Valerio Baiocchi

• PhD Geodesy, PhD Infrastructur
• Sapienza University of Rome at Sapienza University of Rome

This work reports a first attempt to use Landsat satellite imagery to identify possible urban microclimate changes in a city center after a seismic event that affected L’Aquila City (Abruzzo Region, Italy), on 6 April 2009. After the main seismic event, the collapse of part of the buildings, and the damaging of most of them, with the consequence of...

Started in 2009, the COSMOCoast project aims to the investigation of the potential of Remote Sensing in support to the management of coastal areas. Particular attention is paid to the contribution of data acquired from the COSMO-SkyMed constellation, in view of their frequency of acquisitions and ground resolution; in particular this paper aims at...

Measuring tree heights is a critical step for assessing ecological and agricultural parameters, including biomass, carbon stock, and canopy volume. In extensive areas exceeding a few hectares, traditional terrestrial measurement methods are often prohibitively expensive in terms of time and cost. This study introduces a GIS-based methodology for es...

The lack of precise and comprehensive information about the health of bridges, and in particular long span ones, can lead to incorrect decisions regarding maintenance, repair, modernization, and reinforcement of the structure itself. While the consequences of inadequate interventions are quite apparent, incorrect decisions can also result in unnece...

The road systems connecting villages, cities, and countries stand as a pivotal transportation infrastructure in modern society [...]

A multi-hazard analysis (seismic, landslide, flood) is conducted to verify the impact on the road network. The ENEA CIPCast platform is an innovative Decision Support System (DSS) that is used to implement the analyses using GIS. Using analytical and geoprocessing tools, the hazards were assessed and mapped. The overlapping of different geospatial...

Comprehensive understanding of tree characteristics and conditions holds paramount importance for the precise management of hazelnut orchards. It facilitates the determination of tree vigor, pruning requirements, phytosanitary interventions, and plant water consumption. The primary objective of this study was to explore, for the first time on a fru...

Citation: Vegliante, G.; Baiocchi, V.; Falconi, L.M.; Moretti, L.; Pollino, M.; Puglisi, C.; Righini, G. A GIS-Based Approach for Shallow Landslides Risk Assessment in the Giampilieri and Briga Catchments Areas (Sicily, Italy). GeoHazards 2024, 5, 209-232. https:// Abstract: Shallow landslides pose a widely growing hazard and risk, globally and par...

During the Copper Age and onwards, unique archaeological sites emerged throughout Europe. These sites exhibit distinct features such as the absence of typical household pottery, the presence of kilns, and extensive layers composed solely of fragments of reddish-brown jars. Scholars generally interpret these sites as specialized locations for salt p...

The definition of a reference system is the first moment of a survey operation but is in some ways perhaps the most critical because on its correct definition depends on the reliability and significance of all subsequent operations. From the simplest local survey to the most complex surveys of large extensions that often require the joint use of di...

The collection of samples and finds for archaeological surveys is traditionally based on the establishment of grids that allow the area under study to be discretized into generally square cells in order to allow a statistical assessment of the highest or lowest concentration of finds. Currently, such grids are implemented in a local coordinate syst...

Lo scopo di questa ricerca è quello di sviluppare un'analisi di downscaling multiparametrica per il rilevamento di rifiuti abbandonati nell'ambiente. Questa metodologia, utilizza un approccio multi-tecnologico prevedendo l'adozione di immagini satellitari VHR, Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) e Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). Le aree di allerta ident...

The shallow landslides constitute a consistent current hazard that could increase in the future, especially in the Mediterranean areas. Regional scale hazard maps involving runout estimation are not yet particularly widespread. The study was conducted with the aim of testing a debris flows risk assessment process starting from the runout analysis o...

The aim of this research is to develop a multiparametric downscaling analysis for the detection of abandoned waste in the environment. This methodology, using a multi-technological approach, involves the adoption VHR satellite images, Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV). The identified Warning Areas (WA) will be invest...

Photogrammetry is a technique that was limited to a few specific sensors and application fields until a few years ago [...]

The need to make electricity production increasingly sustainable requires careful planning of production plants, mainly for wind and photovoltaic energy conversion. Planning areas correctly, while respecting existing environmental constraints, is not an easy task and requires the collaboration of a panel of experts with different skills. The need t...

In Europe and beyond, the cultural and archaeological heritage may have considerable extensions of hundreds of square metres if not kilometres. It is then necessary to study highly efficient techniques able , at the same time, to maintain centimetric accuracy. In these contexts, the SLAM technique can be an efficient solution. We tested the latter...

The orientation of satellite images is a necessary operation for the correct geometric use of satellite images whether they are used individually to obtain an orthophoto or as stereocouples to extract three-dimensional information. The orientation allows us to reconstruct the correct position on the ground of the single pixels that form the image,...

An intersection of two roman glareatae roads and an underground stretch of a Roman aqueduct ( rivus subterraneus ) were found in the locality of Colle Oliva, during an emergency archaeological investigation (between 11/2018 and 3/2019). The aqueduct has been detected in several test trenches and some profiles have been obtained. These data shade so...

The greatest part of the documents concerning the last reclamation scheme of the Pontine Plain is now stored in a section of the state archive and in the archive of the Consorzio di Bonifica dell’Agro Pontino, both located in Latina (Italy). Detailed plans of the realised buildings, infrastructures as well as thousands of pictures of the environmen...

p class="Abstract"> Archaeological remains need to be geometrically surveyed and set in absolute reference systems in order to allow a "virtual visit" and to create "digital twins" useful in case of deterioration for proper restoration. Some countries (e.g., Peru) have a vast archaeological heritage whose survey requires optimized procedures that a...

Dear colleagues, the complete volume of the Special Issue of Geographia Technica 2021 has been published. Articles available at the link: http://technicalgeography.org/index.php/latest-issue-special-issue-2021 Best regards Gino Dardanelli and Valerio Baiocchi

Hence, this special issue of the journal Geographia Technica (https://technicalgeography.org/), “GEOMATICS APPLICATIONS FOR GEOGRAPHY” was successfully planned, and we here publish many papers detailing novel contributions that are of relevance to these topics. Since 2006 Geographia Technica is a journal devoted to the publication of all papers on...

p class="Abstract">Differential GNSS positioning on vessels is of considerable interest in various fields of application as navigation aids, precision positioning for geophysical surveys or sampling purposes especially when high resolution bathymetric surveys are conducted. However ship positioning must be considered a kinematic survey with all the...

Coastline extraction techniques from multispectral satellite images are of great interest for protection and monitoring of coastal areas. In this regard, the Sentinel-2 satellites can give a great contribution thanks to their wide coverage of the earth’s surface. These images can be processed by GIS software, so as to detect the sea from all the re...

Recent events, including the floods in central Europe in May 2021, have highlighted how climate change is giving rise to scenarios that were neither foreseen nor predictable. One problem this poses is the need to rethink the logic of various environmental constraints that are often based on return times of 20-50 years or 100-200. A single event doe...

Historical maps represent an important source of geographical information. The changes occurred over time can be extrapolated from them, especially if their geometric accuracies match those achievable with modern survey techniques. An 1820 map belonging to the Gregorian Cadastre provides the position of seven hermitages belonging to the monastery o...

The area south-east of Rome is characterised by the presence of several roman aqueducts which brought water to the eternal city from the Apennine and Alban Hills springs. In the last 40 years, several pieces of evidence about these aqueducts were acquired during the realisation of archaeological test trenches before building activities. In 2019, a...

Caves are one of the most conservative environments on Earth, where archaeological, anthropological, climatic and tectonic data can be well-preserved. Here, we present the results of a multidisciplinary method that allowed us to recognize, for the first time in this area, the interaction between Late Pleistocene to Anthropocene neotectonic and arch...

The aqueducts built by the ancient Romans are among the most impressive evidence of their engineering skills. The water inside the aqueducts was transported for kilometers, exploiting only the slight but constant differences in altitude throughout the route. To keep the differences in height constant, the aqueducts could proceed underground or abov...

This paper describes a forensic investigation of groundwater in an urban context in Italy. The present case study was conducted to detect the hydraulic flow path between a sportfishing pond and a nearby industrial plant’s contaminated groundwater site. The investigation was performed to evaluate the potential for diffusion of contaminants through g...

A large part of the archaeological remains still to be discovered and excavated are not in remote and depopulated areas of the earth but are often beneath urban centres that have buried them with centuries of debris and later constructions. Excavating in these contexts is much more complex than digging in rural or sparsely inhabited areas because o...

The aqueducts are the most impressive and original building of the ancient Rome. The aqueducts moved water only by gravity, being constructed with a slight downward slope, within conduits of stone, brick or concrete. All along valleys or plains, the conduit was supported by buildings with arches, or its contents were placed to pressure in lead, cer...

The survey of archaeological monuments presents particular needs and difficulties. Such surveys must in fact be as complete, geometrically correct and accurately geo-referenced as possible. These needs, however, often face problems of difficult accessibility, the need for rapid timing and complex logistical conditions. The latest generation of mobi...

For submitting an article please consider the following link: http://technicalgeography.org/index.php/submit-a-manuscript In this Special Issue (GAG) we invite papers concerning: Keywords • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and WEBGIS • Geomatics • Remote sensing and Data Collection • Mapping and Monitoring • Spatial Data Analysis • Geospatial...

The continuous availability and rapid accessibility to multispectral data from satellite platforms within the Copernicus Programme represents a great opportunity for users in different fields of applications as: agriculture, observation of coastal zones, monitoring land cover change. The aim of this paper is to identify a suitable method to map coa...

UAV based photogrammetry and 3D mapping are gaining fast and wide applications around the world majorly due to the relatively low-cost advantage it offers in the acquisition of high resolution multispectral acquisitions, compared to Aerophotogrammetry and satellite acquisitions. This research seeks to demonstrate the applicability of UAV photogramm...

Caves have been used by humans and animals for several thousand years until present but, at these time scales, their structures can rapidly change due to erosion and concretion processes. For this reason, the availability of precise 3D models improves the data quality and quantity allowing the reconstruction of their ancient appearance, structure a...

In the geomatics field, modelling and georeferencing complex speleological structures are some of the most challenging issues. The use of conventional survey methods (for example, those employing total stations or terrestrial laser scanner) becomes more difficult, especially because of the space constraints and the often critical light conditions....

Coastal environments are facing constant changes over time due to their dynamic nature and geological, geomorphological, hydrodynamic, biological, climatic and anthropogenic factors. For these reasons, the monitoring of these areas is crucial for the safeguarding of the cultural heritage and the populations living there. The focus of this paper is...

High-resolution satellite images must undergo a geometric rectification process in order to be used for metrical purposes. This operation, called orthorectification, is necessary because of deformations mainly due to camera distortions and acquisition geometry. To correctly orthorectify an image, it is necessary to accurately reconstruct the photog...

Coastal erosion, which is naturally present in many areas of the world, can be significantly increased by factors such as the reduced transport of sediments as a result of hydraulic works carried out to minimize flooding. Erosion has a significant impact on both marine ecosystems and human activities; for this reason, several international projects...

Remote-pilot aircraft are developing very rapidly and their potential in the various fields is often still to be fully investigated. The possibility to fly over the areas to be surveyed without the need to access the areas themselves makes the use of UAVs in some cases certainly preferable for safety reasons, as has already been tested for the mana...

The geodetic point lists of the Habsburg survey of the Italian peninsula, carried out in several steps after the Napoleonic wars, were digitized and analyzed together with the modern coordinates of the identified points. Assuming the usage of the Zach-Oriani hybrid ellipsoid, the Burša-Wolf type datum transformation parameters were estimated betwee...

Sometimes, the georeferencing of a cave in the global reference system can be challenging. Some difficulties may arise when narrow passages do not allow the use of classical topographic equipment or a terrestrial laser scanner. In these specific cases, the surveyor can employ a visual-based approach to produce both the followed path and the 3D mode...

Historical cartography is an important source of geographic information for diachronic studies. The Italian geodetic datum from the second half of the 20th century are well known and used, while the reference systems used previously do not have a certain documentation also because they were developed by the military geographical institute, which at...

This paper presents some of the results obtained from the integrated use of 3D surveying techniques and illustrates some types of analysis and graphic representations that can be conducted and reproduced. The case study concerns the church of San Nicola in Montedoro that is one of the oldest in the city of Martina Franca in the province of Taranto...

Knowledge of a territory is an essential element in any future planning action and in appropriate territorial and environmental requalification action planning. The current large-scale availability of satellite data, thanks to very high resolution images, provides professional users in the environmental, urban planning, engineering, and territorial...

The survey of ancient cave can generally be performed by traditional topographic methods that allow also its georeferencing in a global reference frame; some difficulties may arise when there are narrow tunnels that do not consent the use of a total station or a terrestrial laser scanner. In such cases a visual-based approach can be used to produce...

On May 2018 the world’s first dual-frequency Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) smartphone produced by Xiaomi equipped with a Broadcom BCM47755 chip was launched. It is able to receive L1/E1/ and L5/E5 signals from GPS, Galileo, Beidou, and GLONASS (GLObal NAvigation Satellite System) satellites. The main aim of this work is to achieve the p...

The terrestrial photogrammetric survey allows to acquire geometric characteristics of objects quickly and with handy and inexpensive hardware. Traditionally, these measurements require some hours of time between the choice of the acquisition points, the setting up of the camera, the survey of the topographic support network and subsequent processin...

The Papal Basilica and the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi in Italy are characterized by unique and composite particularities that need an exhaustive knowledge of the sites themselves to guarantee visitor's security and safety, considering all the people and personnel normally present in the site, visitors with disabilities and finally th...

The sinkhole known as ‘Pozzo del Merro’ possesses unusual, geological and natural features, providing an important opportunity to study the geological and hydrological characteristics of the area, and, at the same time, to preserve an ecosystem inhabited by rare species. The site has been the object of numerous studies carried out by scholars from...

Nowadays, the increasing computation power of commercial grade processors has actively led to a vast spreading of image-based reconstruction software as well as its application in different disciplines. As a result, new frontiers regarding the use of photogrammetry in a vast range of investigation activities are being explored. This paper investiga...

At present, almost all vehicles have one or more GPS receivers on board. Usually these receivers work in point positioning mode, with deviations of several meters in planimetry and even higher in altitude. Such accuracy is not sufficient for the representation of the road network, both for assisted and automatic navigation purposes and for the crea...

This paper aims to create a geographical database in Open-Source GIS environment managing the various environmental items that are institutional authority of the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, a public local agency, called "Amministrazione Provinciale di Roma" till January 2015. There are many and different categories of geo-referenceable infor...

In this paper we will show an example of the use of open source software and open data, recently available in Italy, for the determination of some parameters useful for assessing the seismic vulnerability of each building potentially exposed to such events. It should be noted that, at least in the national context, there have been a series of legal...

This work reports a first attempt to use Landsat satellite imagery to identify possible urban microclimate changes in a city center after a seismic event that affected L’Aquila City (Abruzzo Region, Italy), on 6 April 2009. After the main seismic event, the collapse of part of the buildings, and the damaging of most of them, with the consequence of...

The photogrammetrical techniques are, in this moment, experimenting new approaches based on innovative algorithms. The recent availability of high resolution cameras and sensors made possible the fast and accurate acquisition of complex geometries. On the other hand, manage such amount of data need for optimized procedure to automatize the geometri...

Homegrown fruits and vegetables are gaining popularity in many metropolitan areas with several facets connected to the wider urban agriculture phenomenon. At the same time, the relationship between urban food production and irrigation water is pivotal in terms of resource management. In this paper, we investigated water savings through the collecti...

This work illustrates the use of geomatics techniques for the documentation of Teatro Massimo in Palermo (Italy), one of the most important and big in Italy and in Europe. The theatre is characterized by a very complex structure and is realized also using innovative solution, studied at the time of the project specifically for this building; for ex...

The recent mass destructions of monuments in Iraq cannot be monitored with the terrestrial survey methodologies, for obvious reasons of safety. For the same reasons, it’s not advisable the use of classical aerial photogrammetry, so it was obvious to think to the use of multispectral Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery. Nowadays VHR satelli...

The historical building heritage, present in the most of Italian cities centres, is, as part of the construction sector, a working potential, but unfortunately it requires planning of more complex and problematic interventions. However, policies to support on the existing interventions, together with a growing sensitivity for the recovery of assets...

The geodetic point lists of the Habsburg survey of the Italian peninsula, carried out in several steps after the Napoleonic wars, were digitized and analyzed together with the modern coordinates of the identified points. Assuming the usage of the Zach-Oriani hybrid ellipsoid, the Burša-Wolf type datum transformation parameters were estimated betwee...

The proposed job concerns the evaluation of a series of surveys carried out in the context of a campaign of studies begun in 2015 with the objective of comparing the accuracies obtainable with the systems of terrestrial imaging, compared to unmanned aerial vehicle imaging and laser scanner survey. In particular, the authors want to test the applica...

Un des sujets les plus brûlants de la géomatique de ce début du XXIe siècle est la recherche des techniques les plus efficaces pour numériser et restituer les édifices modernes et historiques. Les premiers font l’objets de relevés pour constituer une maquette de type BIM, les seconds plus dans le cadre d’études académiques ou de documents de base p...

Un des sujets les plus brûlants de la géomatique de ce début du XXIe siècle est la recherche des techniques les plus efficaces pour numériser et restituer les édifices modernes et historiques. Les premiers font l’objets de relevés pour constituer une maquette de type BIM, les seconds plus dans le cadre d’études académiques ou de documents de base p...

A photogrammetric survey of a unique archaeological site is reported in this paper. The survey was performed using both a panoramic image-based solution and by classical procedure. The panoramic image-based solution was carried out employing a commercial solution: the Trimble V10 Imaging Rover (IR). Such instrument is an integrated cameras system t...

Actually complex underground structures and facilities occupy a wide space in our cities, most of them are often unsurveyed; cable duct, drainage system are not exception. Furthermore, several inspection operations are performed in critical air condition, that do not allow or make more difficult a conventional survey. In this scenario a prompt meth...

It has been tested the applicability of integrated surveys (remote sensing, digital photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS)) in order to verify, through gradual and successive steps, how geomatic techniques can get 3D results with metric value combined with a quality content for an archaeological site. In particular, the data have been...

Site selection for waste disposal is a complex task that should meet the requirements of communities and stakeholders. In particular the problems of disposal of damp olive residues and the wastewater left over from the mechanical pressing of the olives has induced the local administration “Città Metropolitana di Roma Capitale”, following the direct...

In the last decade citizens interest toward local food production, food sustainability and environmental stewardship has grown exponentially and urban agriculture (UA) is nowadays one of the answer to this new collective awareness. The analysis of the spatial dimension of UA in metropolitan areas is the starting point for investigating its characte...

A lively debate has developed regarding the characteristics of the so-called Horologium Augusti, at first known only through a notice in Pliny and subsequently discovered (at least partly) during the course of excavations begun in 1997 (Leonhardt, in: The Horologium of Augustus: debate and context, 2014). The gnomon of the “Horologium” was composed...

Google Earth (GE) has recently become the focus of increasing interest and popularity among available online virtual globes used in scientific research projects, due to the free and easily accessed satellite imagery provided with global coverage. Nevertheless, the uses of this service raises several research questions on the quality and uncertainty...

In this paper we provide a methodological and operative contribution aimed at optimising the first post-event phases in case of seismic and volcanic events, as an advancement of the research conducted for the GIS4RISKS project. Particularly, we underline the importance of setting up a performant GIS platform able to synergistically use and manage d...

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12665-014-3317-3

This essay deals with the themes of urban surveying and the metric accuracy of the ichnographic representations of cities by looking at a case study considered to be best practice at international level in the field of 18th century cartographic production: The Nuova Pianta di Roma, published in 1748 by G.B. Nolli. Despite the lack of concrete evide...

Site selection for waste disposal is a complex task that should meet the requirements of communities and stakeholders. In this article, three decision support methods (Boolean logic, index overlay and fuzzy gamma) are used to perform land suitability analysis for landfill siting. The study was carried out in one of the biggest metropolitan regions...

This paper illustrates an innovative methodology for post-earthquake collapsed building recognition, based on satellite-image classification methodologies and height variation information. Together, the techniques create a robust classification that seems to yield good results in this application field. In the first part of this study, two differen...