Special Session 13

SPECIAL SESSION #13

Giovanni Besio

University of Genova, Italy

• giovanni.besio@unige.it

Francesco Castelli

University of Enna, Italy

• francesco.castelli@unikore.it

Luca Cavallaro

University of Catania, Italy

• luca.cavallaro@unict.it

Federico Roman

University of Trieste, Italy

• federico.roman@dia.units.it

Over the past decade, maritime transportation has grown steadily, with a rate of around 3% annually. Despite its importance, maritime transportation is not immune to risks, and accidents can happen with catastrophic consequences. Various factors can lead to maritime accidents, including human error, equipment failure, weather conditions, and natural disasters. To prevent and mitigate maritime accidents, the scientific community focuses on identifying the risks and developing effective mitigation strategies. This goal can be achieved using innovative survey technologies and numerical and AI approaches.

We propose a special session focused on the emerging technologies related to monitoring port traffic and weather conditions, evaluating risk assessment in port areas and developing decision support systems to prevent and reduce damages.

Giovanni Besio is Associate Professor in Coastal Engineering at the Polytechnic School of the University of Genoa. He has been involved in teaching for different Master, PhD, Specialization Courses and Summer Schools focused on Coastal Engineering and Mixing Processes. He has been visiting scientist at Griffith University (Australia) and leaded the workshop on Coastal Erosion in Lazlit Bay, Albania, organized by UNESCO Chair in Engineering for Human and Sustainable Development. He has been involved in different EU-Research project (PNRR-RAISE, PNRR-RETURN, SINAPSI, SICOMARPLUS, GEREMIA, SPLASH!, SPLASH&CO, PROMPT, BE-READY, MAREGOT, HUMOR, SANDPIT, IT-ES partnership) focused on coastal engineering and he leads the MeteOcean research group at Univ. of Genoa (meteocean.dicca.unige.it). He is the coordinator of the Curriculum in Engineering for Marine and Coastal Environments belonging to the PhD in Sea Science and Technology and he is involved in COMEM+ Erasmus Mundus program as the responsible for UniGe. He has been involved in different technical panels concerning River, Coastal and Harbour Engineering (Regional Technical Board, Technical Consultant at Genoa and Rome Court, Spanish ROM1.1). He is author of various scientific manuscripts (more than 60 articles in referred journals).

Prof. Francesco Castelli is full professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Enna “Kore”, where he is the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture. From 2014 to 2021 he was the Coordinator of the PhD Course in “Civil Infrastructure for the Territory” and Tutor of several bachelor thesis, master of II level and doctorate thesis in Geotechnical Engineering.
He is member of Italian Geotechnical Association, member of the Technical Committee 203 (TC203) on “Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering and Associated Problems” and of the Technical Committee 207 (TC207) on “Foundations and Retaining Structures” of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. Author of about 180 papers published in scientific journals and proceedings of national and international conferences, the main research topics are the soil-structure analysis, shallow and deep foundations in static and dynamic conditions, the slope stability and the analysis of the seismic geotechnical hazard.

Luca Cavallaro is Associate Professor in Hydraulics at the Department of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Catania. He has been involved in several projects focused on coastal engineering (PNR-ISYPORT, REST-COAST, INTERREG NEWS, HYDRALAB PLUS, SANDPIT, HYDRALAB III, IDRALAB IV, SEAPORT). He has more than 70 publications between international journals and conference papers. His main scientific interest is mitigating risks in the coastal and port areas and the wave-structure interaction. He has been involved in several technical panels concerning river, coastal and harbour Engineering. Recently, he has been working on developing early warning systems for coastal flooding and port safety.

Federico Roman is an Assistant Professor (RTDb) at the Department of Engineering and Architecture of the University of Trieste since October 2021. Dr F. Roman holds a Master's degree in Hydraulic-Civil Engineering and a PhD in environmental and industrial fluid dynamics, he obtained his National Academic Qualification as Associate Professor in 2018. From March 2013 to September 2021, Dr F. Roman assumed the full-time position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for Iefluids s.r.l., a company whose main purpose is engineering consultancy and technological transfer in fluid dynamics. Federico Roman has more than 40 publications between international journals and conference papers. First during his academic activity and then through his work experience as CEO, Dr Roman developed a strong background in numerical modeling for CFD in particular for the study of sea coastal flow and harbors, dealing with applicative problems related for example to oil-spill. Dr Roman worked on archetype physical problems related to intrusive and bottom gravity currents, oscillating flows and sediment transport. More recently, Dr Roman is working on damage models for water and oil risk analysis.