Dr. Massimo Melillo (m) is researcher within the Institute of Geosciences (formerly Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR), in Perugia, Italy. He graduated in Geology in 2003 and achieved a Ph.D. in Hydrogeology  Science and Technology for Physics and Geology in 2009. From Sep 2012 to now, he was a research fellow at CNR GEO, Perugia and is involved in several international, national, and regional projects and agreements aimed at defining landslide triggering rainfall thresholds, to be implemented in landslide early warning systems. He is a developer in R open-source software.

Massimo Melillo research topics include: (i) definition and validation of empirical rainfall thresholds for the possible initiation of landslides, (ii) objective and reproducible reconstruction of rainfall events, and of rainfall conditions responsible for landslide occurrence, (iii) development and maintenance of national and regional Early Warning Systems for the forecasting of rainfall induced landslides (iv) analysis of historical series, v); development and maintenance of input data for Machine Learning and Neural Network; vi) Development and maintenance of procedures for satellite data ingestion.

He has authored 70 publications, including more than 30 peer-reviewed articles. His works have 2700+ citations in ISI-WoS database, 2700+ in Scopus, 3900+ in Google Scholar. Currently his H-index is 24 in Scopus, 26 in Google Scholar. He is the author of works published in prestigious international journals such as Nature Communications, Earth-Science Reviews, Science of the Total Environment, and Geomorphology.

Melillo works on the following projects:

1. DTE Digital Twin Earth (DTE) Hydrology Next; (01/11/2024-now)
2. PROFIT project( Principal Investigator) Previsione pRObabilistica dell’occorrenza di Frane indotte dalle piogge in ITalia ; (17/06/2024-30/09/2025)
3. PRIN-ITALERT  project: Prediction of Rainfall-INduced landslides – Improving multi-scale TerritoriAL Early warning through aRTificial intelligence; (01/02/2026)
4. “Sperimentazione, validazione e sviluppo del sistema di allertamento regionale per la previsione di frane pluvio-indotte in Liguria (SARF Liguria)” (Customization of an Early Warning System for Regione Liguria; 23/03/2018-now);
5. “Accordo di Collaborazione fra il Dipartimento della Protezione Civile ed il CNR IRPI” (Collaboration Agreement between Civil Department and CNR IRPI after seismic activity in Central Italy; 24/08/2016-now;

A. Professional Experience

• (2017 – present) CNR Research Scientist, at CNR IRPI, Perugia, Italy
• (2012 – 2017) CNR Research Assistant, at CNR IRPI, Perugia, Italy
• (before 2012) Research Assistant, University of Perugia, Department of Physics and Geology – Section of Applied Geology and Hydrogeology, Perugia, Italy

B. Education

• PhD in Hydrogeology at the University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy ((2009). Thesis title: “Modellizzazione del Lago Trasimeno”.
• Master degree in Geology at the University of Perugia (2003). Thesis title: “Una nuova procedura ‘semi esperta’ di elaborazione e gestione di dati per la caratterizzazione delle rocce sciolte con validazione tramite applicazione a casi reali”

C. TRAINING

• HarvardX’in s Data Science: Professional Certificate. Specialization course of R development, Visualization, Statistics, Probability, Inference and Modeling, Productivity Tools, Wrangling, Linear Regression, Machine Learning, Capstone (2019).

D. Representative Publications

Massimo Melillo has authorship on peer-review publications, including publications in Nature_Communications, Earth Surface Processes & Landforms, Geomorphology, Icarus, Landslides, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, with more of 500 citations (Google Scholar, H-index = 12) to his publications.

1. Muhammad T. R., Basharat M., Brunetti M. T., Melillo M., Rehman A., Peng M. (2026), “Landslide hazard prediction in data-scarce mountainous region using satellite-based frequentist rainfall thresholds”, Engineering Geology, org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2026.108949
2. Esposito G., Melillo M., Davide Notti D., Brunetti M.T., Peruccacci S., Pisano L., Brocca L., Maria Cavalli R.M. (2025) “Response of the Sentinel-1 radar backscattering to an extreme wildfire event: surface soil moisture and vegetation cover implications”, Science of Remote Sensing, doi.org/10.1016/j.srs.2025.100339
3. Mondini A.C, Guzzetti F, Melillo M, Pievatolo A. (2025), “Short to long term space-time prediction of rain-induced landslidesunder uncertainty”, Science of the Total Environment, doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179453
4. Brunetti M. T., Gariano S. L., Melillo M., (2025) Brunetti, M.T., Gariano, S.L., Melillo, M., Rossi, M., Perucacci S. (2025) “An enhanced rainfall-induced landslide catalogue in Italy.”, Scientific Data 12, 216, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04551-6
5. Peruccacci S., Gariano S. L., Melillo M., Solimano M., Guzzetti, Brunetti M. T., (2023) “The ITAlian rainfall-induced LandsIides CAtalogue, an extensive and accurate spatio-temporal catalogue of rainfall-induced landslides in Italy”, Earth System Sciences Data, 15, 2863–2877, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-2863-2023
6. Guzzetti F, Melillo M, Mondini A.C., (2024), “Landslide predictions through combined rainfall threshold models”, Landslides, DOI 10.1007/s10346-024-02340-7
7. Guzzetti F, Melillo M, Calvello M., Pecoraro G. Mondini A.C., (2024), “Independent demonstration of a deep‑learning system for rainfall‑induced landslide forecasting”, Landslides, DOI 10.1007/s10346-024-02294-w
8. Mondini A.C., Guzzetti F., Melillo M., (2023), “Deep learning forecast of rainfall-induced shallow landslides”, Nature Communications, doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38135-y
9. Al-Thuwaynee O.F.; Melillo M.; Gariano S.L.; Park H.J.; Kim S.-W.; Lombardo L.; Hader P.; Mohajane M.; Quevedo R.P.; Catani F.; Aydda A.,(2023),” DEWS: A QGIS tool pack for the automatic selection of reference rain gauges for landslide-triggering rainfall thresholds”; Environmental modelling & software, 10.1016/j.envsoft.2023.105657
10. Gariano S.L., Melillo M., Brunetti M.T., Kumar S., Mathiyalagan R., Peruccacci S. (2023) “Challenges in Defining Frequentist Rainfall Thresholds to Be Implemented in a Landslide Early Warning System in India”, Landslide Research and Technology, Volume 1 Issue 1, 2022, doi. 10.1007/978-3-031-16898-7_27
11. Brunetti M.T., Melillo M.,Gariano S.L., Ciabatta L., Brocca L., Amarnath G., Peruccacci S. (2021) “Regional Approaches in Forecasting Rainfall-Induced Landslides”, Monitoring and Early Warning, doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-60311-3_29
12. Jordanova G., Gariano S. L., Melillo M., Peruccacci S., Brunetti M. T., Aufli M. J. (2020) “Determination of Empirical Rainfall Thresholds for Shallow Landslides in Slovenia Using an Automatic Tool”, Water; Editore: Molecular Diversity Preservation International – Base; ISSN: 2073-4441, https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/5/1449
13. Melillo M., Gariano S. L., Peruccacci S., Sarro R, Mateos, R. M. Brunetti M. T. (2020). “Rainfall and rockfalls in the Canary Islands: assessing a seasonal link”, NHESS, https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2020-111 (under review)
14. Jia G., Tang Q., Gariano S. L., Melillo M. (2020) “Broadening and deepening the rainfall-induced landslide detection:practices and perspectives at a global scale” accepted as a chapter in the book entitled “Climate Risk and Sustainable Water Management” to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2020.
15. Brunetti M.T., Melillo M., Gariano S. L., Ciabatta L., Brocca L., Peruccacci S. (2020) “Regional approaches in forecasting rainfall-induced landslides“, accepted for publication in World Landslide Forum, WLFO-D-20-00109
16. Guzzetti F., Gariano S.L., Peruccacci S., Brunetti T., Marchesini I., Rossi M., Melillo M. (2020). “Geographical landslide early warning systems in Earth-science reviews”, Earth-science reviews, ISSN: 0012-8252, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2019.102973
17. Gariano S.L., Melillo M. Peruccacci S., Brunetti T (2020). “How much does the rainfall temporal resolution affect rainfall thresholds for landslide triggering?”, Natural hazards (Dordr., Online), ISSN: 1573-0840, 10.1007/s11069-019-03830-x, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-019-03830-x
18. Gariano S.L., Sarkar R., Dikshit A., Dorji K., Brunetti M.T., Peruccacci S., Melillo M. (2018), “Automatic calculation of rainfall thresholds for landslide occurrence in Chukha Dzongkhag, Bhutan”, Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment, doi: 10.1007/s10064-018-1415-2
19. Melillo M., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S, Gariano S. L., Roccati A., Guzzetti F. (2018), ”A tool for the automatic calculation of rainfall thresholds for landslide occurrence” Environmental Modelling & Software , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2018.03.024
20. Brunetti M.T., Melillo M., Peruccacci S., Ciabatta L., Brocca L. (2018), “How far are we from the use of satellite rainfall products in landslide forecasting?” Remote Sensing of Environment https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2018.03.016
21. Alvioli m., Melillo M., Guzzetti F., Rossi M., Palazzi E., Von Hardenberg J., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S. (2018), “Implications of climate change on landslide hazard in Central Italy” Science of the Total Environment., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.02.315
22. Palladino M.R. M., Viero A., Turconi L., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S., Melillo M., Luino F., Deganutti A.M., Guzzetti F. (2017), “Rainfall thresholds for the activation of shallow landslides in the Italian Alps: the role of environmental conditioning factors”. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.11.009
23. Peruccacci S., Brunetti M. T., Gariano S. L., Melillo M., Rossi M., Guzzetti F. (2017), ”Rainfall thresholds for possible landslide occurrence in Italy”. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2017.03.031
24. Martinotti M. E., L. Pisano, Marchesini I., Rossi M., Peruccacci S., Brunetti M. T., Melillo M., Amoruso G., Loiacono P., Vennari C., Vessia G., Trabace M., Parise M., and Guzzetti F. (2017), ”Landslides, floods and sinkholes in a karst environment: the 1–6 September 2014 Gargano event, southern Italy”. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci., doi: 10.5194/nhess-17-467-2017
25. Piciullo L, Gariano S. L., Melillo M., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S., Guzzetti F., Calvello M. (2016), ”Definition and performance of a threshold-based regional early warning model for rainfall-induced landslides”. Landslides, doi: 10.1007/s10346-016-0750-2, impact factor: 3.049
26. Melillo M., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S., Gariano S. L., Guzzetti F. (2016), ”Rainfall thresholds for the possible landslide occurrence in Sicily (southern Italy) based on the automatic reconstruction of rainfall events”. Landslides, doi: 10.1007/s10346-015-0630-1,
27. Gariano S.L., Brunetti M.T., Iovine G., Melillo M., Peruccacci S., Terranova O.G., Vennari C., Guzzetti F. (2015), “Calibration and validation of rainfall thresholds for shallow landslide forecating in Sicily, Southern Italy”, Geomorphology, doi:10.1007/s11069-014-1129-0,
28. Melillo M., Brunetti M. T., Peruccacci S., Gariano S. L., Guzzetti F. (2015), “An algorithm for the objective reconstruction of rainfall events responsible for landslides”. Landslides, doi: 10.1007/s10346-014-0471-3