International day for the Mediterranean sea

The International Day of the Mediterranean Sea is celebrated on 8 July, an opportunity to raise awareness of the dangers that threaten the Mediterranean Sea.
According to ISPRA, over 240 alien species have been identified in this, 68% of which are now stable along our coasts. More than 70% of marine litter is deposited on the Italian seabed, of which 77% is plastic. On the beaches, with an average of 400 waste every 100 meters, the situation is no better. In the Mediterranean, more than 63% of sea turtles have ingested plastic. But the actions for sustainability are bearing fruit: fish stocks, while remaining overfished, in 6 years go from 85% to 75%.

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Environmental statistics for cohesion policies 2014-2020

Since May 2018 ISPRA has been a beneficiary of the project aimed at expanding the set of territorial indicators today released by public statistics on the environment, satisfying on the one hand the new international information requests (for example SDG indicators )and at the same time aligning the availability of data and indicators to the information needs of policy makers.

Analysis of the environmental impacts of the 2020 lockdown at the mouths of the Po, Brenta-Adige, Metauro, Tiber rivers

ISPRA published the report "Analysis of the environmental impacts of the 2020 lockdown at the mouths of the Po, Brenta-Adige, Metauro, Tevere rivers" which reports the results obtained in the whole of the study Lockdown 2020, to evaluate the effect in marine waters coastal areas of the closure for the covid and the subsequent reopening of most of the production activities.
The Coast Guard and the environemtan agencies of Veneto, Marche and Lazio collaborated in this study.

Water and Climate change

Institutions, businesses and civil society for the water protectionand the right to water access
On 17 June, on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification, the conference “Water and Climate Change. Institutions, businesses and civil society for the protection of water resources and the right to water" during it will be presented  the official translation into Italian of the United Nations World Report on the development of water resources 2020.

New video of the LIFE Lagoon Refresh project

The involvement of the stakeholders in the LIFE Lagoon Refresh project

Regional Meeting Italy Switzerland EcoAlpsWater project

The Italy-Switzerland Regional Meeting of the EcoAlpsWater project will be held on 19 May. The results of the biomonitoring of lakes and rivers obtained through the application of high throughput sequencing (HTS) methods in the Alpine Space and the experimentation activities carried out in the Extra-Alpine area will be presented.

Kick-off meeting of the programme of the co-creation project Water Health Open knoWledge – WHOW

Event Partner EU Green Week  (3 may  2021 – 13 june2021)

As part of the European Connecting Europe Facility Program (CEF), ISPRA is participating in the Water Health Open knoWledge (WHOW) project, launched in September 2020. The  project aimed to develop  the first European knowledge graph on water consumption and quality. surface, underground and marine, with data from various national and European sources.

RAMOGE international oceanographic campaign. The volume of presentation of the results published on the website of the International Agreement

The RAMOGE international oceanographic campaign, coordinated on the Italian side by ISPRA and conducted in the summer of 2018 with the French oceanographic vessel "L'Atalante" Ifremer and the ROV Victor 6000, a robot capable of descending to a depth of 6000 m , has allowed the study of canyons and submarine mountains in the Ligurian Sea and to acquire information never previously collected.

World Water Day 2021

On March 22 every year, water is celebrated, the element synonymous of life

The theme of World Water Day 2021 is to enhance water. The value of water is much more than its price: water has enormous and complex value for families, food, culture, health, education, the economy and the integrity of our natural environment. Sustainable Development Goal 6 is to ensure water and sanitation for all.

Earth Technology Expo: World Water Day

How much water we have, how we use it, how to protect it over time from climate change. All the technologies anti-pollution, anti-waste, and for the sustainable management 

The Nationwide Water Budget. Estimation of its components using the BIGBANG model

The workshop will illustrate the development of the nationwide GIS-based regular gridded water budget model named BIGBANG, italian acronym of “Bilancio Idrologico GIS BAsed a scala Nazionale su Griglia regolare”, and the estimates provided for the hydrological variables at monthly scale from 1951 to 2019, analyzing the issue of the budget hydrological assessment in the national, European and international context.

EU agricultural policy to protect water quality in Europe

Started the National Hydrological Water Budget Project

The National Hydrological Water Budget Project, which is coordinated by ISPRA and foreseen a total funding of 10.5 million Euros, aims at integrating the activities for the operational hydrological monitoring provided by the hydrographic offices of the Italian Regions and Autonomous Provinces (according to the Italian Prime Minister's Decree of 24 July 2002), at boosting river discharge measurements, and at implementing a uniform methodology for the management of hydrological data at national scale and for the use of these data in the hydrological water budget evaluation.

Signed the operative agreement 2021-2023 for the Marine Strategy second cycle

The Italian Ministry of the Environment, Land and Sea, together with ISPRA, signed last week an operative agreement for the period 2021-2023 related to the Marine Strategy with the regional agencies for environmental protection of Calabria (Arpacal), Emilia-Romagna (Arpae) and Liguria (Arpal).

ISPRA and the LIFE project Lagoon Refresh for the World Wetlands day

Every year on the 2 February is celebrated the World Wetlands day to increase the awareness on the important role that these areas have for the people and our Planet. The wetlands, such as the lagoon, are considered among the most productive environment for their high biological diversity. ISPRA, since 2017, together with the partner of the LIFE Lagoon Refresh project, is taking care on an area of the Venice lagoon, with specific actions to restore the saline gradient, lost following the diversion of rivers, in order to increase the conservation status of lagoon habitats and the biodiversity of fish, birds, moving bottom animals and plants.

Video presentation of the project   

LIFE Lagoon Refresh project- Video of the Hydraulic and Morphological works

The water and the challenge of circular economy

An Italian strategy for the management of sewage sludge
The webinar will present the study on the sustainable management of sewage sludge carried out in cooperation with associations and the main operators in the sector.
The report examines the evolution of the water cycle in Italy from the perspective of the circular economy, considering the regulatory and technological framework, economics, key aspects and critical issues in the management of sewage sludge. It therefore formulates specific policy proposals aimed at designing an overall economically and environmentally sustainable sludge management strategy.

Published the Report "The experimental assessment of the effectiveness of the measures provided for by the National Action Plan for the sustainable use of plant protection products (NAP)"

The report highlights the results of an experimental assessment of the effectiveness of the measures provided for by the National Action Plan for the sustainable use of plant protection products (NAP - defined according to EU Directive2009/128/CE) aimed at protecting biodiversity.
The project, funded by the MATTM and coordinated by ISPRA, was carried out between 2015 and 2020 in collaboration with ARPA Piemonte, ARPA Lazio, University of Turin, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. This research was implemented by analyzing differences between conventional and organic crops in rice fields and vineyards (in Piedmont), arable land and hazelnut groves (in Lazio), starting from the assumption that organic method is more compatible with the conservation of biodiversity, as indicated in Measure 13 of the NAP Guidelines (referred to in Ministerial Decree 10/3/2015)

European rivers are fragmented by more than one million barriers

ISPRA has participated in a study on barriers on European rivers published in the magazine Nature
Europe's rivers are fragmented due to more than a million barriers (e.g. dams), according to an overall assessment published in Nature this week. The study includes the monitoring of more than 2,700 km of waterways, from which it can be assumed that the number of reefs in Europe is underestimated by 61%.

Presentation Report Stop Pesticides 2020

On 17 December Legambiente will presents the Report 2020 on the presence of pesticides in food and provide agricultural good practices.

Interreg Alpine SpaceEco-AlpsWater Workshop

The workshop on EcoAlpsWater will be held on line the next 9 and 10 December 2020, opened to all colleagues interested in research topics on environmental DNA and metagenomics techniques.

The event  will consist of several seminars in English that will cope with the description and logic of the activities in progress in the project, results and perspectives. Overall, it will be a knowledge transfer event, in line with one of the main objectives of the project itself.

Published the new report on the Europe's seas by European Environment Agency

“Marine messages II: Navigating the course towards clean, healthy and productive seas through implementation of an ecosystem‑based approach”

The model of ecological beach

The official presentation of the Guidee "The Ecological Beach: sustainable management of the Posidonia banquette along the Lazio shorelines" is planned for next 10 June at 3 pm in videoconference with the Ministry of the Environment, Lazio Region, National Park of Circeo, Metropolitan City of Rome/Natural Monument palude Torre Flavia, municipalities of Cerveteri and San Felice Circeo

8 June - World Oceans Day

Ispra, in charge of Center INFO/RAC  of the UNEP/MAP (Mediterranean Action Plan) to support Barcelona convention for Mediterranean for the Protection of the Marine Environment, today 8 June, on the occasion of UN World Oceans Day launches a digital communication campaign with a web page and dedicated initiatives. 

Venice, 2019: the ”Acqua Alta” year. A focus on November events.

The year 2019 will be remembered for the extraordinary frequency of floodings and the extremely hight sea level recorded in the city of Venice. What happened? The exceptional event of November 12, 2019 was due to the combined effect of many meteorological components: the high astronomical syzygy tide, the unusual high mean sea level of the Mediterranean Sea in November, reflecting an anomalous general atmospheric depression over the basin, a deep small-scale atmospheric pressure minimum developed over the Adriatic, moving rapidly northward and passing over the Venice lagoon and causing local winds of about 100 m/s

Presentation of the SOER 2020, Environmental Data Yearbook and System Reports

The next 3 June, in video streaming with the Italian PM Giuseppe Conte, and David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament, will be presented the three reports dedicated to the environmental situation in Europe and in Italy: the SOER 2020 (State of the Environment Report), the Environmental Data Yearbook 2019 which shows the state of the environment in Italy and the System Report which presents regional experiences.

Watch streaming live:

ISPRA TV (double channel in English and Italian) 

Facebook page Ispra (speaker' native language)

 Youtube Ispra (only in italian)

COVID-19: integrated water cycle safety and research prospects

Workshop: "Evaluation of physical effects related to sediment handling in marine-coastal areas: tools and methodologies of approach"

Informative day for the Project EMODNET - Geology

The project EMODNET - Geology is at the end of its second phase. EMODnet (European Marine Observation and Data Network) - Lot Geology is a project funded by EU Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (D.G. MARE) with the aim to gather and make available geological data from European seas.  Digital maps of geological data are available on the EMODnet Geology Project Portal. They are harmonized at European level and organized into different themes which describe the geological characteristics of European seabed (sediments distribution, seafloor geology, coastal behaviour, geological events, marine minerals, submerged landscapes). The Geological Survey of Italy - ISPRA is the Italian Partner of the Project and coordinates the Work Package " Geological events and probabilities”, which  includes  volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, fluid emissions and Quaternary tectonics.

EMODnet Geology Infoday aims to inform the Italian geologists community on the results achieved by the Project as well as on the harmonization and availability of marine geology data and potential future developments.