Roberto Giua - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Roberto Giua
Epidemiologia e prevenzione, Jul 1, 2013
ISEE Conference Abstracts, 2013
ISEE Conference Abstracts, 2016
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, 2016
The air quality 2008/50/EC directive allows providing evidence of PM10 daily limit value exceedan... more The air quality 2008/50/EC directive allows providing evidence of PM10 daily limit value exceedances due to natural sources, which are not to be considered for the purpose of the directive. In this work the African outbreaks, affecting the PM10 exceeding events occurred in Apulia region during 2010, are identified as follows. The PM10 daily concentrations were measured by the regional air quality monitoring stations, and complemented with meteorological maps, air mass back-trajectories, aerosol satellite retrievals, dust model simulations, ground measurements of aerosol optical properties. To quantify the daily net African dust load in PM10, we applied a methodology designed by the European Commission and based on the analysis of PM10 levels time series from regional background stations.
International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2017
A modelling system based on FARM chemical transport model is applied to assess the air quality (A... more A modelling system based on FARM chemical transport model is applied to assess the air quality (AQ) over the Apulia region (Southern Italy) for 2013. The most relevant pollutant sources in the region are a steel plant, the largest in Europe (in the Taranto area), a coal fired power plant, the second most powerful in Italy (in the Brindisi area) and biomass burning for residential heating. Simulation results indicate exceedances for PM10 daily limit value and benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P) annual limit values occurring in some areas. The evaluation of the model performance has been conducted by using the software DELTA Tool, developed within FAIRMODE to support the application of the EU Air Quality Directive. Results show good performance of the model, with a tendency to underestimate PM10 and O3 levels. These results suggest the use of this modelling strategy for further source apportionment studies, in order to identify the sources that mainly affect air quality and to implement proper emi...
Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management, 2016
AB STRACT: During the last years, several exceedances of PM10 and benzo(a)pyrene limit values exc... more AB STRACT: During the last years, several exceedances of PM10 and benzo(a)pyrene limit values exceedances were recorded in Taranto, a city in southern Italy included in so-called areas at high risk of environmental crisisbecause of the presence of a heavy industrial district including the largest steel factory in Europe. A study of these critical pollution events showed a close correlation with the wind coming from the industrial site to the adjacent urban area. During 2011, at monitoring sites closes to the industrial area, at least the 65% of PM10 exceedances were related to wind day conditions (characterized by at least 3 consecutive hours of wind coming from 270-360±2deg with an associated speed higher than 7 m/s). For this reason, in 2012 an integrated environmental permit and a regional air quality plan were enacted to reduce pollutant emissions from industrial plants. A study of PM10 levels registered during windy days was performed during critical episodes of pollution highl...
Introduction Aim of this study was the impact assessment of emissions produced by power plants, l... more Introduction Aim of this study was the impact assessment of emissions produced by power plants, located in the Brindisi area in southern Italy, over the period from 1991 to 2014. This assessment pr...
Apulia is a 19,362 km region in the south-east of Italy developing about 800 km of coastline, sur... more Apulia is a 19,362 km region in the south-east of Italy developing about 800 km of coastline, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea in the northeast and by the Ionian Sea in the south. Its territory is quite low with mountains only per 1.5 %, level ground per 54 % and hills per 44 %. It is divided into six provinces: Bari, Brindisi, Lecce, Foggia, Taranto and Bat (Barletta, Andria, Trani), the latest one including ten Municipalities. Two relevant industrial areas (Brindisi and Taranto) and several cities of medium-large dimension characterize the territory. Bari is the capital of the Region and its most populated town, with over 300,000 inhabitants. Its urban centre is characterized by high vehicular traffic, while in its industrial area activities in the mechanical sector take place. Lecce and Foggia are service industry towns, with small artisan areas. Due to the numerous and high impact industrial activities (steel production, metallurgical, chemical, petrochemical, cement – producing a...
Environment International, 2019
Background: A large steel plant close to the urban area of Taranto (Italy) has been operating sin... more Background: A large steel plant close to the urban area of Taranto (Italy) has been operating since the sixties. Several studies conducted in the past reported an excess of mortality and morbidity from various diseases at the town level, possibly due to air pollution from the plant. However, the relationship between air pollutants emitted from the industry and adverse health outcomes has been controversial. We applied a variant of the "differencein-differences" (DID) approach to examine the relationship between temporal changes in exposure to industrial PM 10 from the plant and changes in cause-specific mortality rates at area unit level. Methods: We examined a dynamic cohort of all subjects (321,356 individuals) resident in the Taranto area in 1998-2010 and followed them up for mortality till 2014. In this work, we included only deaths occurring on 2008-2014. We observed a total of 15,303 natural deaths in the cohort and age-specific annual death rates were computed for each area unit (11 areas in total). PM 10 and NO 2 concentrations measured at air quality monitoring stations and the results of a dispersion model were used to estimate annual average population weighted exposures to PM 10 of industrial origin for each year, area unit and age class. Changes in exposures and in mortality were analyzed using Poisson regression. Results: We estimated an increased risk in natural mortality (1.86%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.06, 3.83%) per 1 μg/m 3 annual change of industrial PM 10 , mainly driven by respiratory causes (8.74%, 95% CI: 1.50, 16.51%). The associations were statistically significant only in the elderly (65+ years). Conclusions: The DID approach is intuitively simple and reduces confounding by design. Under the multiple assumptions of this approach, the study indicates an effect of industrial PM 10 on natural mortality, especially in the elderly population.
Chemosphere, 2019
Long-term sampling gives useful information on mass flow of emitted pollutants 2. Continuous samp... more Long-term sampling gives useful information on mass flow of emitted pollutants 2. Continuous sampling of emission into air of dioxins is a target of EU legislation 3. Validation of a long-term sampling system at a sinter plant was successful 4. Long-term sampling can be used for assessing compliance to permitted Emission Limit Value
American journal of industrial medicine, 2017
Exposure to heavy metals has been associated with kidney disease. We investigated the spatial dis... more Exposure to heavy metals has been associated with kidney disease. We investigated the spatial distribution of kidney disease in the industrially contaminated site of Taranto. Cases were subjects with a first hospital discharge diagnosis of kidney disease. Cases affected by specific comorbidities were excluded. Standardized Hospitalization Ratios (SHRs) were computed for low/high exposure area and for modeled spatial distribution of cadmium and fine particulate matter. Using the high/low exposure approach, in subjects aged 20-59 years residing in the high exposure area a significant excess of hospitalization was observed in males and a non-significant excess in females. No excesses were observed in subjects aged 60 years and over. The analysis by the modeling approach did not show a significant association with the greatest pollution impact area. Due to the excesses of hospitalization observed in the high/low exposure approach, a continuing epidemiological surveillance of residents a...
Ecotoxicology and environmental safety, Jan 28, 2017
Particulate matter (PM) is the most efficient vehicle for the inhalation and absorption of toxic ... more Particulate matter (PM) is the most efficient vehicle for the inhalation and absorption of toxic substances into the body. The present study was aimed at testing the hypothesis that PM10 samples collected on quartz filters exert an angiogenic activity in vivo in the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. When the low, medium, and high PM10 concentrations filters were tested in the CAM assay, an increasing number of microvessels was detectable after 4 days of applications of the filters. Moreover, at histological level, numerous microvessels and a dense inflammatory infiltrate were recognizable in the CAM mesenchyme. Our data show a clear dose-response relationship between the dose variable (PM10 and Bap) and the outcome variable. So far, the PM10 target value is determined on the basis of regulatory agreements and is not health-based. In addition, the mere gravimetric measure of PM10 cannot be considered a fully reliable surrogate of the overall toxicity of the mixture.
Atmospheric Pollution Research, 2016
Abstract The evaluation of the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring stations is o... more Abstract The evaluation of the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring stations is of fundamental relevance when observed concentration levels are used in air quality assessment. Since no reference method is provided, there is a need to develop tools for its quantitative assessment. In this paper we test a recently developed methodology for spatial representativeness area assessment, based on the analysis of time series of model concentrations by means of a Concentration Similarity Frequency (CSF) function, on the Taranto-via Machiavelli industrial monitoring station, located in a mid-size city in Southern Italy. The complex territorial context, the peculiar anthropogenic emissions features, dominated by the contribution of the largest steelworks in Europe, and the critical situation of human health in the city make this application an interesting case study to assess the portability of the CSF approach, so far applied only to background stations, to industrial sites that experience high concentration variability. A comprehensive characterization of the main anthropogenic emissions of the area was carried out, with detailed treatment of dust emission by wind erosion from industrial mineral piles; a Lagrangian modelling approach was chosen to simulate PM10 dispersion patterns, to achieve a reliable and high resolution description of concentration variability around the site. The resulting representativeness area of the station is 0.067 km2, fulfilling EU prescriptions for industrial stations. The comprehensive evaluation results, through the comparison with the observed data, showed good performances pointing out the reliability of the estimated concentration fields around the site and consequently of the assessment of its representativeness area.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2016
The evaluation of odor emissions and dispersion is a very arduous topic to face; the real-time mo... more The evaluation of odor emissions and dispersion is a very arduous topic to face; the real-time monitoring of odor emissions, the identification of chemical components and, with proper certainty, the source of annoyance represent a challenge for stakeholders such as local authorities. The complaints of people, often not systematic and variously distributed, in general do not allow us to quantify the perceived annoyance. Experimental research has been performed to detect and evaluate olfactory annoyance, based on field testing of an innovative monitoring methodology grounded in automatic recording of citizen alerts. It has been applied in Taranto, in the south of Italy where a relevant industrial area is located, by using Odortel ® for automated collection of citizen alerts. To evaluate its reliability, the collection system has been integrated with automated samplers, able to sample odorous air in real time, according to the citizen alerts of annoyance and, moreover, with meteorological data (especially the wind direction) and trends in odor marker compounds, recorded by air quality monitoring stations. The results have allowed us, for the first time, to manage annoyance complaints, test their reliability, and obtain information about the distribution and entity of the odor phenomena, such that we were able to identify, with supporting evidence, the source as an oil refinery plant.
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
to estimate the short-term impact of air pollutants on adult population of 23 Italian cities on t... more to estimate the short-term impact of air pollutants on adult population of 23 Italian cities on the calendar period 2006- 2009 as part of the EpiAir2 project. for each city, the short-term impact of air pollution on mortality was estimated. In particular, it was calculated the number of deaths attributable to particulate matter levels (PM10 and PM2.5) exceeding different thresholds deriving from the European Union legislation and the World Health Organization guidelines (PM10: 20 and 40 µg/m(3), reduction of 20% up to 20 µg/m(3) and more than 35 days per year with daily average above 50 µg/m(3); PM2.5: 10, 18 and 25 µg/m(3), reduction of 20% up to 18 µg/m(3)). The impact evaluation was done combining the effect estimates of air pollutant, the observed mortality level and the air pollution concentration measured by the ambient monitors. Regarding effects, the posterior city-specific distributions arising from a Bayesian metanalysis was employed. Uncertainty around the impact estimate...
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
Taranto coke oven batteries create a carcinogenic risk because of workers' exposure to PAHs, ... more Taranto coke oven batteries create a carcinogenic risk because of workers' exposure to PAHs, benzene and asbestos. Because of the vicinity to the city and the inadequacy of measures of pollution control, a risk also exists for the general population. Although the issue of environmental reclaim had been addressed by a specific law (DPR 23.04.1998), the solution to close the oldest batteries had been adopted through and enforced by the city administration and the Court. However, a recent agreement between ILVA and the Apulia Regional Administration has allowed to restart the use of some ovens, after simple revamping.
Epidemiologia e prevenzione, Jul 1, 2013
ISEE Conference Abstracts, 2013
ISEE Conference Abstracts, 2016
World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, 2016
The air quality 2008/50/EC directive allows providing evidence of PM10 daily limit value exceedan... more The air quality 2008/50/EC directive allows providing evidence of PM10 daily limit value exceedances due to natural sources, which are not to be considered for the purpose of the directive. In this work the African outbreaks, affecting the PM10 exceeding events occurred in Apulia region during 2010, are identified as follows. The PM10 daily concentrations were measured by the regional air quality monitoring stations, and complemented with meteorological maps, air mass back-trajectories, aerosol satellite retrievals, dust model simulations, ground measurements of aerosol optical properties. To quantify the daily net African dust load in PM10, we applied a methodology designed by the European Commission and based on the analysis of PM10 levels time series from regional background stations.
International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2017
A modelling system based on FARM chemical transport model is applied to assess the air quality (A... more A modelling system based on FARM chemical transport model is applied to assess the air quality (AQ) over the Apulia region (Southern Italy) for 2013. The most relevant pollutant sources in the region are a steel plant, the largest in Europe (in the Taranto area), a coal fired power plant, the second most powerful in Italy (in the Brindisi area) and biomass burning for residential heating. Simulation results indicate exceedances for PM10 daily limit value and benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P) annual limit values occurring in some areas. The evaluation of the model performance has been conducted by using the software DELTA Tool, developed within FAIRMODE to support the application of the EU Air Quality Directive. Results show good performance of the model, with a tendency to underestimate PM10 and O3 levels. These results suggest the use of this modelling strategy for further source apportionment studies, in order to identify the sources that mainly affect air quality and to implement proper emi...
Global Journal of Environmental Science and Management, 2016
AB STRACT: During the last years, several exceedances of PM10 and benzo(a)pyrene limit values exc... more AB STRACT: During the last years, several exceedances of PM10 and benzo(a)pyrene limit values exceedances were recorded in Taranto, a city in southern Italy included in so-called areas at high risk of environmental crisisbecause of the presence of a heavy industrial district including the largest steel factory in Europe. A study of these critical pollution events showed a close correlation with the wind coming from the industrial site to the adjacent urban area. During 2011, at monitoring sites closes to the industrial area, at least the 65% of PM10 exceedances were related to wind day conditions (characterized by at least 3 consecutive hours of wind coming from 270-360±2deg with an associated speed higher than 7 m/s). For this reason, in 2012 an integrated environmental permit and a regional air quality plan were enacted to reduce pollutant emissions from industrial plants. A study of PM10 levels registered during windy days was performed during critical episodes of pollution highl...
Introduction Aim of this study was the impact assessment of emissions produced by power plants, l... more Introduction Aim of this study was the impact assessment of emissions produced by power plants, located in the Brindisi area in southern Italy, over the period from 1991 to 2014. This assessment pr...
Apulia is a 19,362 km region in the south-east of Italy developing about 800 km of coastline, sur... more Apulia is a 19,362 km region in the south-east of Italy developing about 800 km of coastline, surrounded by the Adriatic Sea in the northeast and by the Ionian Sea in the south. Its territory is quite low with mountains only per 1.5 %, level ground per 54 % and hills per 44 %. It is divided into six provinces: Bari, Brindisi, Lecce, Foggia, Taranto and Bat (Barletta, Andria, Trani), the latest one including ten Municipalities. Two relevant industrial areas (Brindisi and Taranto) and several cities of medium-large dimension characterize the territory. Bari is the capital of the Region and its most populated town, with over 300,000 inhabitants. Its urban centre is characterized by high vehicular traffic, while in its industrial area activities in the mechanical sector take place. Lecce and Foggia are service industry towns, with small artisan areas. Due to the numerous and high impact industrial activities (steel production, metallurgical, chemical, petrochemical, cement – producing a...
Environment International, 2019
Background: A large steel plant close to the urban area of Taranto (Italy) has been operating sin... more Background: A large steel plant close to the urban area of Taranto (Italy) has been operating since the sixties. Several studies conducted in the past reported an excess of mortality and morbidity from various diseases at the town level, possibly due to air pollution from the plant. However, the relationship between air pollutants emitted from the industry and adverse health outcomes has been controversial. We applied a variant of the "differencein-differences" (DID) approach to examine the relationship between temporal changes in exposure to industrial PM 10 from the plant and changes in cause-specific mortality rates at area unit level. Methods: We examined a dynamic cohort of all subjects (321,356 individuals) resident in the Taranto area in 1998-2010 and followed them up for mortality till 2014. In this work, we included only deaths occurring on 2008-2014. We observed a total of 15,303 natural deaths in the cohort and age-specific annual death rates were computed for each area unit (11 areas in total). PM 10 and NO 2 concentrations measured at air quality monitoring stations and the results of a dispersion model were used to estimate annual average population weighted exposures to PM 10 of industrial origin for each year, area unit and age class. Changes in exposures and in mortality were analyzed using Poisson regression. Results: We estimated an increased risk in natural mortality (1.86%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.06, 3.83%) per 1 μg/m 3 annual change of industrial PM 10 , mainly driven by respiratory causes (8.74%, 95% CI: 1.50, 16.51%). The associations were statistically significant only in the elderly (65+ years). Conclusions: The DID approach is intuitively simple and reduces confounding by design. Under the multiple assumptions of this approach, the study indicates an effect of industrial PM 10 on natural mortality, especially in the elderly population.
Chemosphere, 2019
Long-term sampling gives useful information on mass flow of emitted pollutants 2. Continuous samp... more Long-term sampling gives useful information on mass flow of emitted pollutants 2. Continuous sampling of emission into air of dioxins is a target of EU legislation 3. Validation of a long-term sampling system at a sinter plant was successful 4. Long-term sampling can be used for assessing compliance to permitted Emission Limit Value
American journal of industrial medicine, 2017
Exposure to heavy metals has been associated with kidney disease. We investigated the spatial dis... more Exposure to heavy metals has been associated with kidney disease. We investigated the spatial distribution of kidney disease in the industrially contaminated site of Taranto. Cases were subjects with a first hospital discharge diagnosis of kidney disease. Cases affected by specific comorbidities were excluded. Standardized Hospitalization Ratios (SHRs) were computed for low/high exposure area and for modeled spatial distribution of cadmium and fine particulate matter. Using the high/low exposure approach, in subjects aged 20-59 years residing in the high exposure area a significant excess of hospitalization was observed in males and a non-significant excess in females. No excesses were observed in subjects aged 60 years and over. The analysis by the modeling approach did not show a significant association with the greatest pollution impact area. Due to the excesses of hospitalization observed in the high/low exposure approach, a continuing epidemiological surveillance of residents a...
Ecotoxicology and environmental safety, Jan 28, 2017
Particulate matter (PM) is the most efficient vehicle for the inhalation and absorption of toxic ... more Particulate matter (PM) is the most efficient vehicle for the inhalation and absorption of toxic substances into the body. The present study was aimed at testing the hypothesis that PM10 samples collected on quartz filters exert an angiogenic activity in vivo in the chick embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay. When the low, medium, and high PM10 concentrations filters were tested in the CAM assay, an increasing number of microvessels was detectable after 4 days of applications of the filters. Moreover, at histological level, numerous microvessels and a dense inflammatory infiltrate were recognizable in the CAM mesenchyme. Our data show a clear dose-response relationship between the dose variable (PM10 and Bap) and the outcome variable. So far, the PM10 target value is determined on the basis of regulatory agreements and is not health-based. In addition, the mere gravimetric measure of PM10 cannot be considered a fully reliable surrogate of the overall toxicity of the mixture.
Atmospheric Pollution Research, 2016
Abstract The evaluation of the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring stations is o... more Abstract The evaluation of the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring stations is of fundamental relevance when observed concentration levels are used in air quality assessment. Since no reference method is provided, there is a need to develop tools for its quantitative assessment. In this paper we test a recently developed methodology for spatial representativeness area assessment, based on the analysis of time series of model concentrations by means of a Concentration Similarity Frequency (CSF) function, on the Taranto-via Machiavelli industrial monitoring station, located in a mid-size city in Southern Italy. The complex territorial context, the peculiar anthropogenic emissions features, dominated by the contribution of the largest steelworks in Europe, and the critical situation of human health in the city make this application an interesting case study to assess the portability of the CSF approach, so far applied only to background stations, to industrial sites that experience high concentration variability. A comprehensive characterization of the main anthropogenic emissions of the area was carried out, with detailed treatment of dust emission by wind erosion from industrial mineral piles; a Lagrangian modelling approach was chosen to simulate PM10 dispersion patterns, to achieve a reliable and high resolution description of concentration variability around the site. The resulting representativeness area of the station is 0.067 km2, fulfilling EU prescriptions for industrial stations. The comprehensive evaluation results, through the comparison with the observed data, showed good performances pointing out the reliability of the estimated concentration fields around the site and consequently of the assessment of its representativeness area.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2016
The evaluation of odor emissions and dispersion is a very arduous topic to face; the real-time mo... more The evaluation of odor emissions and dispersion is a very arduous topic to face; the real-time monitoring of odor emissions, the identification of chemical components and, with proper certainty, the source of annoyance represent a challenge for stakeholders such as local authorities. The complaints of people, often not systematic and variously distributed, in general do not allow us to quantify the perceived annoyance. Experimental research has been performed to detect and evaluate olfactory annoyance, based on field testing of an innovative monitoring methodology grounded in automatic recording of citizen alerts. It has been applied in Taranto, in the south of Italy where a relevant industrial area is located, by using Odortel ® for automated collection of citizen alerts. To evaluate its reliability, the collection system has been integrated with automated samplers, able to sample odorous air in real time, according to the citizen alerts of annoyance and, moreover, with meteorological data (especially the wind direction) and trends in odor marker compounds, recorded by air quality monitoring stations. The results have allowed us, for the first time, to manage annoyance complaints, test their reliability, and obtain information about the distribution and entity of the odor phenomena, such that we were able to identify, with supporting evidence, the source as an oil refinery plant.
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
to estimate the short-term impact of air pollutants on adult population of 23 Italian cities on t... more to estimate the short-term impact of air pollutants on adult population of 23 Italian cities on the calendar period 2006- 2009 as part of the EpiAir2 project. for each city, the short-term impact of air pollution on mortality was estimated. In particular, it was calculated the number of deaths attributable to particulate matter levels (PM10 and PM2.5) exceeding different thresholds deriving from the European Union legislation and the World Health Organization guidelines (PM10: 20 and 40 µg/m(3), reduction of 20% up to 20 µg/m(3) and more than 35 days per year with daily average above 50 µg/m(3); PM2.5: 10, 18 and 25 µg/m(3), reduction of 20% up to 18 µg/m(3)). The impact evaluation was done combining the effect estimates of air pollutant, the observed mortality level and the air pollution concentration measured by the ambient monitors. Regarding effects, the posterior city-specific distributions arising from a Bayesian metanalysis was employed. Uncertainty around the impact estimate...
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
Epidemiologia e prevenzione
Taranto coke oven batteries create a carcinogenic risk because of workers' exposure to PAHs, ... more Taranto coke oven batteries create a carcinogenic risk because of workers' exposure to PAHs, benzene and asbestos. Because of the vicinity to the city and the inadequacy of measures of pollution control, a risk also exists for the general population. Although the issue of environmental reclaim had been addressed by a specific law (DPR 23.04.1998), the solution to close the oldest batteries had been adopted through and enforced by the city administration and the Court. However, a recent agreement between ILVA and the Apulia Regional Administration has allowed to restart the use of some ovens, after simple revamping.