title: Urban green spaces activities: A preparatory groundwork for a safety management system.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Urban green spaces works and maintenance are high-risk activities and usually represent possible sources of injuries. The management issues are complex and strongly influenced by companies' policies in terms of safety management and human factor. A high number of tasks-including protecting public health and safety and safe working procedures-need to be faced by professional arborists or gardeners.
  
  
  METHODS
  The present paper provides a preparatory groundwork for modeling and describing the real risk levels during the abovementioned activities. The methodology represents a useful tool for decision making both for group leaders and safety coordinators. This goal is reached by collecting data emerging from several workplaces located in North East Italy regarding the frequency and severity of injuries.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The preliminary results point out that the most frequent injuries in green maintenance activities are represented by cuts, contusions, and ocular lesions, but none of them have lead to particularly serious consequences for the operators; indeed, the high levels of severity are related to traumas, fractures, and acute lumbar herniated discs. The riskiest activities are related to pruning, especially using mobile elevating work platforms, and grass cutting, especially when operated in escarpments and banks. Workers' behavior and companies' safety policies are key elements for a correct safety management system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TESAF), University of Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020 Legnaro, Italy.
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bortolini
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, University of Udine, Via delle Scienze, 208, 33100 Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Sirio R S
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Cividino
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Sciences, University of Udine, Via delle Scienze, 208, 33100 Udine, Italy.
authors.forename: Rino
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gubiani
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy.
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cecchini
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy.
authors.forename: Lavinia M P
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Delfanti
authors.affiliation: Department of Agriculture, Forest, Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Via S. Camillo de Lellis snc, 01100 Viterbo, Italy. Electronic address: colantoni@unitus.it.
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Colantoni
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002947:Cities; D000067565:Farmers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D016272:Occupational Health; D017751:Safety Management; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D017132:Workplace; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000453:epidemiology*
keywords: Accident frequency; Maintenance; Severity of injuries; Urban greening