Applied Geology to protection and sustainable development of territory

Educational objectives

Educational goals: The main goal of the course consists on providing fundamental elements for the local seismic response analysis applied to seismic Microzonation Studies and/or to the design of structures or infrastructures interacting with rocks or soils. These applications are part of risk mitigation management particularly focused on the seismic risk.

Learning ouctomes: Critical interpretation of results and outputs from available studies of local seismic response. Engineering-geological modelling applied to local seismic response through instrumental and numerical analyses.

Educational objectives

Educational goals: 1. Ability of handling hydrogeological problems from a quantitative point of view at different spatial scales (from the sit to the basin scale) 2. Ability of handling the differential equations used to describe the groundwater flow and the transport of contaminants in the aquifers

Learning outcomes: Development, calibration and validation of flow and transport models

Educational objectives

Training objectives: the course intends to offer students a synthetic and integrated framework of geological
storage techniques, and, in particular, the aspects of competence of geologists: characterization of the site
and monitoring.
Loading results: knowledge acquired: the student will know what are the study procedures used in storage.

Educational objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to understand and quantitatively describe the fundamental physical processes governing volcanic systems, linking theoretical concepts with observational data. They will develop the ability to explain volcanism across different tectonic settings, including magma generation, storage, and the role of magma physical properties such as rheology and volatile content in controlling ascent, fragmentation, and eruption style.

Students will be able to analyze both effusive and explosive eruption dynamics, including the behavior of eruption plumes, pyroclastic density currents, lava flows, and dome growth. They will acquire the skills to interpret key volcanic monitoring data, including seismic signals, ground deformation, gas emissions, and remote sensing observations, in order to assess volcanic activity.

The course will enable students to identify and evaluate the main volcanic hazards, such as tephra fall, lava flows, pyroclastic currents, lahars, and gas emissions, and to assess their impacts, including the effects of major eruptions on climate through atmospheric aerosol injection. Finally, students will develop the ability to apply methods of hazard assessment and risk analysis, including hazard mapping, probabilistic approaches, and forecasting techniques, supported by the interpretation of real-world case studies.

Educational objectives

Educational goals: the course aims at providing interpretive criteria and methods for the geological survey of volcanic terrains and the reconstruction of related genetic processes.
Learning ouctomes: Acquiring knowledge and ability on: distribution and style of volcanism as related to the different geological-structural settings; description and interpretation of volcanic successions in terms of eruption and emplacement processes; working criteria for stratigraphy and field mapping of volcanic terrains; field and laboratory analyses for the characterization of volcanic units and the reconstruction of related eruptive parameters.

Educational objectives

Educational goals:
The aim of the course is also to provide the basic elements of knowledge for the acquisition, management and processing of data with the most modern techniques of remote sensing both for digital modeling of landforms and for the monitoring of deformation processes related to geomorphological instabilities.
The course aims to provide students with the knowledge about the basic principles of the terrain analysis and the latest, more advanced techniques for the quantitative analysis – at different spatio-tempral scales -of Earth Surface processes stating from DEMs at different resolution.

Learning ouctomes:
Students will also gain experience and skills related to the management, processing and interpretation of remote sensing data through exercises with specific software packages.
At the end of the course students will therefore be able, through the use of specific tools in GIS environment, to conduct the most advanced quantitative analyses of the Earth Surface processes.

Educational objectives

Educational goals: acquisition of the criteria and methods of: i) reconstruction of the geological structure of the subsurface in relation to the type of interventions and/or works to be carried out; ii) planning of the relevant geognostic campaigns.

Educational objectives

Educational goals: This course describes the criteria and methods for determining the distribution of
chemical elements in the environment. Provides elements to assess the effects of rock alteration and
element mobility during water-rock interaction. Explains the basis to assess element transport in the
subsurface.
Learning outcomes: successful students will be able to examine and process anomalous elemental
distribution, solubility and complexing of elements in solution, and chemical processes in the framework of
global change. They will also have basic knowledge about solutes transport in groundwater and immiscible
liquids, with reference to the main processes that control the underground movement. Moreover, students
will understanf the basic principles and application of stable isotope geochemistry, with particular emphasis
on O, H, N, C traceability in the hydrological cycle.

Educational objectives

Provide an in-depth understanding of water/rock interaction processes and the main isotopic techniques used in the study of element mobility, with applications in forensic science and in the qualitative and quantitative assessment of water resources.
Acquire technical and practical skills for the design and execution of tracer tests and for water monitoring, with particular reference to groundwater bodies, contaminated sites, and environmental engineering works, in compliance with current regulations.

Educational objectives

At the end of the course, students should be able to apply machine learning
methodologies and advanced data analysis techniques for the quantitative interpretation
of complex geological processes. In particular, they will be able to:

- Apply mathematical analysis tools, including differential calculus (derivatives), error
analysis and the solution of overdetermined linear systems, in a geoscientific data
processing context;
- Formulate and solve optimization problems related to the modeling of natural
phenomena and the calibration of geophysical models;
- Use analytical models for the solution of flow and transport equations in porous media,
also integrating experimental data and field observations;
- Implement supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms (e.g. regression,
clustering, PCA) to extract informative patterns from complex geoscientific datasets;
- Critically evaluate the results obtained through statistical and validation metrics, with
attention to uncertainty and data quality;

The course aims to provide a solid theoretical and practical basis for the conscious use
of artificial intelligence and numerical analysis in the field of applied geosciences, with
particular attention to the problems of prediction, classification and interpretation of
geological data.

Educational objectives

Objectives of the course:
The course aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of marine environments,
ranging from oceanic ridges to coastal shorelines. It covers the sedimentary processes
characteristic of different marine settings and the key factors that influence them.
Additionally, the course explores offshore applications, including service-related studies, the
assessment of marine geohazards, environmental investigations, and geological mapping of
marine areas.

Educational objectives

The course contributes to the achievement of the training objectives referred to in the Manifesto of Studies of the master’s degree in applied Geology.
In particular, the course aims to provide students with the basic knowledge related to the phenomena of contamination of soils and groundwater in order to:

a) Understand the mechanisms that govern the dispersion of contaminants in soil and groundwater based on the knowledge of the characteristics of the contaminants and of the environmental matrices of interest;
b) Select the intervention strategies for the recovery and redevelopment of contaminated sites;
c) Evaluate the adequacy of the potentially applicable solutions in the frame of the national regulatory framework

Educational objectives

Learning Objectives: The aim of the course is to provide basic elements for setting up quantitative analyses of ground instability processes - specifically landslides, subsidence, collapse due to sinkholes, and liquefaction of loose soils - in order to measure their effects and thus
assess both their impact on the environment and their contribution to the damage of manmade structures and infrastructures. These analyses include the assessment of stability of soil and rock slopes, the determination of causative conditions of widespread settlements over large areas and the quantification of associated effects, the analysis of limit conditions for the collapse of cavity systems, and determination of critical conditions for liquefaction due to upward seepage flows and seismic actions. The analytical methods illustrated in the course include analytical, semiempirical, and numerical approaches, the latter developed through stressstrain simulations performed thought finite element and/or finite difference methods.
Learning Outcomes: Ability to conceptualize the analysis of a natural process responsible for ground instability, starting from the engineering-geological model; ability to analytically define the quantification of stability levels and of the deformational and/or stress effects resulting from the onset of destabilizing actions; ability to use semiempirical approaches for evaluating the intensity of effects associated with ground instability processes; ability to read and interpret simulation outputs produced by numerical modeling.

Educational objectives

Learning objectives This course aims to provide the students with knowledge on groundwater
legislation, and monitoring, management and protection of regional aquifers. The students will also
receive information on the methodologies for planning, and manage wells and analyze data from
boreholes.
Outputs of the learning process: The students after a successful exam will be able to analyze
hydro-geophysical logs from the phreatic zone of the aquifer and manage the equation to
designate capture zones around abstraction wells. The students will be also familiar with the
fundamentals of contaminant transport in the vadose and phreatic zone, as well as the principal
methodologies to characterize the groundwater flow and manage the contaminated sites.