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Environment and Health in Italian Cities: The Case of Taranto

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Book cover Environmental Deterioration and Human Health

Abstract

Like “heterotrophic organisms,” cities live on the basis of a strong imbalance between the relevant inflows of matter and energy and outflows of waste and emissions, which can extend over large areas. The data of the ecological footprint of cities have quantified emblematically this imbalance. The rapid growth of urbanization, especially in developing countries, is a matter of serious concern.

Unsustainable by definition, cities generate environmental impacts of all kinds, with intensities that vary according to the characteristics of the areas in which they develop. Italian cities are a significant case study, for the high density of population and economic activity, the shortage of green areas, the internal mobility largely centered on the private car, as well as for the frequent breaches of the rules and laws oriented to protect the environment.

Air pollution is one of the major environmental problems, especially in some cities of the country where industrial activities with high environmental impact are located. After a critical review of the literature focused on the relationship between environmental depletion, air pollution, and health conditions in Italian cities, this chapter explores the case of Taranto, a city of Southern Italy with serious problems of pollution and public health due to the presence of a large industrial area.

Tiziana Banini is the author of paragraphs 1, 2, and 3; Cosimo Palagiano of paragraph 4.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Italy is at the top of the European ranking for population density (201 inhabitants/km2), after the Netherlands (492), Belgium (359), UK (254), Germany (229), and Liechtenstein (231) (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu). In the 12 metropolitan cities (Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples, Palermo, Florence, Bologna, Padua, Bari, Catania, Pescara, Genoa), the average of density of population is about 3,100 inhabitants/km², with a peak of 8,182 in Naples, 7,272 in Milan, and 6,972 in Turin. Taken together, these cities represent 0.9 % of the national area and include 8.8 million people, accounting for 14.5 % of the national population (ISPRA 2012).

  2. 2.

    For oxides of nitrogen (NO2), European legislation (Directive 2008/50/EC, implemented in Italy by Legislative Decree 155/2010) taken from the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines (WHO 2006) establishes an annual average concentration of 40 µg/m3 and an hourly average concentration of 200 µg/m3 not to be exceeded for more than 18 days a year. For PM2.5, this threshold is 25 µg/m3. For PM10, it comes to a daily average of 50 micrograms/m3, not to be exceeded on more than 35 daysyear−1. For tropospheric ozone (O3), the limit is set at a maximum of 25 days exceeding the daily threshold of 120 mg/m3, calculated on the average of eight consecutive hours. For sulfur oxides (SO2), the limit is equal to 20 g/m3 average of 24 h and 500 mg/m3 average of 10 min.

  3. 3.

    According to the Global Greenhouse Gas Standard, launched by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), UN-HABITAT, and the World Bank at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro in March 2010 as the first global system for calculating the greenhouse gas emissions in the cities, the Italian cities appear with CO2 emissions per capita ranging from 4 tons of the province of Naples, at 9.7 of Turin, to 11.1 in the province of Bologna. At the international level, Rotterdam, with 29.8 million t of CO2 per capita, is the city’s biggest polluter (http://corriere.com).

  4. 4.

    The Seveso II Directive requires the manager of the establishment to notify the quantity and type of work related to hazardous substances included in the Appendix and the reports on the activities of risk prevention and management of major accident emergency. Directive 2003/105/EC extended the legislation to other industries and has included additional requirements on the safety of facilities and participation of workers and citizens.

  5. 5.

    “The concept of ‘polluted site’ was firstly introduced in Italy with the definition of ‘environmental high risk areas’ (Rule 349/86). Later, the decree 471/99 stated that a site is considered polluted if the concentration of even just one index pollutant in anyone of the matrices (soil or subsoil, surface or ground waters) exceeds the allowable threshold limit concentration. The boundaries of Italian polluted sites (IPS) were defined (Decree 152/06) on the basis of health, environmental and social criteria” (Pirastu et al. 2011, p. 20).

  6. 6.

    The External Emergency Plan requires the delimitation of three areas of risk: (1) areas of maximum exposure (threshold of high mortality in the immediate vicinity of the plant), (2) area of damage (threshold of irreversible damage), and (3) area of attention (subject to effects that are generally not serious). These areas are identified according to the type of damage (explosion, fire, toxic cloud, etc.), the hazard to human health, and the environmental features of the area where the industrial plant is located (seismic, hydro-geological risk, etc.) (DPCM 2005).

  7. 7.

    The Ilva of Taranto, in particular, according to European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) for 2004, generates atmospheric emissions of 9.6 million t of carbon dioxide (CO2), 446,000 tons of carbon monoxide (CO), 350 kg of cadmium (Cd), 468 tonnes of methane (CH4), 27,800 tons of oxides of nitrogen (NOx/NO2), 40,600 tons of sulfur oxides (SOx/SO2), 1,500 tons of non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOC), 183 t of benzene, 754 t of chlorine (HCl), 1.14 tons of mercury (Hg), and other pollutants, which in many cases (carbon dioxide, cadmium, chlorine, carbon monoxide, chromium, mercury, etc.), compared to the data of 2001, were increased (http://prtr.ec.europa.eu).

  8. 8.

    The name Tamburi (drums) refers to a nearby Roman aqueduct and possibly to the imaginary sound of its water. This area is inhabited by 10,000 people. Its actual expansion is due to the construction of public housing for the workers of the plant.

  9. 9.

    The city is built around two inlets called Mar Grande (Great Sea) and Mar Piccolo (Little Sea). The latter has suffered particularly from pollution by the production wastes of the plant. In the sweet water of a spring that once run through the sea—called, thanks to a legend, Anello di San Cataldo(Saint Cataldo’s Ring)—delicious fish products grew. The Taranto harbor contains several fishing boats: 80 trawlers and other little boats. The sea is rich in many prized species, such as dentex, sea bream, groupers, mullets, anchovies, shrimps, and squids. Taranto is the major production area in the world for farmed mussels, with an annual production of 30,000 tonnes and 1,300 employees. In fact, the cozza (mussel) is the gastronomic symbol of the city. Mussel farming in Taranto is very ancient. After the Saracen raids in 927, this farming was renewed, thanks to Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus Phocas the 2nd, and in the second half of the nineteenth century two thirds of the city’s 30,000 inhabitants made their living from fishery products.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Documentarie, Linguistico-Filologiche e Geografiche, Sapienza Università di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Tiziana Banini

  2. School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Cosimo Palagiano

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  1. Tiziana Banini
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  2. Cosimo Palagiano
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Correspondence to Tiziana Banini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Agricultural Microbiology Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

    Abdul Malik

  2. Department of Biology II Microbiology, Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

    Elisabeth Grohmann

  3. International Institute of Health Manage (IIHMR), New Delhi, India

    Rais Akhtar

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Banini, T., Palagiano, C. (2014). Environment and Health in Italian Cities: The Case of Taranto. In: Malik, A., Grohmann, E., Akhtar, R. (eds) Environmental Deterioration and Human Health. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7890-0_2

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