Geomorphological analysis of urban landscape: a case from Hospital Complex and University Campus in San Martino district, Genoa city (Italy)

Urban geomorphology is a branch of applied and environmental geomorphology that deals with the comprehension of urban landscape landforms, whether they are natural modified or anthropogenic landforms related to the sequence of different urban phases. In the Mediterranean area, the main anthropogenic modifications in the urban environment occurred mainly with the second industrial revolution, in the second half of the 19th century, continued in the first half of the 20th century and restarted significantly with the economic boom of the 1950s. This process has also been observed in the city of Genoa, one of Italy's main metropolitan areas and historically a strategic Mediterranean port. The research presents the transformations of the part of the urban area on which the city's main hospital and an important university campus are located, in the San Martino district: this is an area of approximately 30 ha placed in the Medio-Levante municipality that extends over the Noce stream catchment. The anthropogenic impact appears here with great intensity at the beginning of the 20th century: in order to obtain a flat area for the construction of the hospital pavilions and university buildings and the related infrastructure, large excavations and significant embankments are carried out, as well as the culvert of the Noce Stream riverbed. In the years 1941-1942, due to the Second World War, an extensive network of tunnels was dug, used both as a shelter for people and as an emergency hospital. The area transformations reconstructed over the last 100 years represent anthropogenic constraints on natural hazards, also in the light of climate change: in recent times there have been processes such as sink-hole phenomena, flooding and hydraulic stresses related to the culvert of the Noce stream.