From Niscemi to the national landslide framework: ISPRA’s contribution through data and maps
With a front extending for 4 kilometers and ground subsidence of several tens of meters along the crown, the sliding landslide that struck Niscemi in Sicily on January 25 is affecting the built-up area near the Sante Croci district and the provincial road SP10. The town of Niscemi is located on a plateau bounded, close to and along the edge of the urban area, by an escarpment. The outcropping materials consist of sands with sandstone layers, resting on clays.
The Sante Croci area had already been affected on October 12, 1997 by a large-scale landslide. The municipality of Niscemi has historically been impacted by landslide phenomena, as reported in the Italian Landslide Inventory (IFFI), which currently includes more than 684,000 landslides across the national territory. Geologists from the Sicilian Region – Hydrographic District Basin Authority of Sicily – are conducting field surveys to map the Niscemi landslide, in order to update the IFFI Inventory and the Hydrogeological Asset Plan (PAI).
ISPRA, in collaboration with the Regions and the Autonomous Provinces, carries out daily surveys of major landslide events and the damage they cause to buildings, cultural heritage, primary transport and communication infrastructure, and the economic and productive fabric, and publishes this information on the national IdroGEO platform.
IdroGEO is an easy-to-use tool, accessible even via smartphone, developed by the Institute with the aim of encouraging community involvement and raising awareness of the risks affecting local areas. Through the “Hazard Check” feature, users can search for an address or geolocate themselves on the map to identify the level of landslide and flood hazard within a 500-meter radius of a point of interest (home, business, or productive activity).
As part of its institutional mandate to collect, process, and disseminate data and maps on hydrogeological instability across the entire national territory, ISPRA publishes every three years the Report on Hydrogeological Instability in Italy, which represents the official reference framework on hydrogeological hazard and risk in the country. As highlighted by the latest report, presented last July, 94.5% of Italian municipalities are exposed to the risk of landslides, floods, avalanches, and/or coastal erosion; 19.2% of the national territory is classified as having higher landslide and flood hazard; 1.28 million people live in areas of high and very high landslide hazard; and 6.8 million people are exposed to flood risk under the medium hydraulic hazard scenario, with return periods between 100 and 200 years.
All data are made available to the country for the purposes of risk prevention and mitigation.
Within the framework of technological innovation, the Institute promotes the testing of innovative technologies for landslide monitoring, such as photo-monitoring based on the use of photographic sensors capable of documenting changes in the territory over time, as well as the use of Artificial Intelligence for the collection, analysis, and archiving of landslide-related information, and to improve the accessibility and usability of information for citizens on the IdroGEO platform through the implementation of a virtual assistant that interacts with users, providing information and answering questions on hydrogeological instability.
Hydrogeological instability in Italy: hazards and risk indicators. Edition 2024
