In this paper, we describe the structure and the features of the air quality and meteorological monitoring system adopted in the Lombardy region in Northern Italy. We are interested in describing ...which data the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection (ARPA Lombardia) must collect, how this process takes place and how they are disseminated to the public for institutional communication and research purposes. ARPA monitors the atmospheric conditions through a dense ground monitoring network composed mainly by permanent stations, but also by mobile samplers. We describe in a detailed fashion the structure of the network: how many stations the network consists of, their locations, which pollutants and weather events are monitored and with what frequency. Our main objective is to present to an international audience the case study of ARPA Lombardia and the main available public data, explicitly stating the sources of information and how to find them, and encouraging international researchers to deal with the subject. In spite of the significant and extensive efforts made to counteract the phenomenon of air pollution, the air quality recorded in the region is very poor, and the local authorities are struggling to comply with international regulations on the concentration of pollutants in the air, making Lombardy a relevant international case. In addition, we present in a synthetic and descriptive way, without any modeling ambition, some data observed in the last years in Lombardy regarding meteorology and the main pollutants (oxides and particulate matters). The empirical descriptive results have been obtained by analyzing sample data provided by ARPA Lombardia through the same sources described in the sections dedicated to the Agency. From the graphical analysis, it is noticeable that at aggregate (regional) level, the concentrations are affected by significant decreasing trends, but at a rather contained speed. This is particularly true for the concentrations of oxides (NO2 and NOX) in urban and industrial areas. However, particulate matters and ozone show a high persistence in the average concentrations, interrupted only by the alternation of climatic seasons. The data also show that the meteorology of the region does not seem favorable for the improvement of air quality, as the region is characterized by low precipitation, and wind almost everywhere is not very intense. This situation could be induced by the unfavorable geography of the area, which prevents adequate air recycling and facilitates the stagnation of pollutants. We suggest that any public policy intervention aimed at improving the air quality situation in the region should take into account this empirical evidence in the impact assessment phase.
We propose a twofold adjustment for Event Studies considering spatiotemporal data in a multivariate time series framework where the data are characterized by spatial and temporal dependence. The ...first adjustment consists of modeling the spatiotemporal dynamics of the data by implementing several geostatistical models capable of handling both spatial and temporal components, as well as estimating the relationship between the response variable and a set of exogenous factors. With the second adjustment, we propose to use cross-sectional-adjusted test statistics directly accounting for spatial cross-correlation. The proposed methods are applied to the case of NO
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concentrations observed in Northern Italy during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The key findings are as follows. First, all the considered geostatistical models estimate larger reductions in the major metropolitan and congested areas, while smaller reductions are estimated in rural plains and in the mountains. Second, the models are nearly equivalent in terms of fitting and are capable of identifying the true event window. Third, by using spatiotemporal models we ensure the residuals are uncorrelated across space and time, thus allowing Event Studies test statistics to provide reliable and realistic estimates. Fourth, as expected, all test statistics show significant reductions in NO
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concentrations starting from the first few days of lockdown. Supplementary materials accompanying this paper appear online.
The propensity for sustainability actions and awareness among population might be driven by ad hoc policies. For example, in the transportation framework, the bike is (re)gaining popularity as a mean ...of transportation both convenient and environmental-prone, and consequently more and more cities around the world are developing bike-sharing systems in urban areas to let their citizens be more ‘green’. Satisfaction for bike-sharing systems could be influenced in general by how the service is managed and by users’ attitudes towards sustainability: if users’ participation in sustainability is high, then the level of satisfaction will increase and the service will result more successful. In this paper we analyze the connection between propensity and orientation towards sustainability and satisfaction for a particular bike-sharing system via Partially Ordered Sets based methodology.
This paper investigates the consistency of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan with the economic and industrial policy objectives outlined in the “Next Generation EU” plan and the ...European Commission’s New European Industrial Policy. We analyze official policy documents in order to highlight some macroeconomic impact indicators with respect to the mission-based allocation of European and national financial resources. The New European Industrial Strategy is particularly challenging; industrial objectives outline a structural challenge capable of reshaping much of the industrial structure and strengthening critical value chains, especially in key sectors. Such an economic challenge requires clear strategic priorities in order to guide the economic transition. In this context, the Italian plan is particularly relevant since it brings together the largest share of European resources. The essay analyzes in detail the allocation of resources of the Italian NRRP, which—while formally adhering to the European guidelines—fails to address the priorities outlined by the EU-wide industrial strategy.
•Extract growth rate of new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations from noisy data.•Measure different policies’ effects in reducing the speed of Covid-19 transmission.•The yellow policy keeps number of ...hospitalizations constant over time.•If prolonged red policy halves number of hospitalized every month.•If prolonged orange policy halves number of hospitalized every 2 months.
On 4 November 2020 the Italian government introduced a new policy to address the second wave of COVID-19. Based on a battery of indicators, the 21 administrative regions of Italy were assigned a risk level among yellow, orange, red, and, starting on 6 November 2020, different type of restrictions were applied accordingly. This event represents a natural experiment that allows the evaluation of the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions, free from those nuisance factors affecting cross-national studies.
In this work, we extract the daily growth rate of new cases, hospitalizations and patients in ICU from official data using an unobserved components model and assess how the different restrictions had different impacts in reducing the speed of spread of the virus.
We find that all the three packages of restrictions have an effect on the speed of spread of the disease, but while the mildest (yellow) policy leads to a constant number of hospitalizations (zero growth rate), the strictest (red) policy is able to halve the number of accesses to regular wards and intensive care units in about one month. The effects of the intermediate (orange) policy are more volatile and seem to be only slightly more effective than the milder (yellow) policy.
The air in the Lombardy region, Italy, is one of the most polluted in Europe because of limited air circulation and high emission levels. There is a large scientific consensus that the agricultural ...sector has a significant impact on air quality. To support studies quantifying the role of the agricultural and livestock sectors on the Lombardy air quality, this paper presents a harmonised dataset containing daily values of air quality, weather, emissions, livestock, and land and soil use in the years 2016-2021, for the Lombardy region. The daily scale is obtained by averaging hourly data and interpolating other variables. In fact, the pollutant data come from the European Environmental Agency and the Lombardy Regional Environment Protection Agency, weather and emissions data from the European Copernicus programme, livestock data from the Italian zootechnical registry, and land and soil use data from the CORINE Land Cover project. The resulting dataset is designed to be used as is by those using air quality data for research.
Il presente contributo rappresenta le caratteristiche settoriali del paese per identificarne punti di forza e di debolezza, così da delineare proposte coerenti con il piano “Next Generation EU”. La ...trattazione verte sul posizionamento dei settori produttivi rispetto a Francia, Germania, e Spagna, osservato per tutte le categorie NACE2 in due sottoperiodi (2002-2007, 2013-2018). Dalle analisi empiriche emerge una ambivalenza statica ed evolutiva: a fronte della tenuta dei livelli e della apparente similarità di struttura produttiva, si amplia il divario tra l’Italia e gli altri paesi di confronto. Dalle propensioni all’investimento e all’innovazione si evince che la riduzione dei costi prevale sulla ricerca di nuove opportunità di crescita indotte da investimenti e R le differenze settoriali sono però marcate. L’indicazione di politica economica è che, per una gestione efficace dei fondi NGEU, è necessaria un’azione strutturata con criteri di settorialità, territorialità, e di integrazione nazionale delle catene del valore.
We present ARPALData, an R package that can help international users retrieve, handle, and analyze air quality and weather data in the Lombardy region (Northern Italy). The software provides a ...user-friendly tool that directly inquires into the platform of the regional environmental protection agency and ensures real-time updating of information using standardized syntax. The software provides data in standard statistical formats. Eventually, all measurements, metadata, and subsequent analytical tools are provided to users in English, facilitating accessibility to international and domestic users. Data are collected from the open database of the Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Lombardy, namely ARPA Lombardia. ARPALData returns measurements at several temporal frequencies (infra-hourly to yearly) collected through air quality and weather ground monitoring networks managed by ARPA Lombardia, as well as estimates of several pollutants at the municipal level. In addition to data download functions, ARPALData provides functions to explore, describe, analyze, and graphically represent air quality and weather data. In particular, users are provided with functions to compute key descriptive statistics and input data maps, temporally aggregate measurements, detect outliers, and study missing-value (gap length) patterns. Herein, we discuss purposes, goals, and functioning of the package, and present three guided examples and case studies in which the software is used to characterize air quality and meteorology in different settings. The examples are designed to provide a step-by-step guide for accomplished analyses using the most relevant tools included in ARPALData.
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