Industrial production has brought increased wellbeing in the last years, but the amount of solid waste has undoubtedly increased. Thus, open dumpsites and landfills have been created throughout the world, with serious impacts on the environment and public health. In such a context, occupational health and safety (OHS) issues related to workers that have to deal with landfill characterization or management have not been considered sufficiently. To reduce such a research gap, in 2019 a research project started in Italy on OHS risk assessment in landfills. In fact, in such facilities, workers can be subjected to direct contact with the polluted environment and might not be completely aware of the entity and type of pollution (e.g., in open dumpsites). Starting with the analysis of INAIL data on accidents at work which occurred in Italy during the period 2008–2019, a specific risk analysis was carried out with the goal of defining risk determinants and profiles by means of K-means cluster analysis. Such an analysis allowed us to recognize the use of work equipment and the work environment as the main determinants of the accidents on the one hand, and the “driver of the excavator” as the most risky activity on the other. The achieved results take a step forward towards the characterization of occupational health and safety issues in landfills. Accordingly, the research outcomes represent a basis on which to address further research work in this field.

A multi-sensor approach has been adopted to investigate the summit area of Mount Etna that from January 2011 has significantly changed due to the intense volcanic activity from the New South East Crater. WorldView and Pleiades stereopairs were processed to obtain high resolution Digital Elevation Models and orthophotos used to update the topography of the volcano at over 3000 m of elevation. COSMO-SkyMed interferometric pairs provided additional data to attempt a reconstruction of the evolution of the New South East Crater between June 2011 and October 2014. The information retrieved from the optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar datasets were integrated with in-situ measurements and volcanological and geotechnical information thus contributing to the assessment of hazard scenarios.

Despite the international efforts to promote the circular economy and waste recycling, landfilling is still a common practice for waste disposal around the world, with considerable impacts on the environment and public health. However, while such a sector was addressed in many countries through a consistent environmental legislative framework, safety management for workers in landfills has not been sufficiently considered by policymakers. Moreover, in the scientific literature OHS issues related to landfill management were not deeply addressed through the elaboration of specific procedures. Hence, with the goal to evaluate the existence of specific risk profiles in such working contexts, the paper provides a contribution through a data-driven approach. In fact, the study contains a detailed investigation of the biggest Italian occupational accident database (powered by INAIL) with reference to the landfill management sector, according to a methodology specifically designed to employ the European Statistics on Accidents at Work (ESAW) codes as data filters. After selecting a sample of n.78 accidents, likely to have occurred in Italian landfills in the period 2008/2019, accidents' dynamics were assessed for each event with reference to the use of work equipment. The results achieved allowed us to bring to light the potential risks related to this determinant. Thus, potential risk management measures were defined in order to improve the safety management of work equipment in this specific context.