PhD Program of National Interest "Defense against natural risks and ecological transition of the built environment"

Dottorato di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale in "Difesa dai rischi naturali e transizione ecologica del costruito"

Coordinator: Prof.ssa Loredana Contrafatto

2025-2026 academic year:  41st cycle
2024-2025 academic year:  40th cycle
2023-2024 academic year:  39th cycle
2022-2023 academic year:  38th cycle

Past-Coordinator: Prof. Massimo Cuomo

Course description and objectives

The PhD programme aims to train experts and researchers capable of addressing the issues posed by the prevention and management of the effects of hazards, promoting innovative and efficient solutions.

This objective will be pursued by providing PhD students with basic training in natural risk analysis, which also includes elements of scenario modelling and multi-criteria decision analysis. Advanced training is guaranteed by the structure of the doctoral programme, which will provide specific skills in the student's field of interest. In this context, the effects of climate change on the anthropogenic environment, such as floods, exceptional wind events, etc., will also be addressed.

PhD students will be able to estimate and prevent the effects of natural hazards on buildings and territorial systems, including  issues related to new service infrastructures, such as data communication systems, antennas, etc., for which exposure to natural hazards has only recently begun to be assessed. The PhD programme also covers integrated monitoring systems for infrastructure and territorial systems, based on terrestrial sensors, aerial surveys and satellite data.

One of the objectives of the course is to provide students with advanced training in the development of prevention and protection techniques and systems that comply with the principles of sustainability and the circular economy. To this end, the curricula explicitly includes topics related to new sustainable materials and the development of methodologies that can integrate the protection of buildings with energy efficiency and other objectives related to environmental sustainability.

Particular attention is paid to the protection of cultural heritage from natural hazards. This includes protecting monumental buildings, areas of archaeological, historical or landscape interest, and safeguarding historical centres and artefacts that characterise the cultural fabric of a region. Achieving this objective requires an integrated approach that combines the study of risks at the territorial level, the assessment of the vulnerability of the asset to the effects of dangerous events, and the design of interventions that take into account the specific nature of the historical artefact. Consider, for example, the protection of archaeological parks from the risks of flooding or landslides, which are closely linked to the interventions to be carried out on artefacts subject to seismic risk. Interesting innovative proposals for intervention have been put forward in various contexts at international level.

In order to address the issues outlined above, the doctoral programme has a strong international focus. This is achieved both at the teaching and research level by involving highly qualified foreign institutions and by extending the educational offer to candidates from abroad. The attractiveness of the doctoral programme is the key indicator for measuring its success.

Expected employment and career opportunities

The PhD programme aims to train highly qualified technicians and managers for local agencies, public bodies, environmental risk study and control institutes, as well as research bodies. This is in response to the demand for advanced training contained in the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan), which aims to develop innovative methods and solutions to improve the actions envisaged in the plan for the protection of the territory and buildings from risks associated with natural events and those resulting from climate change.

Structure of the PhD programme

The PhD programme is organised into four curricula.

Protection of the Built Environment from Natural Hazards

The curriculum focuses on approaches to increase the operational capacity and resistance of buildings to natural hazards, particularly seismic hazards, wind hazards, volcanic eruptions, and hazards linked to rapid climate change. The regeneration of the building follows a holistic approach that involves not only structural but also functional and energy recovery and reinforcement. The study of seismic hazard takes into account individual seismogenic sources, potential interactions between tectonic structures and volcanoes, and the local effects of soils, which can generate instability phenomena such as landslides, subsidence, and liquefaction. With regard to wind action, extreme weather events, which are occurring with increasing frequency, are of central importance. The safety of buildings is assessed using non-linear computational mechanics tools, accompanied by structural monitoring for a more precise identification of the mechanical characteristics of the structures. Modelling includes the building and a significant volume of soil to describe the effects of dynamic soil-foundation-structure interaction, at the level of a single building or on an urban scale.  The operability of buildings under wind action is studied, particularly for port and airport systems, for which the effects of extreme winds are a dominant factor in the management of work activities. Interventions range from reinforcing individual structural elements to seismic isolation, soil consolidation, adding new structural systems and innovative techniques for shielding the soil-structure complex. In addition to numerical methods, experimental testing laboratories at various locations affiliated with the doctoral programme or abroad are utilised.  

Infrastructure Risk and Protection

Keywords: Protection of infrastructure from natural and anthropogenic actions; Bridges and viaducts; Overhead power lines; Underground gas pipelines; Substructures and smart tunnels for the provision of essential services; Cable transport systems; Structure monitoring; Structure dynamics; Passive vibration control; Innovative materials and devices; Soil-structure interaction; Seismic geotechnics.

Curriculum description: The PhD student will carry out research aimed at defining mathematical models that describe the mechanical behaviour and risk level of civil infrastructure, such as bridges, viaducts, power lines, underground gas pipelines, substructures and smart tunnels for utility distribution, cable transport systems, and which can incorporate innovative systems for protection against environmental or anthropogenic actions. The mathematical models will be rigorous, but at the same time simple, manageable, parametrically definable, easily generalisable and susceptible to gradual enrichment. The soil-structure interaction will be taken into account, with special reference to aspects related to seismic geotechnics, while, from the perspective of protection systems, additional innovative devices dedicated to passive vibration control will be modelled and designed, including through the use of innovative materials. Advanced structural monitoring systems are also being studied. Structural models can be used to provide anomaly detection information linked to a mechanical awareness of possible damage events caused by natural phenomena such as earthquakes, wind, wear and tear, or anthropogenic phenomena such as vehicular traffic, overloads, impacts, explosions, etc.

Hydrogeological Risk and Coastal Protection

The curriculum covers the following topics:

1. Identification and optimisation of protection systems for built heritage and natural environments (low-lying coasts, cliffs, river deltas, etc.) using innovative techniques and sustainable technologies;
2. Analysis of the stability of loose material slopes and rock ridges;
3. In situ and remote monitoring of natural heritage and man-made structures in coastal and urban areas crossed by rivers;
4. Vulnerability of coasts to marine flooding and short- and long-term erosion;
5. Vulnerability of urban centres to river flooding, including as a result of riverbed dynamics and interaction between vegetation and riverbed structures;
6. Improvement of the durability of built heritage in coastal and inland areas, management and protection of natural heritage;
7. Assessment of the vulnerability of structures in coastal and urban river areas to extreme natural events (earthquakes, landslides, floods, storm surges, river flooding, etc.) through numerical modelling;
8. Innovative techniques and materials for the functional recovery, risk reduction and protection of structures in coastal and urban river areas;
9. Risk reduction induced by natural and anthropogenic causes through integrated monitoring systems, structural reinforcement, adaptation strategies and coastal and urban river redevelopment interventions;
10. Use of decision-making techniques for choosing interventions;
11. Wide-area hazard analysis of coasts and river basins for large-scale vulnerability of buildings in coastal and inland centres.

Protection of Cultural Heritage from Natural Hazards