Giorgio Catena

• Doctor of Chemistry
• Senior Researcher at Istituto Superiore di Sanità

The thermal baths of Cotilia are a modern establishment, located near the modern-day town of Cotilia in the province of Rieti, next to two small lakes of cold thermal waters, where the Ancient Romans built the Cutilia Thermae. In the text, after a quick historical excursus recalling the occupation of the area even in pre-Roman times, a mention is m...

The value of thermography for trees is reviewed in relation to the needs of inspectors and diagnosticians in the fields of forestry, arboriculture and veteran tree management. Images obtained with an infrared camera allow the early detection of various kinds of alteration in trees, including bark necrosis, decay and the onset of adaptive growth in...

In the ambit of the Coastal Water Quality Control Programme, in order to determine the behaviour of currents which affect the fate of plumes of discharges into the sea along the coast, chosen as monitoring area by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, and near it, a series of surveys have been carried out. For this purpose, remote sensing apparatus has...

The Orbetello lagoon has periodically suffered from huge eutrophication phenomena. Such phenomena are due to the insufficient exchange between internal waters and sea water. The conformation of the lagoon and its shallow waters, the presence of huge masses of benthic algae, the geometry and the length of the canals, which are even closed by grating...

A new generation thermograph for the assessment of tree stability The note was written in 2004 for he release of a new model of thermal camera that cost half the price of the thermal cameras then used to assess trees. While maintaining an acceptable thermal resolution (0.1 °C), it had a geometric resolution equal to ¼ of other cameras: 160x120 pixe...

Thermography is a well-known investigation method that is widely used in many scientific and technical sectors. This method detects the presence of discontinuities and/or lack of homogeneity in the bodies investigated, thanks to the different thermal properties between the damaged and healthy areas. In the case of trees, the surface temperature is...

The suitability for bathing, fish-farming, human consumption, etc. of the waters which play a role for public health, is linked to the results of a series of chemical and microbiological analyses, but little has been done so far to detect and, most importantly, to wipe out the sources of their possible contamination. Remote Sensing has proven a us...

The use of remote sensing, carried out with a helicopter-flown hand-held infrared (IR) camera has proved a useful tool for monitoring coastal waters, in addition to the routine chemical-microbiological monitoring. Such technique has been used to check the direction of plumes of water effluents and thus their impact on bathing areas, in some sites a...

A thermal scanner was used to verify the extension of the damage in an age-old holm-oak afflicted by a severe parasitic attack. The examination showed that the damage involved not only the surface area of the trunk but also more than half the trunk section: also the two main roots that seemed healthy on visual examination were found already damaged...

Two different sample of Platanus hybrida Brot. have been selected, in the urban area of Rome, on the basis of their photographic response to near infrared: a) individual plants showing white coloration, b) individual plant showing pinkish-red coloration. Some ecophysiological parameters were recorded: phenological phases, leaf chlorophyll “a” and “...

An easy-to-use research method is described here to locate and point out cavities or internal rotten tissue in trees which does not require direct intervention on the plant and is therefore completely harmless. It is based on the use of a thermal scanner, a very handy and sensitive apparatus, with an element which is capable of receiving and conver...

An utilization of aerial photographs taken both with normal b&w and colour films and with infrared films to point out faults in trees canopy, is presented here. The aim is to ascertain, through the following ground surveys whether the lost has been produced by parasites or pathogenous agents attacks or by natural phenomena. The investigation can ob...

Using Thermography as an Application in Phytopathology - Diagnosing the Condition of Sycamore Trees The article suggests the use of Thermography to detect an diagnose tree cavities and describes the results ofsurveys carried out on a group of Sycamore trees. The experience picked up over several years by the Remote Sensing Unit of the "Istituto Sup...

The use of a thermal scanner and of a thermal camera FPA to detect decay/cavity in trees of different taxa is described. The method has shown its capability to detect the presence of damaged roots just by measuring at the collar of the specimen under examination.

The use of a thermal scanner to point out internal cavities in monumental trees to roughly evaluate their extension and have an idea of the stability of the tree, is presented here. On the spot surveys on trees showing large cavities or crashes to compare the results of the thermal scans with the real situation without having to cut standing trees,...

Air photographic survey in environmental planning and forest management of protected natural environments. Environmental planning requires an overall view in order to address the various problems linked to protected ecosystems. Aerial photographs provide this overall view better than botanical surveys and theme-based maps which, although being accu...

A selection of different researches that can be made on a natural environment by the Remote Sensing Techniques (particularly using air photography and a thermal scanner) is presented here. To make a comparison in between the 4 kinds of films that can be used (b&w, colour, b&w infrared, colour infrared) four images shot simultaneously with them over...

PROBLEMS AND TECHNIQUES FOR THE PROTECTION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE HISTORICAL GREEN. The protection and management of the vegetation in the gardens of historical interest, with special regard to the vegetative conditions and the restoration of the lost individuals and the breeding forms, are discussed. Besides the criteria in plant selection useful f...

The authors present a Remote Sensing System for detecting internal cavities in trees, using a thermal infrared apparatus which combines the benefit of instant data with the additional advantages of not requiring scaffolding or crews and (above all) of not entailing any injury or damage to the tree.

The use of the infrared thermography is a relatively new technique as a censusing method for ungulates. Preliminary reports from american and french researches showed this method suitable for big game census in ideal weather conditions, with a high thermal contrast between animals and background. The present paper shows that thermography gives good...

An intervention on historical trees with the aid of thermography. Phytosanitary analysis and tree surgery on the plane-trees in Castelporziano Estate (Rome) The driveway leading to the historic castle at the Castelporziano Estate (Rome, Italy) is lined with century-old plane trees, which were probably trimmed in the winter of 1975. They presented...

The driveway leading to the historic castle at the Castelporziano Estate (Rome, Italy) is lined with century-old plane trees, which were probably trimmed in the winter of 1975. They presented several wounds at the base caused by agricultural work and large cavities in the branch areas. As the practice of tree surgery to remove decay and drain water...

Two new applications of the remote sensing techniques in the territory management which make use of a thermal scanner, are described here: the first concerned with the vegetal pathology field and the second with the big game censusing the Castelporziano farm. The former constitutes an improvement of the usual techniques either for its quick perform...

A new detection system to point out the presence of decay/cavities in standing trees by a thermal infrared apparatus combining the rapidity of research to the advantages of not requiring scaffoldings or crews and of not injuring trees, is presented here. In fact the investigation is carried out at a distance, due to the no contact apparatus used an...

Various causes of disease in urban vegetation, especially those of man-made origin, are briefly presented. The increase in carbon dioxide and temperature favours the appearance of several pathogenetic forms, often worsened by pollutants released into the lower strata of the atmosphere and by the alterations in subsoil water. The "photographic" infr...

Absorption refrigerators have experienced unprecedented developments since the energy crisis, especially in large conditioning and refrigerating plants with temperatures at around - 40 °C; as they operate with binary mixes, it was deemed useful to present the distillation theory only using the enthalpy-concentration chart, normally used to calculat...

In a previous work the existence of an hydrogen bond between the difluoromonochloromethane (R 22) and the diethylesters of alpha-omega dicarboxylic acids was pointed out. In the present paper, the influence on absorption of substituents for the hydrogen of the CH2 has been studied in a single compound (diethylmalonate). The results show that electr...

The hypothesis of the presence of a hydrogen bond between the CHF2Cl proton and the molecules of solvents containing oxygen atoms has been verified using the nuclear magnetic resonance technique. The mixture Freon 22-diethylsuccinate has been examined and the shift of the resonance signal with changes in temperatures supports the hypothesis of the...

The use of R22 in absorption-type cooling machines, could permit the realization of units working in a wide range of temperature and very close to that in which water ammonia units may work, without the disadvantages characteristic of the latter. For that reason research is being carried out in many countries to find a suitable R22 solvent. Finding...