Climate change is now evident on a global scale. In some regions, the phenomenon is especially amplified, generating different consequences for man and the environment. Sicily is one of the Mediterranean regions, the biggest in terms of area, where climatic variations produce significant effects. In this study, temperature trends on monthly time scales are examined in the time frame 1925–2015. The cluster analysis technique (Ward’s method) was used to homogenize the temperature series. The results show four statistically significant clusters, confirming the presence of climatic variability in the region. The non-parametric Mann–Kendall test was used to determine temperature trends. The non-parametric estimator Sen’s slope was used to quantify the variation of trends. The results showed the presence of statistically significant trends. A worrying and unexpected increase in temperatures was found during the winter period. This scenario was presented in three clusters, highlighting a mutation in the winter season, attributable to the climatic changes in progress rather than to territorial factors. If the trends maintain an increasing monotone character, in the coming decades there will be, in many areas of Sicily, a constant loss of fertile soil for the agricultural sector and the advancement of phenomena such as drought and desertification, to which the island is already predisposed. All of this will have serious socio-economic repercussions. Considering that a large part of the region’s economy is based on the agricultural sector, these repercussions will be followed by serious environmental implications that will negatively affect the ecological sustainability of the region.

Information on air quality in urban areas represents an important objective to raise awareness and participation of citizens towards those measures aimed at containing and reducing vehicular traffic. For several years at the international level, evaluation procedures have been adopted by indices. One of the first synthetic indices, adopted by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), was the Pollution Standard Index (PSI). In 1999, the EPA replaced the PSI index with Air Quality Index (AQI), which includes two new sub-indices, the ozone at ground level and fine particulate.Despite the European Decisions 97/101/EC and 2001/752/EC, have established an exchange of information from networks and individual stations measuring ambient air pollution in Member States, the use of a single index has not yet been defined that allows you to compare different realities. This heterogeneity emerges in Italy as well, where only a few Environmental Protection Agencies disclose indexes to inform citizens.In this article, the Air Quality Index (AQI) currently used by the United States Environmental Protection Agency has been applied to the metropolitan city of Catania, in order to analyze the level of pollution daily from 2010 to 2014. Through the use of the AQI it was possible to synthesize in a single daily value, concentrations of major pollutants in urban areas (NO2, O3, CO, SO2, PM10) for the entire period. For the calculation procedure of the AQI, the data concentrations were provided by Municipal Ecology and Environment Office. The data relates to three monitoring stations, whose locations have not changed over the years. This also made it possible to evaluate the change in frequency of AQI agglomerations where the monitoring units have been positioned. The value obtained by the AQI for each station has been ranked in six levels of pollution; each level has been associated with a particular coloring allowing this information to be more intuitive. Lastly, it was possible to reach the air quality assessment in urban environment from the frequency variations of each level derived from the year 2010 until 2014

Mediterranean hurricanes, also known as medicanes, can cause significant damage to coastal communities. Consequently, they have been the subject of intense study in recent decades. Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and Web-GIS applications are essential for processing and analyzing geographic data from various sources, particularly in the field of spatial planning. Due to their ability to integrate heterogeneous information, these tools can provide experts with a comprehensive overview of relevant geospatial data. Here, we present ARCHIMEDE, a relational geodatabase connected to an open-source Web-GIS platform focused on Mediterranean hurricanes that contains data from recent research on these extreme weather phenomena. These datasets comprise climatic and oceanographic data obtained from remote sensing techniques as well as seismic and geomorphological data obtained from field observations. Consequently, this Web-GIS platform can enhance our understanding of Mediterranean cyclones by relating the physical properties of these natural phenomena with their impacts on coastal regions. ARCHIMEDE is an innovative tool for the dissemination of geographic information to stakeholders, researchers, and decision-makers, offering valuable support for the development of robust coastal management strategies aimed at mitigating the challenges posed by Mediterranean hurricanes.