In the World
The coloured circles represent the total number of activities (project, products and services, outreach, collaborations) that we have in the corresponding geographical zone
Map data: © OpenStreetMap contributors
Sentinel-3 Topography mission Assessment through Reference Techniques
The Copernicus Sentinel-3 Surface Topography Mission (STM) provides extremely valuable surface elevation information over inland waters, sea ice and land ice, thanks to its SAR altimeter which retrieves high-resolution along-track elevation measurements, and to its orbit that covers high-latitude polar regions.
To ensure that these measurements can be used with confidence, and to maximize the return on investment of the Copernicus Sentinel-3 ... I-CHANGE project
The documented effects of climate change and environmental degradation are a threat to human societies on European and global scales. Climate change may have an impact on water availability, may increase the threat of flooding and flash-floods, and will challenge coastal regions due to rising sea levels. All this will have impacts on the economy and society. The role of citizens and their skills become important both in limiting human impacts ... 
Earthquake-induced landslides
Landslides and earthquakes are important geological hazards in Italy, where mountains and hills dominate a landscape characterized by the presence of weak geological materials. The geological and morphological settings result in high susceptibility to landslides under seismic conditions. Italy is also one of the most active tectonic regions in Europe; and seismic shaking is known to have caused landslides in Italy.
Numerous historical ... Where we should not expect landslides?
Landslide susceptibility is the propensity of a territory to generate landslides.
Many methods are available to determine landslide susceptibility, whereas only a few attempts were made to outline areas not likely to generate landslides i.e., non-susceptible landslide areas. This is surprising, because for planning purposes it is just as important (if not more important) to know where landslides are not expected than to know where landslides ... How to define rainfall thresholds automatically
The empirical rainfall thresholds while representing a useful approach used to forecast landslide occurrence in wide areas, are affected by several uncertainties related to the rainfall and the landslide information accuracy, the reconstruction of the rainfall events responsible for the failure, and the method to calculate the thresholds. Definition of the rainfall conditions responsible for landslides is a crucial issue and may contribute to ... Detecting rainfall from the bottom up
SM2RAIN is an innovative system for the estimation of the rainfall, based on measurements of the soil water content. SM2RAIN considers the soil as a natural rain gauge, and by measuring temporal variations of the soil water content, it estimates the rainfall falling on the soil, adopting a “bottom up” approach. Technically, SM2RAIN relies on the inversion of the soil water balance equation that computes the repartition of rainfall in ... Automatic delineation of Slope Units
Quantitative geomorphological and environmental analysis requires the adoption of mapping units, well-defined spatial domains as basic mapping units which provide local boundaries to aggregate environmental and morphometric variables and to perform calculations. Grid cells, typically aligned with a digital elevation model, are the standard mapping unit choice. A wiser choice is represented by slope units, irregular terrain partitions delimited ... Rainfall estimate from space
We have developed a new satellite rainfall product in near real-time. The product, called H64, is based on the integration of rainfall estimates obtained through two satellite sources. The developed algorithm combines estimates obtained by applying the SM2RAIN algorithm to satellite soil moisture data and those provided by a state-of-the-art product already operating on the full-disk area of the Meteosat satellites (60° West - 60° East, 60° ... SaTellite based Runoff Evaluation And Mapping
Water is at the centre of economic and social development; it is vital to maintain health, grow food, manage the environment, and create jobs. As well over half of the world’s potable water supply is extracted from rivers, either directly or from reservoirs, understanding the variability of the stored water on and below landmasses, i.e., total runoff, is of primary importance. In situ observations or land surface/hydrological models are ... Monitoraggio fluviale da rilevamento satellitare
Although representing less than 1% of the total amount of water on Earth, the freshwater is essential for terrestrial life and human needs. Despite the existing in-situ gauging networks represent a tool for quantifying the instantaneous water volume in many river channels, we have surprisingly poor knowledge of the spatial and temporal dynamics of surface river discharge. Developing new procedures for river discharge estimation based on ... Preventive evaluation of land instability hazards
The urbanisation of seismically active areas, coupled with the ongoing change in climate patterns, require a shift in the approaches to land/infrastructure instability hazard assessment and risk reduction. This is particularly relevant in seismically active regions where the recurrent damage from landsliding, subsidence and ground deformations can be widespread. Geotechnical investigations and in situ monitoring of land prone to instability are ... Models of geo-hydrological processes
The area of interest specifically refers to the study of the following themes: extreme hydrological events and their interaction with slopes and watercourses; soil water erosion; debris flows; slope stability; triggering instability mechanisms; evolution of slope movements; monitoring systems for gravitational movements for the purpose of alerting for the mitigation of geo-hydrological risk. The activities proposed in the module are therefore ... A new independent GLOBAL rainfall product from ASCAT soil moisture observations through SM2RAIN
Accurate rainfall estimates are of paramount importance as rainfall plays a key-role in many fields as, to cite a few, natural hazard assessment (floods and landslides), drought management, weather forecasting, agriculture and diseases prevention. State-of-the-art rainfall products obtained by satellites are often the only way for measuring rainfall in remote areas of the ... Towards geohazards resilient infrastructure under changing climates
A trend of increasingly frequent intense rainfalls and changing rainfall patterns is causing a relevant number of landslides and floods affecting urban areas and engineering infrastructures such as roads, railways. Recently Transport networks across Europe experienced several failures the reasons of which are still poorly understood.. To improve the current situation, a step change in the way we design reliable and effective defence structures ... SMOS+RAINFALL II
Quantitative information about precipitation is one vital input to meteorologists, hydrologic scientists, water resources managers, and environmental legislators. The past SMOS+Rainfall project addressed the improvement on a global scale of the current state-of-the-art satellite rainfall products through satellite soil moisture observations derived from the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) by means of three different techniques. ... STSE Water Cycle Multi-mission Observation Strategy – Irrigation
Irrigation is one of the greatest human intervention in the hydrological cycle. The knowledge of the distribution, the extent of irrigated areas and the amount of water used by irrigation is needed for different purposes: 1) modelling irrigation water requirements at the global scale, 2) assessing irrigated food production, 3) quantifying the impact of irrigation on climate, river discharge and groundwater depletion. Notwithstanding its ... Large landslides: Monitoring, Modelling and Mitigation
The study of the dynamics of large landslide is a heuristic process based on the integration of multiple investigation techniques: geological and geomorphological analysis, monitoring systems (traditional and innovative) and numerical models. Risk mitigation may require major interventions that call for detailed studies on the specific ... India, Italy & UK join for study
Articolo uscito sul quotidiano "The Telegraph - India", del 20 gennaio 2017, riguardante la collaborazione di varie realtà di ricerca internazionali, tra cui l'IRPI CNR, al progetto ... Sino-Italian Joint Laboratory on Geological and Hydrological Hazards
Both China and Italy are characterized by large mountainous areas, where natural hazards (e.g., geological and hydrological hazards such as debris flows, landsides, flash floods) are widespread and seriously threatening local society. It is noted that, almost 67% and 76% of the territories are covered by mountains in China and Italy, respectively and the youngest chains in the Eurasia, namely the Alps and the Tibetan Plateau, are characterized ... Landslide Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment, Preparedness and Early Warning in South Asia Integrating Meteorology, Landscape and Society
In India, as in many other areas in Asia and in the world, landslides are abundant and frequent, and they represent a serious hazard to the local population. The aim of LANDSLIP is to develop tools, including operational systems, to contribute to reducing impacts of hydrologically related landslide multi-hazards and to building resilience to landslides in vulnerable and hazard-prone areas of ... 
SLOPES
This project is embedded within the framework of the three Ny-Ålesund flagships: ‘Kongsfjorden system’, ‘Glaciology’ and ‘Terrestrial system’. The study of slopes and landscape modifications under a changing climate, is needed to understand the dynamic interaction between the cryosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere, and how geosuccession and biosuccession (colonisation) processes develop over time. Records of landscape ... Korea-Italy Bilateral Symposium on Landslide Prediction and Warning Technologies
Some links, from Korean online newspapers, showing the details about the Italo-Korean Symposium held in Korea on 14 and 15 March 2016, where Fausto Guzzetti and Alessandro Mondini (IRPI CNR) participated.
Link to newspaper 1 »
Link to newspaper 2»
Link to newspaper ... Mappatura, Modellazione e Previsione Multiscala dei RIschi GEo-idroLogici
Italy has a tradition of scientific research and technological development on hazardous natural phenomena in general, and specifically on geo-hydrological hazards. Within the CNR, the “Progetti Finalizzati” Soil Conservation and Geodynamics (in the ’70s and ’80s), and GNDCI – the National Group for the Defence from Hydrogeological Disasters (in the ’80s and ’90s), have contributed to the advancement of knowledge ... 
STSE Water Cycle Multi-mission Observation Strategy for the Mediterranean
Monitoring the water cycle from satellite observations is one of the major goals of the EO community and closing the water budget has been a long-standing objective of international programs. After years of hard work, calibrating satellite data, improving inversion techniques, and facilitating the coherency of retrievals, it is admitted that the water cycle budget can now be ... SMOS+RAINFALL
Quantitative information about precipitation is one vital input to meteorologists, hydrologic scientists, water resources managers, and environmental legislators. Yet, accurate measurement of precipitation over the relevant space and time scales remains a challenge. Soil moisture can be seen as the trace of the precipitation and, consequently, can be useful for providing a way to estimate rainfall accumulation or at least a new constrain to ... 
37 YEARS OF SOIL MOISUTRE DERIVED RAINFALL: application of SM2RAIN to the CCI soil moisture product, algorithm improvement and product validation
Recently, IRPI-CNR has developed an innovative approach for estimating rainfall from satellite soil moisture data, named SM2RAIN. The ESA funded project “Climate Change Initiative - Soil Moisture“ (CCI-SM) offers a valuable opportunity for testing SM2RAIN algorithm to a continuous, homogenous, long-term (>30 years) soil moisture time series. Indeed, SM2RAIN has the chance to be tested not only for rainfall estimation but also as a ... Recommendations from the International SABO Symposium 2015 in Sendai, Japan
The International SABO Symposium 2015 in Sendai was held on 18 March 2015 as one of the Public Forums related to the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) with participation of approximately 280 persons of government officials, engineers and researchers in the field of SABO (sediment disaster risk reduction) from 16 countries and territories. Under the theme “Challenges to Reduce the Risk of Sediment Disasters Caused by ... Use of SMAP soil moisture products for operational flood forecasting: data assimilation and antecedent wetness conditions assessment
The project aims at using Soil Moisture Active and Passive (SMAP) soil moisture (SM) products at different spatial resolution (3, 9, and 36 km) for hydrological applications in Europe (mainly in ... Hydro-meteorological Monitoring
The hydro-meteorological monitoring is the operational tool for the measures of atmospheric, hydrologic ad hydraulic variables characterizing the hydrological cycle and it represents the grounds of IRPI’s research activities finalized to forecast, prevention and mitigation of natural hazards. Indeed, an accurate knowledge of processes at basis of natural phenomenon cannot disregard the direct measure of hydrological quantities, considering ... SM2RAIN dataset
The rainfall dataset provides rainfall estimates obtained through the application of an inversion algorithm to soil moisture data. The algorithm has been applied to ground and satellite data, obtained through various satellite ... ESA Climate Change Initiative Soil Moisture
The CCI Programme wants to contribute to the data bases collecting ECVs required by GCOS (Global Climate Observing System) and other international parties. In particular, the Soil Moisture CCI will analyse the needs of the climate research community in terms of soil moisture data, adapt soil moisture satellite measurements for their use by the climate research community and create a long-term consistent soil moisture time series, based on ...