Section 2

Purpose

The 2nd AIIA Section - Rural buildings and agro-forestry - deals with construction in agriculture in relation to the biosystems it contains, the design of structures, technical systems and infrastructures for the agro-forestry area, and the analysis, planning and design of the territory and the rural landscape. Strategic objectives are: innovation and quantitative and qualitative optimization of the efficiency of agricultural and forestry production processes, reduction of environmental and landscape impacts, protection and enhancement of rural environment structural and infrastructural systems related to rural buildings and to the agro-forestry territory. Studies and research, conducted also with interdisciplinary characteristics, incorporate the requirements of competitiveness, sustainability and improvement of the quality of the agricultural sector and the related dynamics, as well as the needs of the community, in line with national and international policies. Design, planning, analysis, modelling and monitoring methods are applied in particular: to buildings for agriculture, animal husbandry, protected crops, forest activities, rural housing, conservation, processing and processing of agricultural products, livestock and forestry, aquaculture, management and treatment of agricultural, zoo-technical and agro-industrial effluents; to the relationship between biosystems and buildings; to land, environmental and agro-forestry landscape resources; to the rural building heritage; to the infrastructure for the green, the territory and the use of the rural landscape.

Topics of interest

The specific areas of study are: planning of structures and infrastructures for agriculture, animal husbandry and agro-industry; design, functional, technical-construction, plant engineering, energy, environmental, safety, biomaterial aspects, related to rural buildings; savings, energy efficiency and use of renewable energy sources in buildings and technical installations for agriculture; analysis of the environmental performance of buildings and plants for agriculture, recycling and reuse of construction materials; environmental impact of livestock farms, management systems for agricultural and livestock waste; modelling of environmental parameters in farm buildings, in livestock farms and in protected facilities; rural building design with landscape compatibility criteria; study and recovery of historic rural buildings; survey, representation, analysis and modelling of the natural and anthropic resources of the rural area, also with precision techniques; analysis of the built and infrastructural system of the near-urban and rural territory, on the building, settlement and large area scale, with inferential techniques and high efficiency systems; definition of criteria, methods and tools for urban planning, territorial and landscape planning in suburban areas; analysis of the landscape impact of structures and infrastructures in the extra-urban territory; planning of green areas in urban and extra-urban areas; environmental assessment of plans and interventions in the territory; recovery and redevelopment of the agro-forestry area and degraded areas, also with naturalistic engineering techniques. Members of the 2nd AIIA Section are mainly active in Working Groups attributable to the sector of interest SE (Structures & Environment) of the European Society of Agricultural Engineers (EurAgEng) as well as in section II (Farm Buildings, Equipment, Structures and Environment) of the International Commission of Agricultural and Biosystem Engineering (CIGR).