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Books by Beniamino Murgante

Geographic Information Analysis for Sustainable Development and Economic Planning: New Technologies

Spatial analytical techniques and geographical analysis and modelling methods are required in ord... more Spatial analytical techniques and geographical analysis and modelling methods are required in order to analyse data and to facilitate the decision process at all levels. Old geographical issues can find an answer thanks to new methods and instruments, while new issues are developing, challenging the researchers for new solutions.

Geographic Information Analysis for Sustainable Development and Economic Planning: New Technologies tackles topics related to, to-date development of Geographic Information in terms of the technologies available for retrieving, managing, and analyzing geographical data. This book is useful for academic staff, as well as postgraduate students (MSc, PhD levels) in GIS, remote sensing, economic geography, spatial planning, geostatistics, and related fields.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Sustainable Development: concepts and methods for its application in urban an... more TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sustainable Development: concepts and methods for its application in urban and environmental planning Beniamino Murgante, Giuseppe Borruso, Alessandra Lapucci

Urban Land-use Projections supporting Adaptation Strategies to Climate Changes in the Coastal Zone, Henning Sten Hansen

A Multiple Criteria Heuristic Solution Method for Locating Near to Optimal Contiguous and Compact Sites in Raster Maps Pablo Vanegas, Dirk Cattrysse, Jos Van Orshoven

Renewable energy sources: the case of wind farms analysis, Silvana Lombardo, Massimiliano Petri
Identifying Viewshed: new approaches to Visual Impact

Assessment, Maria Danese, Gabriele Nolè, Beniamino Murgante
Agricultural terraced landscapes in the Province of Trieste (Northeastern Italy) Giovanni Mauro

Estimation of population density of census sectors using remote sensing data and spatial regression, Tessio Novack, Hermann Kux and Corina Freitas

Using environmental geostatistics for the geochemical characterization of soils from the polluted site of national interest of Tito (PZ – Italy). Pietro Lucia, Achille Palma, Beniamino Murgante, Carmela Miriam D’Alessandro, Adriano Sofo, Antonio Scopa

Evaluating the impact of resolution on the predictions of an air quality model over Madrid area (Spain) Marta G. Vivanco, Oier Azula, Inmaculada Palomino, Fernando Martín

Spatial OnLine Analytical Processing of Geographic Data through
the Google Earth Interface Sergio Di Martino, Sandro Bimonte, Michela Bertolotto, Filomena Ferrucci, Vincenza Leano

Nonlinear black-box models for short-term forecasting of air temperature in the town of Palermo, Maurizio Cellura, Simona Culotta, Valerio Lo Brano, Antonino Marvuglia

Automatic Mapping and Classification of Spatial Environmental Data, Mikhail Kanevski, Vadim Timonin, Alexei Pozdnoukhov

Detecting Landforms Using Quantitative Radar Roughness Characterization and Spectral Mixing Analysis, Andrea Taramelli

A framework of map comparison methods to evaluate geosimulation models from a geospatial perspective, Alex Hagen-Zanker, Pim Martens.

Papers by Beniamino Murgante

Natural hazards such as earthquakes take place around the world and when combined with humans cre... more Natural hazards such as earthquakes take place around the world and when combined with humans create natural disasters. Earthquakes, a form of natural hazard, have, in recent years, caused damage and destruction in many rural areas due to the lack of sustainability in political, economic, social, physical and operational criteria. Thus, to overcome the damage caused by earthquakes in rural areas, an assessment of sustainability status seems necessary to plan and strengthen in relation to the status of sustainability indicators. Data collection was performed through field methods and questionnaires. To test the hypothesis, T statistical methods, correlation method and F-test were performed using SPSS software (V22.0, IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY, USA). The results of the study showed that villages were at a low and undesirable level for all aspects, except social index in terms of sustainability. Comparisons showed that there was a significant mean difference among villages in terms of sustainability. The multi-criteria decision-making analysis has been considered and applied to a ranking of villages in terms of sustainability against the hazard of earthquakes. Finally, in order to improve the sustainability indicators of villages, some strategies have been presented.

In the last years, after medium and strong Italian earthquakes a new and virtuous procedure for a... more In the last years, after medium and strong Italian earthquakes a new and virtuous procedure for assessment of seismic capacity of the strategic buildings has been started and carried out. For single building, the best choice to retrofit should be defined based on its specific features and seismic deficiencies. Different methods and alternative approaches exist to define the optimum retrofitting strategy. On contrary, retrofitting strategies on a wide territorial scale (for public and/or strategic buildings) should be based on multiple and diverse aspects. Prioritization of the mitigation strategies with strongly limited budget has become a fundamental topic especially with regard to the limited economic resources and their allocation on national, regional or sub-regional territories. This is a typical political and administrative problem and it is a fundamental topic for decision makers. This issue is certainly of greatest interest for strategic buildings, which must have high performance during and after seismic emergency. In past years, often decision-making and selection of different strategies, they were devoid of rational criteria. Due to both the huge amount of strategic buildings that require interventions and the limited economic availability, it is necessary as first step to define the priority of interventions on a wide territorial scale. In the present work, the definition of seismic risk management strategies in order to prioritize the retrofitting of the strategic buildings is investigated. The multi-criteria decision-making analysis has been considered and applied to a data set of strategic buildings in order to define different propriety ranking able to satisfy different purpose

Landscape preservation in Italy is a major issue in national cultural heritage conservation polic... more Landscape preservation in Italy is a major issue in national cultural heritage conservation policies. Urban settlements growth is among the most threatening factors for the correct landscape preservation. Such phenomenon may result in corrupting the correct landscape-system functioning, particularly when the development occurs without precise planning prescriptions. Land-use/cover evolution dynamic is a subject widely and thoroughly investigated, especially concerning consumption of natural and other lands due to anthropogenic activities. This paper focuses on a region in southern Italy, where soil consumption is known to represent a urging matter of concern. However, although the negative impacts of soil consumption are well known, to our knowledge there are no case studies presenting a precise quantitative assessment of the intensity of such phenomenon for the region of interest. Furthermore, this study aims at forecasting the development of urban settlements through the application of the cellular automata model SLEUTH; the case study concerns the Municipality of Altamura (Apulia region, Italy). Results highlight how current landscape preservation instruments alone cannot ensure a reduction in soil consumption phenomenon and how urban areas expansion is incompatible with a correct landscape conservation in the study area.

Instrumental to the concept of sustainability must be the search for feasible ways to implement s... more Instrumental to the concept of sustainability must be the search for feasible ways to implement sustainability, especially connecting heritage and tourism. This should be understood in relationship with the persistence in time and the current and future conception of the human-made environment. This study deals with the spatial characterization over time of the urban sprawl close to and around two important archaeological areas: Kom el Shoqafa, Egypt and Shush, Iran. For both of the investigated sites, change detection analyses have been conducted using satellite declassified Corona and multidate Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery available for free from the USGS Earth Explorer. The study involves the collection of Corona 1964, Landsat TM 1984, Landsat ETM+ 1998 and L8 2016. The past and current urban and agricultural areas have been extracted by using consolidated classification techniques. Analyses and quantification of the spatial dimension of the urban expansion showed that, for both the study sites, urban areas have expanded to a significant percentage. In particular, the analysis of Corona and Landsat TM, ETM+, L8 imagery in Kom el Shoqafa revealed that, for the urban area, the evaluation of the change detection presented generally increasing chronology in both of the study areas, but for the agriculture lands, we can see that the changes sometimes decreased and sometimes increased. As a whole, outputs from our investigations clearly highlight that the current availability free of charge of long term satellite time series provides an excellent low cost tool for several applications including environmental monitoring and change detection to observe and quantify urban and land use changes from a global down to a local scale. We examine the capabilities of integrating remote sensing and GIS and suggest some innovative solutions to preserve the archaeological sites.

The analysis of conversations between Italian and Brazilian groups allows to understand meanings ... more The analysis of conversations between Italian and Brazilian groups allows to understand meanings that inspire and motivate political demonstrations and different performances in favor of a desired city. The research takes a descrip‐ tive perspective, based on categories of analysis informed by theories, but made by the exploration of terms used in conversations caught by members of four Facebook groups. The expectation is to highlight concepts, revealed by the set of statements made by people interested in trends that city growth takes or just in the given uses of urban spaces. To provide clues for the interpretation of the talks, we use centrality indices of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in a semantic network of concepts. Thus, it is possible to establish similarities and differences between current forms of civic participation and politics on urban commons largely supported by online social networks.

The negative impacts of land take on natural components and economic resources affect planning ch... more The negative impacts of land take on natural components and economic resources affect planning choices and territorial policies. The importance of land take monitoring, in Italy, has been only recently considered, but despite this awareness, in the great part of the country, effective monitoring and containment measures have not been started, yet. This research proposes a methodology to map and monitor land use changes. To this end, a time series from 1985–2010, based on the multi-temporal Landsat data Thematic Mapper (TM), has been analyzed in the Vulture Alto-Bradano area, a mountain zone of the Basilicata region (Southern Italy). Results confirm a double potentiality of using these data: on the one hand, the use of multi-temporal Landsat data allows going very back in time, producing accurate datasets that provide a phenomenon trend over time; on the other hand, these data can be considered a first experience of open data in the field of spatial information. The proposed methodology provides agencies, local authorities and practitioners with a valuable tool to implement monitoring actions. This represents the first step to pursue territorial governance methods based on sustainability, limiting the land take.

For more than a decade, the European Union recognizes soil as a common good and considers it as a... more For more than a decade, the European Union recognizes soil as a common good and considers it as a finite resource of inestimable value. The European Union defines it as the “upper layer of earth’s crust, formed by mineral particles, organic matter, water, air and living organisms”. Despite such definitions, usually, planning choices do not take into account the need to reduce soil consumption to build up resilience. This paper presents the controversial case of Agri Valley (Basilicata, Southern Italy); on the one hand, this region is characterized by the presence of extremely valuable land, because of the exceptional degree of soil fertility; on the other hand, Valdagri is also known to have one of the largest oilfields of Europe. An application built around the SLEUTH model was developed in order to produce a simulation and an estimate of the extent to which urban areas may grow in the near future. Results confirm that urban policies implemented so far by local governments—which aimed almost exclusively to favor industrial development—irreversibly threaten the integrity of the natural values of the valley.
Keywords: sustainability; land use change models; soil consumption; urban policies; built-up areas

International Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems, 2014

This study deals with the use of satellite TM multi-temporal data coupled with statistical analys... more This study deals with the use of satellite TM multi-temporal data coupled with statistical analyses to quantitatively estimate urban expansion and soil consumption for small towns in southern Italy. The investigated area is close to Bari and was selected because highly representative for Italian urban areas. To cope with the fact that small changes have to be captured and extracted from TM multi-temporal data sets, we adopted the use of spectral indices to emphasize occurring changes, and geospatial data analysis to reveal spatial patterns. Analyses have been carried out using global and local spatial autocorrelation, applied to multi-date NASA Landsat images acquired in 1999 and 2009 and available free of charge. Moreover, in this paper each step of data processing has been carried out using free or open source software tools, such as, operating system (Linux Ubuntu), GIS software (GRASS GIS and Quantum GIS) and software for statistical analysis of data (R). This aspect is very important, since it puts no limits and allows everybody to carry out spatial analyses on remote sensing data. This approach can be very useful to assess and map land cover change and soil degradation, even for small urbanized areas, as in the case of Italy, where recently an increasing number of devastating flash floods have been recorded. These events have been mainly linked to urban expansion and soil consumption and have caused loss of human lives along with enormous damages to urban settlements, bridges, roads, agricultural activities, etc. In these cases, remote sensing can provide reliable operational low cost tools to assess, quantify and map risk areas.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 2010

The set covering problem is a classical model in the subject of combinatorial optimization for se... more The set covering problem is a classical model in the subject of combinatorial optimization for service allocation, that consists in finding a set of solutions for covering a range of needs at the lowest possible cost. In this paper, we report various approximate methods to solve this problem, such as Cuckoo Search, Bee Colony, Firefly Optimization, and Electromagnetism-Like Algorithms. We illustrate experimental results of these metaheuristics for solving a set of 65 non-unicost set covering problems from the Beasley's OR-Library.

Citizens Participation in Improving Rural Communities Quality of Life

The concept of participation is very difficult to clearly define, because of the complex framewor... more The concept of participation is very difficult to clearly define, because of the complex framework and the experimental nature of any participatory process. These processes are more difficult to implement in small and isolated communities because of the particularities social structure. I several cases technologies can help citizens in participating in these activities, but the result is strongly related to the predisposition of a communities to use theses ICT tools.
“Hack my town” was an “hackathon” among Universities in order to find solutions to “smart villages and territories” problems. It took place in Glorenza, a small medieval village located in the North of Italy, in Val Venosta, near to Swiss boundary. The introduction of smart solutions in a small rural context could be not very easy: Glorenza is, in fact, characterized by a limited predisposition for both technological and social innovation. Participants experienced how a small mountain village can become a smart village through the synergy between students and their professors, stimulating from one side scientific discussion and from another side a creative environment, where new con-ceptual solutions can be found.

Analyzing urban sprawl applying spatial autocorrelation techniques to multi-temporal satellite data

UDMS Annual 2013, 2013

Ecological Informatics, 2014

a b s t r a c t Q7 5 a r t i c l e i n f o 6 Open source software 18

Applying Support Vector Machine in classifying satellite images for the assessment of urban sprawl

ABSTRACT In last decades the spreading of new buildings, road infrastructures and a scattered pro... more ABSTRACT In last decades the spreading of new buildings, road infrastructures and a scattered proliferation of houses in zones outside urban areas, produced a countryside urbanization with no rules, consuming soils and impoverishing the landscape. Such a phenomenon generated a huge environmental impact, diseconomies and a decrease in life quality. This study analyzes processes concerning land use change, paying particular attention to urban sprawl phenomenon. The application is based on the integration of Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing adopting open source technologies. The objective is to understand size distribution and dynamic expansion of urban areas in order to define a methodology useful to both identify and monitor the phenomenon. In order to classify "urban" pixels, over time monitoring of settlements spread, understanding trends of artificial territories, classifications of satellite images at different dates have been realized. In order to obtain these classifications, supervised classification algorithms have been adopted. More particularly, Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning algorithm has been applied to multispectral remote data. One of the more interesting features in SVM is the possibility to obtain good results also adopting few classification pixels of training areas. SVM has several interesting features, such as the capacity to obtain good results also adopting few classification pixels of training areas, a high possibility of configuration parameters and the ability to discriminate pixels with similar spectral responses. Multi-temporal ASTER satellite data at medium resolution have been adopted because are very suitable in evaluating such phenomena. The application is based on the integration of Geographic Information Systems and Remote Sensing technologies by means of open source software. Tools adopted in managing and processing data are GRASS GIS, Quantum GIS and R statistical project. The area of interest is located south of Bari, in south eastern Italy (Puglia region). Bari, one of the major cities of southern Italy, is characterized by a considerable urban sprawl. The analysis is focused on a rectangular shaped region covering the urban area of three different cities, namely Polignano a Mare and Monopoli (and Conversano minority part) which, in 2011, had a population density comprised in the range of 140-319 people per Km2(istat ). The area of interest has a surface of approximately 253 Km2 , is characterized by three urban areas (Polignano a Mare, Conversano and Monopoli) and has a coastline of almost 17 Km. References Lanorte, A., Danese M., Lasaponara R., Murgante B. (2011) "Multiscale mapping of burn area and severity using multisensor satellite data and spatial autocorrelation analysis" International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, Elsevier, doi:10.1016/j.jag.2011.09.005 Murgante B. Danese M. (2011) "Urban versus Rural: the decrease of agricultural areas and the development of urban zones analyzed with spatial statistics" Special Issue on "Environmental and agricultural data processing for water and territory management" International Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems (IJAEIS) volume 2(2) pp. 16-28 IGI Global, ISSN 1947-3192, DOI: 10.4018/jaeis.2011070102. Murgante, B., Las Casas, G., Danese, M., (2012), "Analyzing Neighbourhoods Suitable for Urban Renewal Programs with Autocorrelation Techniques" In Burian J. (Eds.) "Advances in Spatial Planning" InTech - Open Access DOI: 10.5772/33747 ISBN:978-953-51-0377-6 Nolè G., Danese M., Murgante B., Lasaponara R., Lanorte, A., (2012) "Using Spatial Autocorrelation Techniques and Multi-temporal Satellite Data for Analyzing Urban Sprawl" Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 7335, pp. 512-527. Springer-Verlag, Berlin. ISSN: 0302-9743, doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-31137-6_39

“Serpentone Reload” an Experience of Citizens Involvement in Regeneration of Peripheral Urban Spaces

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Jul 2015

Suburbs are often very contradictory places. Despite great part of urban population live there, t... more Suburbs are often very contradictory places. Despite great part of urban population live there, these parts of cities are mostly considered as degradation places. The topic of suburbs regeneration is relevant today. Nevertheless, often expensive interventions implemented by local authorities fail to regenerate their public spaces. This paper presents the experience of “Serpentone reload”, a workshop based on participatory reactivation of abandoned or underused spaces and buildings in “Cocuzzo/Serpentone” neighbourhood in Potenza (Basilicata, Italy). The workshop particularly focused on the reuse of the “Ship”, an underground building, completed in 2010, never used, because it has been perceived as an extraneous element, the result of an imposition and not the outcome of shared choices. The experience is particularly significant, because it shows how low cost interventions, realized with citizens involvement, could contribute to the regeneration of peripheral urban areas more than expensive and complex imposed interventions.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2011

Nowadays, the most common approach to seismic risk mitigation is characterized only by strategies... more Nowadays, the most common approach to seismic risk mitigation is characterized only by strategies reducing building vulnerability, through structural interventions, and it does not consider the possibility to intervene at urban scale, reducing urban seismic vulnerability. This paper deals with the concept of urban seismic vulnerability, and introduces resilience, as the capacity of a system to adapt itself to new, generally negative, conditions, in order to re-establish normal conditions. Each city can express resilience, and the identification of its elements is the goal of our research. A spatial multi-criteria approach is here proposed.

The distinction among urban, periurban and rural areas represents a classical example of uncertai... more The distinction among urban, periurban and rural areas represents a classical example of uncertainty in land classification. Satellite images, geostatistical analysis and all kinds of spatial data are very useful in urban sprawl studies, but it is important to define precise rules in combining great amounts of data to build complex knowledge about territory. Rough Set theory may be a useful method to employ in this field. It represents a different mathematical approach to uncertainty by capturing the indiscernibility. Two different phenomena can be indiscernible in some contexts and classified in the same way when combining available information about them. This approach has been applied in a case of study, comparing the results achieved with both Map Algebra technique and Spatial Rough Set. The study case area, Potenza Province, is particularly suitable for the application of this theory, because it includes 100 municipalities with different number of inhabitants and morphologic features.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013

Urban real estate property values are mainly conditioned by several aspects, which can be summari... more Urban real estate property values are mainly conditioned by several aspects, which can be summarized in two main classes: intrinsic and extrinsic ones. Intrinsic characters are specific goods while extrinsic features are related to a diversity of goods. Therefore, there is an extremely close correlation between "rigidity location" of property (fixed location) and its value. Possibilities offered by recent developments of statistical techniques, principally Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), in analyzing housing market have given a new impetus in mass appraisal of urban property. More particularly, Geographically Weighted Regression has been adopted in analyzing housing market, in order to identify homogeneous areas and to define the marginal contribution that a single location (outlined by these areas) gives to the market value of the property. The model has been built on a sample of 280 data, related to the trades of residential real estate units occurred between 2008 and 2010 in the city of Potenza (Basilicata, southern Italy). The results of territory zoning into homogeneous market areas, in addition to the undoubted usefulness in the field of real estate valuations, has useful implications in terms of taxation, programming territorial transformations and checking ongoing or ex post planning decisions.

The use of statistical data and of the neural networks, capable of elaborate a series of data and... more The use of statistical data and of the neural networks, capable of elaborate a series of data and territorial info, have allowed the making of a model useful in the subdivision of urban places into homogeneous zone under the profile of a social, real estate, environmental and urbanist background of a city. The development of homogeneous zone has fiscal and urbanist advantages. The tools in the model proposed, able to be adapted to the dynamic changes of the city, allow the application of the zoning fast and dynamic.