Un approccio GIS multidiciplinare a supporto di indagini ambientali

During 2001 Italian National Research Council made a field survey of epidemiological and environmental samplings in the area to the southeast of the city of Pisa, which is the seat of a solid waste incinerator. The target of this project is to deepen our knowledge on environmental characteristics in the area around the incinerator installation, connected to the health conditions of people living in the area. Regional Agency for Environmental Protection of Tuscany (ARPAT), Local Health Care District (USL 5), and University of Pisa (Antropic and Environmental Sciences Department) participate in the project. This environmental survey has different aspects and operates on heterogeneous data. In works of this type every group has specific knowledge and utilizes, for field data surveys, methodologies proper of their disciplinary sector, so that not always results achieved by different groups are directly comparable. The GIS approach of environmental-epidemiological data collection and analysis constitutes instead an element of uniformity, which is superposed to various methodologies, renders 'visually' homogeneous all data collected, and predisposes to a compared analysis of the results.