Giorgio Valentino Federici

“History and geography of water”: An online interdisciplinary course on water value

Despite water is a fundamental resource for the future of the planet, the debate on its management and its protection is very often limited to experts without the involvement of large parts of the society. The online course on “History and geography of water” promotes the idea of enlarging the borders of the knowledge related to the value of water, taking advantage of the digital education potentiality and ideally extending the theme of water to all the potential stakeholders.

Monitoring Sediment Transport During Floods in Tuscany

This work describes the monitoring activity of flow and sediment discharges carried out in four river stations on four different rivers in Tuscany: Arno, Serchio, Magra and Versilia characterized by a large difference in the drainage areas ranging from about 100 km2 to about 4,100 km2. From December 2006 to November 2012, 43 floods events were monitored and measured in these stations, with the aim of deriving flow-sediment rating curves. Field measurements include more than 150 samples of bed load and suspended load and flow discharges up to about 700 m3/s. Laboratory analyses of collected samples show that bed load was mostly composed by gravel in the case of the Versilia and Magra rivers, while Arno and Serchio showed a dominant sand transport. The measured data constitute a precious and unique dataset at the regional scale for calibrating sediment budget model and morphodynamic model, and for predicting the sand and gravel volume fractions annually conveyed to the sea.

University and lifelong learning in Italy: policies and higher education and training systems integration

This article expounds the legislative measures, regulations and initiatives pursued and implemented by the Prodi Government and, more specifically by, the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) with regard to Lifelong Learning. Specifically, the article summarizes the lifelong learning bill, the ministerial Guidelines on “University for Lifelong Learning”, and the measures adopted in Universities to foster the development of Lifelong Learning as part of their institutional tasks.The need for suitable collaboration and intergrational activities between the different education-training systes and the economic, productive and professional contexts is highlighted. The need to pursue the realization of lifelong learning systems organized typically on a regional basis, and categorized by productivity sector and professional profile is also identified. Finally, the article addresses the link between Lifelong Learning and e-Learning, and refers to the legislative measures related to the accreditation of distance learning courses and the system actions activities undertaken.