Environmental & Land Development Engineering

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HOW A STRUCTURED ORGANISATION TACKLES COMPLEX PROCESSES

At Italferr, we adopt a uniform design approach, within the diverse context of an infrastructure engineering firm, to effectively tackle the interpretation problems posed by the Italian environmental regulatory framework and related red tape.

We implement environmental and land development engineering projects with a focus on the related environmental issues and with a view to protecting the land and the landscape in the design and planning process, while ensuring compliance with the project requirements and timeframe.

At Italferr, we have made a name for ourselves as the go-to firm for our expertise in land regeneration and redevelopment, thanks to our capacity to minimise interference with contaminated or potentially contaminated sites and effectively integrate remediation and reclamation activities within our infrastructure projects, in accordance with the relevant administrative processes.

Thanks to this experience and to our extensive set of engineering and fact-finding skills, we are able to support our clients with respect to surveys relating to potentially contaminated sites, drawing up characterisation plans, carrying out environmental surveys and investigations, sampling and characterisation tests of the soil, subsoil, surface water and groundwater matrices and research into natural baseline values.

Italferr also performs health and environmental risk analyses for estimating remediation targets, hydraulic and pollutant diffusion modelling, design of remediation and safety measures, field assistance to construction site management during their implementation and monitoring the environmental matrices involved before, during and after construction.

Last but not least, the company liaises with the competent authorities throughout the reclamation process and prepares the relevant waste management and disposal plans.

In an era in which climate change is one of the main causes of hydrogeological instability, such as landslides, flooding and coastal erosion, Italferr is actively engaged in railway infrastructure protection design, to ensure a resilient national network capable of adapting to future scenarios. Highly qualified know-how is made available by experts in the sector, through fruitful partnerships with leading Italian academic institutions, to develop actions for mitigating hydrogeological instability, combining innovative and standard methods (such as SAR interferometric surveys and field surveys).

The issue of excavation spoil management, and whether to treat such spoil as by-products not waste, has been addressed through a number of regulations (ultimately by Presidential Decree 120/2017). Italferr is committed to tackling this issue in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner, by proactively participating in the definition and continuous updating of design standards, technical specifications and procedures. The experience we have built up is disseminated through various collaborations in the development of innovative digital applications in partnership with institutional bodies and organisations.

Italy is among the European countries in the Mediterranean region that most exploit aquifers, springs and wells as the most important sources of freshwater for drinking, although more than 1/3 of the water sourced in this manner is lost due to faulty water supply systems. Italferr has developed its Water Management project to safeguard water resources, by resolving the critical water cycle aspects (catchment, harvesting, discharging, etc.) associated with railway assets, from an administrative (including permit-granting) and accounting perspective. The delicate and innovative topic of sustainable water management is addressed as part of its strategic objectives and included in the project design, by means of water diagnostics actions aimed at controlling spending, monitoring consumption, identifying leaks in the supply network, analysing and updating existing supply contracts, aimed at greater cooperation with the managing bodies of the SII (Integrated Water Service).