Biomedical subjects

Margherita Panzieri

Publications and source records attributed to Margherita Panzieri.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Environmental certification: a scientific tool for sustainability. Evaluation of possible indicators for the environmental performance evaluation (EPE) of Ravenna province (Italy).

Environmental certification is becoming the main tool for application of sustainable development principles. The European Regulation Emas and the international standard ISO 14001 both require for certification, to perform an environmental management system to prevent environmental impacts and to continuously improve environmental performance. For a good environmental performance evaluation (EPE), certification needs to use scientific methodologies and to interface with scientific research; here we proposed emergy analysis as a valid method for EPE and emergetic environmental performance and condition indicators (EPIs, ECIs) to monitor a territorial system: Ravenna province (Italy). Together with emergy indicators were selected other indicators for a deeper EPE: emitted/adsorbed CO2, energy consumptions, air and water pollution measures. The paper showed that Ravenna system has a good environmental performance and demonstrated how different indicators from the most advanced chemical research (chemical-physical, analytical, etc.) contribute to a complete EPE of a complex territorial system and are useful for environmental certification and sustainable development.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗

PubMed2002

Thermodynamic analysis of the province of Ravenna (Italy).

This is a thermodynamic analysis of the Province of Ravenna (Italy) and its districts (Ravenna, Faenza and Lugo) and an evaluation of entropy waste production based on a balance sheet of greenhouse gases. The method used is energy analysis. The results show that the Province and Ravenna are characterized by a heavy exploitation of local non renewable resources, Faenza strikes a good balance between economic development and environment conservation and Lugo is less sustainable than the others. The greenhouse gas balance shows that the Province emits 10.5 times the quantity of greenhouse gases that it adsorbs and that the emissions reduction is required in the energy sector, which is responsible for 92% of the total.

Carbon Dioxide↗

PubMed2002

Thermodynamic indicators for environmental certification.

The Earth is an open thermodynamic system, that remains in a steady state far from the equilibrium, through energy and matter exchanges with the surrounding environment. These natural constraints, which prevent the system from maximizing its entropy, are threatened by human action and our ecosystem needs urgent protection. In this viewpoint the environmental certification was born, according to international standards ISO 14001, ISO 14040, and European Regulation EMAS. These are voluntary adhesions to a program of environmental protection by companies, administrations and organizations which, starting from the respect of the existing environmental laws and regulations, decide to further improve their environmental performance. To obtain and maintain certification of a system is necessary to apply some indicators to evaluate its environmental performance and to demonstrate its progressive improvement. Here we propose to use for this purpose the thermodynamic indicators produced from energy analysis by Odum. The case study is Montalcino city (Italy) and energy indicators are used to evaluate environmental performance of this system where exist different activities, from agricultural productions, to tourism. Results show that energy analysis could become a valid standard monitoring method for environmental certification, especially in consideration of its wide application field.

Conservation of Natural Resources↗