coastal erosion and sinkholes involve an infinite series of destructive processes that cause considerable damage to the environment and personal and public property.  More importantly, millions are victims of these catastrophic events every year. The consequences are felt on social, economic and cultural levels. Added to this, there are the effects of increasingly ravenous and reckless soil consumption, with disregard for geological and geomorphological characteristics as well as the historical and natural heritage of fragile natural landscapes. The extreme variability of the factors that contribute to risk assessment in any geo-environmental context has always been an obstacle in the development of methodological approaches and procedures aimed at mitigating and preventing destructive phenomena.
Thus, hazard identification and risk assessment remain a big problem, often linked to the unpredictability, magnitude estimation and specific location of the events, but also a lack of planning of preventive measures, partly due to limited public awareness and partly to lack of sufficient resources.
On this basis, the purpose of this special issue is to present new research developments in the fields of environmental and earth sciences and engineering geology for safeguarding fragile landscapes, with particular reference to studies on natural and anthropogenic disasters, damage processes and mechanisms, and multidisciplinary approaches aimed at assessing hazards. Beyond these specific topics, the issue will also welcome manuscripts on  1) risk management, 2) how to limit damage, 3) actions needed to reduce the unpredictability of events particularly in cases where they are sudden, 4) forecasting long and short term effects, 5) development of new monitoring and forecasting techniques, and 6) development of systematic intervention and risk management strategies based on an integrated vision shared by all concerned, but above all sustainable.
This special issue aims to propose the latest advances in the field having a distinct interdisciplinary and global perspective. This issue is also expected to contribute towards a better understanding of the disaster potential and establish cause and effect relationships between various potential disaster factors in highly hazardous terrains.
Original research, case studies, new experimental methodologies and methods on these topics and others related to natural and anthropogenic disasters are solicited for this Special Issue.
 

Submission Deadline: 30 June 2022