Covid-19 emergency management and preparedness in cross-border territories. Collection of experiences, needs and public health strategies in the framework of interreg GESTI.S.CO. project

BACKGROUND AND AIM

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted management difficulties in neighboring territories. The aim of the paper is to report the needs of different stakeholders during, before and after Covid-19 emergency with specific regard to challenges faced by public administrators in confined territories.

METHODS

In the framework of Interreg GESTI.S.CO. project the study has been designed with two methodological steps: i) a co-design workshop and ii) a web-based survey. The workshop includes both an audience interaction session and focus groups. Then, starting from the focus group results, the survey has been designed with 30 questions and submitted to the 227 municipalities located between Italy and Switzerland to understand the implementation of Public Health strategies in local emergency planning.

RESULTS

The interactive session highlighted that most of the critical issues are related to the lack of communication and planning in Public Health policies. The survey highlighted that the local emergency plans rarely integrate a section on health emergencies (30% Italy and 50% Switzerland). Only 20% of the respondents dedicated a section for Covid-19 emergency management. Most of them did not activate initiatives to support mental health. 90% of the municipalities did not cooperate with the neighboring country, but half of them think that it would have been much more useful. The 55% of the Italian respondents are currently updating their emergency plan and will implement it with some Public Health input.

CONCLUSIONS

The study provides insights that can support policy makers in improving their strategy in responding to future pandemic. (www.actabiomedica.it).

Experimental Investigations of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors for Water Pipeline Monitoring

Water Loss (WL) is a global issue. In Italy, for instance, WL reached 36.2% of the total fresh water conveyed in 2020. The maintenance of a water supply system is a strategic task that requires a huge amount of investment every year. In this work, we focused on the use of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors (DFOS) based on Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) technology for monitoring water pipeline networks. We worked on High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes, today the most widely used for creating water pipelines. By winding and fixing the optic fiber cable on the pipe's external surface, we verified the ability to detect strain related to pressure anomalies along a pipeline, e.g., those caused by water leakage. We performed two experimental phases. In the first one, we assessed the sensibility of sensor layout on an HDPE pipeline solicited with static pressure. We investigated the viscoelastic rheology of the material by calibrating and validating the parameters of a Burger model, in which Maxwell and Kelvin-Voigt models are connected in series. In the second experimental phase, instead, we focused on the detection of the pressure anomaly produced by leakage in a pipeline circuit set up with running water moved by a pump. The theoretical and experimental studies performed returned overall positive feedback on the use of DFOS for the monitoring of HDPE water pipelines. Future developments will be focused on more detailed studies of this monitoring solution and on the industrial production of "natively smart" HDPE pipes in which DFOS cables are integrated into the pipeline surface during the extrusion process.