Venipedia is currently under reconstruction. The site will be restored to over 4,000 pages by December 15th, 2012. Please continue to check back for updates!
x
Welcome to Venipedia
A free, data-driven resource all about Venice, Italy.
Venipedia is a wiki-based website dedicated to the study of the city of Venice, Italy. It is intended as a repository for unique information and data primarily collected by the Venice Project Center at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. With decades of projects dedicated to the study of Venetian architecture, art, bridges, canals, churches, ecosystems, infrastructure, tourism, transportation, and more, we are now releasing our data to the world through this site.
There are already many Venetian resources on the internet, including both the English and Italian Wikipedias and various Italian-language sites. While these resources are adequate for some purposes, there are also some problems associated with these sources. For example, Wikipedia is a general-knowledge encyclopedia that provides neither detailed information nor concrete data.
This website aims to fill the gap of of an English-language, data-driven website about Venice. Please check back regularly for updates.
ARPAV is an acronym for the Agenzia Regionale per la Prevenzione e Protezione Ambientale del Veneto, which translates to the Regional Agency for Environmental Prevention and Protection in Veneto.
Environmental protection and control used to be under the authority of the National Health Service (NHS) and the Unitá Locale Socio Sanitaria (ULSS). However, after a referendum in April 1993, Parliament delegated these responsibilities to local agencies by passing Law 61 in 1994. On October 18, 1996, Regional Law 32 established ARPAV as the local agency to take on the duties formerly held by the NHS and ULSS. The agency officially came into operation on October 3, 1997 [1].
Mission
The role of ARPAV in Veneto is similar to that of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States. Its mission is summarized by the following objectives:
Protection of the environment through environmental controls that safeguard the health of the population and territory
Prevention of harm to the environment through research, training, information, and education.
ARPAV aims to accomplish these objectives through "techno-scientific" expertise[1].
Activities
ARPAV workers preparing to take measurements
ARPAV carries out scientific and technical activities in the following areas relating to environmental protection:
prevention and control of the environment with regard to: water, air (including noise and electromagnetic environments), soil, and solid and liquid waste
the radioactivity in the environment
the risks of major accident hazards of certain industrial activities
Environmental Control
ARPAV is responsible for promoting the implementation of legislation regulating air pollutants, acoustic sources, electromagnetic sources, and water and soil contaminants. They monitor air quality, noise level in the environment, the quality of both surface and ground water, and characteristics of soil. The collected results are further used to conduct research on the general condition of the environment which then helps to promote initiatives and plans to protect the environment. ARPAV also provides weather updates along with hosting many other projects. A few of their environmental projects centered in Venice include,
Project "Compost Veneto" which is a program focused on removing pollutants from the lagoon of Venice by promoting a organic soil called compost. The project seeks to reduce the amount of harmful fertilizers in the water by supporting the use of "Compost Veneto" for farms in areas which drain into the lagoon.
ARCIS works to collect data on the climate changes for Northern Italy. The project collaborates with various organizations including ARPAV to share data from different geographical areas along with different types of testing. The project was officially started on August 18, 2008 [2]. The goal is to establish an archive database containing daily data on precipitation and temperature ranges since 1961.
Radioactivity
ARPAV protects the public from ionizing radiation and electromagnetic fields by carrying out environmental audits and assessments to ensure the use of safe nuclear energy.
Major Accidents and Industrial Hazards
ARPAV provides technical and scientific support to other agencies associated with prevention of major accidents in industrial activities. They help develop industrial accident simulations to determine the best course of action in a critical situation.
Other Activities
Local and regional authorities use ARPAV data and recommendations to generate regulations, approve or deny projects, issue environmental permits, and establish plans for future environmental protection. ARPAV also formulates proposals concerning alternative energy production, consumption, and conservation. Finally, they are concerned with promoting environmental education to citizens.
The figure above represents results from Google Analytics taken from October 2010-2012. The site had a total of 43,090 different visitors with a return rate of 21.41%. Continue to check back for updates!
