Riccardo Buccolieri is Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Salento. His research, both experimental and modelling, is in the field of micrometeorology and atmospheric circulation at local scale. Specifically, the research deals with the study of flow and pollutant dispersion in the urban environment and to the effects of wind direction, morphology and trees on city ventilation. Since the AY 2015/2015 he has taught “Urban Meteorology and Atmospheric Circulation at Local Scale” for the Environmental Sciences Master’s degree at the University of Salento.
He collaborates with several international institutes such as, among others, the University of Lyon (France), the Sun Yat-Sen University (China) and the University of Leicester (UK). Since 2008 I have been visiting scientist at the University of Gävle (Sweden) carrying out research on pollutant dispersion in urban environments. His research is focussed on wind tunnel experiments and modelling simulations of the effects of city morphology on the drag force with the aim of developing parametrizations of urban effects in mesoscale dispersion models.
He is co-founder, principal consultant and vice-president of the Spin-Off of the University of Salento RESEAUX S.r.l. (www.reseaux.it). He is reviewer and member of Editorial Boards of several international scientific journals and author of scientific articles, proceedings and book chapters.
He received the degree cum laude in Environmental Science from University of Salento (Lecce, Italy) in April 2005, with a thesis on Flow and pollutant dispersion in urban environment with application to Lecce city, and the Ph.D. in Environmental Geophysics from University of Messina, Italy (Consortium of Universities of Messina, Lecce and Palermo) in March 2009, with a thesis on Computational Fluid Dynamics and integral models applied to pollution dispersion in urban areas. During his PhD part of the research was carried out within the EU project COST Action 732 (Quality Assurance and Improvement of Micro-Scale Meteorological Models) where he contributed to the development of best practice guidelines of CFD modelling simulations of flow and the pollutant dispersion in urban environments. He has then worked as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Salento for eight years.
He took part in several national and international projects, such as, among others, the European Union project RESCUE – (Reform of Education in Sustainability & Climate in Urban Environments); the SLAir project (Safe Landfill Air - Assessment of impacts on air quality and abatement systems in a landfill); the European Territorial Cooperation Programme Greece-Italy CESAPO (Contribution of Emission Sources on the Air quality of the Port-cities in Greece and Italy); the SIMPA project (Sistema Intergrato per il Monitoraggio del Particolato Atmosferico).