When it comes to human health and safety, the extractive industry represents one of the most hazardous activities. When accidents occur in mines, quarries or processing plants, consequences are usually very serious. A description of Italy’s state of the art is made herein, with a special focus on occupational injuries occurred during the 2012-2019 period of time as well as fatal injuries of the last...

The residual presence of critical components (e.g. Asbestos Containing Materials – ACMs) still represents one of the main criticalities for the Occupational Safety and Health – OS&H in many large public facilities. The very first step for an effective Risk Assessment and Management is obviously a clear definition of the different approaches, complying with the Italian general and special OS&H...

The large use of nanomaterials in several industrial processes drove the attention toward the potential health issues associated to their diffusion in the environment. However, since nanomaterials are characterized by a polidisperse particle size distribution, the human health risk induced by a nanoparticle (NP) contamination cannot be assessed through the ASTM procedure commonly used for chemicals. Toxicity...

Rockfall net fences are multicomponent protection devices for mitigating rockfall hazard. As passive measures, they are used to intercept and stop rock blocks propagation after their detachment from a cliff or a slope. During their design working life, net fences subjected to ageing phenomena, corrosion and impact loads, causing their efficiency loss or even their effectiveness. A multi-matricial procedure...

This article aims to provide a glance about the current and future applications of Big Data Analytics (BDA) within the Oil&Gas industry, which is searching for an improvement in data managing equal to the improvement in techniques and technologies required by current and future hydrocarbon production. The connection and compatibility of BDA with the hydrocarbon sector is analyzed, highlighting its...

The rapid development of the mechanized tunneling in current decades has raised serious concerns about the environmental impact of large quantities of the muck. EPB-TBMs require the use of foaming agents for optimizing the soil conditioning. These agents could contain some chemicals (e.g., sodium lauryl ether sulfate – SLES) that are not included in the current legislation at the Italian or EU level....

The Lombard territory (Italy), characterized by a historical process of industrialization, is affected by significant contamination both of the ground and of the groundwater. The continuous development of urban areas needs to face the problem linked to the growing presence of portions of the territory where there is the presence of contaminated groundwater (mainly chlorinated solvents and hydrocarbons),...

The residual presence of critical components (e.g. Asbestos Containing Materials – ACMs) still represents one of the main criticalities for the Occupational Safety and Health – OS&H in many large public facilities (Lee and Van Orden, 2007).

Since...

The main purpose of developing OSH Management System is to create a sustainable system that does not rely solely on a specific person with OSH expertise. This concept is the core of the International Organization for Standardization – ISO standards which promote the creation of a sustainable system based on the assumption that humans make mistakes. Then, it is argued that government regulations may...

The management of health and safety at work is represented by the set of preventive and protective measures to minimize the exposure of workers to risks that may cause the onset of diseases or increase the number of accidents.

Data on occupational accidents...

The role of working spaces in workers’ safety is often neglected and reduced to the building final inspection report. Nevertheless plenty of dangers are originated by the building environment surrounding the working activity: wear and obsolescence of building elements, failure mends and vandalism make the original compliancy fade away. The investigation on the real condition of the rooms where work...

Accidents and fatalities at work have always had a huge social and economic impact. In recent years the phenomenon in Italy does not seem to regress, indeed, the official data of fatality at work report a significant increase; this notwithstanding the widespread legislative activity both at European and national level.

An...

When major accident scenarios are considered, the effects of major events which give rise to a serious, immediate or deferred danger to human health or the environment, inside or outside the production or storage area due to the presence in high quantities of one or more dangerous substances are being considered. Events of this type, except in exceptional cases, have always had important consequences...

Nowadays, occupational exposure to airborne dust is still one of the most concerning problems our society should face, since both airborne dust is a common pollutant in almost all the NACE sectors activities, and the occupational exposure quantification is critical. One of the possible causes can be identified in determining the real conditions of dust pollution in the workplaces, attributable to the...

In residential buildings, drinking water is often used for tasks that do not necessarily require high quality water, such as home-garden irrigation. Our research focuses on the idea of harvesting rainwater to promote sustainable management of low-quality water resources on a building scale for irrigation purposes. The effectiveness of a collection system depends on the weather conditions, which determine...

Rockfall protection embankments are compelling mitigation measures for those situations involving very high kinetic energy or large blocks and where the slope toe is almost flat. Several systems have been developed, and, among them, reinforced earth embankments allow considerable heights and inclination of the faces up to 70°. Nevertheless, a common procedure for including the dynamic condition, i.e....

The Petra Archaeological Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985, is characterized by a spectacular landscape but also by a great fragility fragile being prone to a diversity of natural risks (e.g. landslides, flash-floods, earthquakes) which can cause a potential danger to cultural heritage and visitors. The ‘Siq’, a natural canyon which constitutes the main entrance to the archaeological...

Rockfall net fences and drapery meshes constitute two of the most adopted protective structural works against rockfall hazard. During their life, they are subject to ageing, corrosion, and impact loads, with a consequent loss of efficiency or even effectiveness. Due to the variability of the environment and, more in general, to external conditions, a definition of a service life, although not unique but...

A proposal for the management of rockfall protection works on complex infrastructure networks such as that of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano through planned inspections. A conscious management requires an adequate planning of inspections and the determination of economically sustainable ‘thresholds’ of intervention. Since it is not possible to predict the frequency of detachments that...